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Age of Ultron Minimates!


Jatta Pake

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The worst? I dont know. Ultimatum still exists... lol.

Bendis's work on Daredevil and Dark Avengers and (in my opinion at least) Uncanny and All New X-men keep him from being the worst.

You know, I've never read Ultimatum. But I do agree that Jeph Loeb is Bendis' main competition for worst ever, so....

My methodology for this statement is this: you have to rate these things on a sliding scale of popularity in relation to talent. I feel comfortable in saying that Limp Bizkit is the worst band ever, because their talent to popularity ratio is so out of whack. Bendis and Loeb are both in that same camp. They often produce dreadful work, but it sells really well so they get to keep making more dreadful work. I put Bendis ahead of Loeb because, of the two, he's had the greater long term impact. Loeb's work stinks equally, but it's usually self-contained. Bendis has been allowed to shape the entire Marvel Universe. That's like making Fred Durst a record executive. gah.gif

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I put Bendis ahead of Loeb because, of the two, he's had the greater long term impact. Loeb's work stinks equally, but it's usually self-contained. Bendis has been allowed to shape the entire Marvel Universe. That's like making Fred Durst a record executive. gah.gif

There was a time when Chuck Austen was writing A LOT of books for Marvel...

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He can't structure or write events to save his life (I'd say House of M and Seige are the only two that kind of work, a bit). He clearly struggles with team books, although his X-Men titles are a massive improvement on most of the Avengers stuff. He writes great solo titles (Alias, Daredevil, Moon Knight, Ultimate Spidey both OG and Miles). Age of Ultron was terrible. I gather Angela was thrown in at the end by editorial to woo Gaiman back to the company.

AND I was just about to mention Austen's X-Men run as the official worst superhero comics ever, but bigvis beat me to it! thumbsup.gif

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Gotta say I agree that Bendis kills solo books. Because until Death of Spider-Man I read every issue of Ultimate Spider-Man and I loved them. So much, each and every one. He never failed to give a great story even in the midst of something as godawful as Ultimatum. So props to Bendis for one of the best ongoing series I ever gave up on. And I can't say that I can speak to the quality of Morales or Bendis's writing going forward since I haven't read past Death of Spider-Man. I just thought Peter Parker dying was just the best place to end that book, so I let it go.

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I liked all of Bendis' Avengers stuff including "Disassembled". Maybe it's because I'm a big Kevin Smith & Quentin Tarantino fan that I find Bendis' dialogue mimics their styles. I also really enjoy "Powers", but I must agree that he is overrated. Marvel has much better writers at their disposal yet Bendis seems to receive most of the acclaim.

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1) I don't count Hush as a check in Loeb's win column. "Hi, Bruce Wayne's childhood bear friend we've never met before. NO chance you're the mysterious new villain, right?" That's to say nothing of the clown car of cameos.

2) I give Austen a pass for the way he handled Juggernaut's hero turn. It was, imho, the single most convincing character arc for any villain-turned-hero. I still hate that it was undone by Claremont seemingly on a whim.

3) Hellpop, I get what you're saying re: how bad a writer is vs how important they are. Still, I find I like most of Bendis's plots, I just don't like his pacing and how they come together. I'd argue that AoU is probably the ONLY Bendis story I truly dislike. House of M want bad, just derivative of the AoA. I think my least favorite Bendis arc came in New Avengers where four-and-a-half issues of a six issue arc were spent with the team having a ten minute long battle with no idea who was attacking them only to suddenly wrap everything up out of nowhere.

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Austen doing one halfway decent thing doesn't take away from the HUNDREDS of other things he did that were jaw-droppingly awful, for example anytime he gave a female character dialogue. And his villain rehabilitation arc pales in comparison to the stuff that Busiek and Nicieza were doing on Thunderbolts around the same time.

AFIAK, Claremont didn't change Juggernaut back into a villain, that was Mike Carey on X-Men Legacy

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Claremont was using Juggernaut in his Excalibur cast, but when he got sick, Frank Tieri took over and wrote the arc where Cyttorak was unhappy with Marko as a benevolent Juggernaut. In Carey's Legacy be became a villain again.

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I knew that, when I called Bendis the worst writer ever, that poor Chuck Austin's name would come up. In my mind, both Bendis and Loeb are worse, because they've had a much bigger effect on the industry. Austin's too unpopular to be the worst, following my logic (if you follow my logic).

Bendis' solo hero work is better then his "big" books, to be sure, but I'm still not a big fan. Alias got on my nerves after awhile; it's a great example of the freedoms of the 18+ label leading to lazy writing. Daredevil I think is probably his best book from start to finish. Ultimate Spider-Man, I only read the first book, but I didn't care for it. All those are clearly better then his team or event books, though.

I'm probably overreacting to Age of Ultron a bit; maybe in time it will fade and I'll be able to rate it properly. But I definitely don't think I've read a comic that was so poorly crafted, that dragged and dragged and dragged, and that had such a lame payoff. To really appreciate its' badness, compare it to that great Ultron arc in Kurt Busiek and George Perez' Avengers run. Now that was a comic!

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I actually have never been a big fan of Bendis until recently, I've read everything hes written (Marvel at least) but All New X-men and GOTG are the only books of his i've truly enjoyed, and GOTG still makes me mad :P

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I liked all of Bendis' Avengers stuff including "Disassembled". Maybe it's because I'm a big Kevin Smith & Quentin Tarantino fan that I find Bendis' dialogue mimics their styles. I also really enjoy "Powers", but I must agree that he is overrated. Marvel has much better writers at their disposal yet Bendis seems to receive most of the acclaim.

I second that. I have everything he has done since 2013 in graphic novel with a couple missing volumes and although theres an issue here and there I don't care for he does a good job. Reading back on some of the older stuff again by Claremont as much as I enjoy it some of it was pretty cheesy.

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