The Absent-Minded Reed Richards

Damn.

I mean, damn.

Every time I think Bendis can't get...OK, how do I want to phrase this? I don't want to say "stupider," because he's not a stupid man. He's written comic books I love (Powers) and comics a lot of other people speak very highly of that I've never read (Ultimate Spider-Man).

But when it comes to the Avengers mags and the Skrullapalooza stuff, he does some very stupid things.

OK, so Marvel won't give him Alias to write again, or a Luke Cage title, and therefore he's converted New Avengers into the All Cage/Jessica Jones Soap Opera Hour. Fine. He needed some justification to keep the mag going now that Purple Reign has reordered things, fine.

But Bendis is the worst goddamn plotter in the universe, because as long as he gets from point A to point B he's satisfied, regardless of whether or not that completely contradicts something he himself wrote 5 minutes ago.

What am I going on about? How about Reed Richards "Skrull detector?" As we saw in Skrullapalooza #5, Mr. Fantastic (in about 30 seconds) whooped together a device that would force Skrulls--even the new undetectable Skrulls--back into their green ugly form. In the Savage Land, it takes the fake "returned heroes"--who didn't even know they were Skrulls--and turns 'em back:




The very next issue, Reeds device works on a whole, vast battlefield, apparently covering all of Central Park and hundreds (thousand?) of Skrulls, "reverting them to their natural forms."

Well, that's a handy thing to have, and in the aftermath of the invasion, you'd think that Richards would whip up bunches of those to Homeland Security and the military...you'd think that for months you couldn't go anywhere without being subjected to a Skrull detector. If you accept the premises of Skrullapalooza and Purple Reign, there's no way that couldn't happen, right?!?

Ah, but you see, that's where Bendis had written himself into a corner. Because if you have a powerful and easy to use method of detecting Skrulls, than you don't need to spend gosh knows how many issues hunting down Skrull Jarvis, you don't have to have Cage sell out to Norman Osborn, you don't have any reason for this grouping of heroes.

So how does Bendis get around this?? We see in New Avengers #48. By cheating

Again, in close-up:

Well, that's a load of balderdash. We saw in the Bendis-written Skrullapalooza that Reed's device could detect and revert Skrulls who weren't shape-shifting. His device overcame their "undetectable by our standards and measurements" abilities!!!! That was the whole point!!! It worked on the Antarctica Skrulls, who WEREN'T shape shifting and were brainwashed to not know that they were even aliens! Has this wondrous device vanished?!? Does it no longer function the way it did? If it could bathe all of Central Park in its ultra-effectiveness, how long would it take to run it all over New York City?

So is Bendis unable to remember what he wrote a couple of months ago? (It wouldn't be the first time he's had Reed forgetting exactly what he already knew about the new Skrulls...) Does he not care that he's contradicting his own basic premise? Does he hold the audience in that much contempt that he thinks that we won't notice

Or is he just a lazy writer who doesn't care what he puts down on the page, as long as it gets him from point A to his desired point B?

Bendis, please please please--less Avengers, more Powers. OK??