Thursday, April 21, 2011

The Man Who Wasn't There

Let's see...what was there in the comic books today to send me off into a rant? It seemed a pretty harmless set. Maybe there was nothing...

Oh, yeah. Bendis and his "oral history" of the Avengers. We seen in a few past installments that Mr. Bendis has either taken a "casual" approach to getting his facts right in this history, or just plain completely retconned one the most significant events in Avengers history. Well, he's at it again:


Oh, the problems with this simple passage.

First, the Avengers faced Orka in Avengers #149, before determining the new roster (let alone announcing it) in Avengers #151, not afterward.

Yeah, I know, it would have been too difficult to spend 3 seconds actually looking that up. Or for an editor to, you know, edit the piece.

Secondly, Hawkeye was not with the Avengers when they faced Orka. He wasn't a member, he wasn't there, he wasn't even on the same side of the country.

In Avengers #147, Hawkeye leaves the Avengers to pall around with the Two-Gun Kid out west:

And in #149, where they face Orka, Hawkeye is plainly nowhere to be seen:

And, in #151, Thor explains why Hawkeye isn't there:

So, just for the sake of clarity, when Bendis has Hawkeye say, "I woke up one morning and spent my day helping to beat up a man dressed like a whale":

A) Hawkeye wasn't with the Avengers when they fought Orka...Hawkeye has never even met Orka!! So, no, he didn't wake up one morning and spend his day helping beat up a man dressed like a whale.

B) Hawkeye was not with the Avengers after their new roster.

So, what's the deal? Is Bendis foolish enough to write a "history" without actually looking up that history? He can't be bothered with basic facts like that?

Or, did he just need someone to make a wise-ass crack about Orka, and no one who was on the roster at that time would have made an appropriately wise-ass comment, so he just jiggered history so that Hawkeye was there? (Yes, the Beast was there, and he might have made such a remark...but for whatever reason, so far Bendis hasn't so much as even mentioned Hank McCoy in this history, let alone quoted him. Yeah, he spent a whole chapter talking about Patsy Walker's history--while not even mentioning the Beast's part in that--but so far not a single syllable for the blue-furred guy who actually WAS an Avenger. Go figure.)

Bendis has boasted of late that he's written more Avengers stories than anybody else. Maybe he should have spent some of that time actually reading Avengers stories before attempting his "history."
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8 comments:

  1. Nicholas YankovecApril 21, 2011 at 1:45 PM

    A quote from Bendis from an interview, conducted just before he bebegan writing the Avengers, contained in the back of the Avengers Disassembled TPB:

    "I take continuity very seriously, first as a respect to the characters, but also as a respect to the writers that came before me. I would never contradict what has come before."

    And yet time and again, as you've shown on here, he just ignores or rewrites it to suit. So was this interview full of bullsh*t or is he just incapable of handling continuity?

    Bah, you've got me all worked up again!

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  2. Harlock999April 21, 2011 at 2:34 PM

    My (many) problems with Bendis aside...

    Has he really written more Avengers issues than Roy Thomas?

    Hmmm.

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  3. The MuttApril 21, 2011 at 5:22 PM

    I haven't been reading this "history" at all, except what I've seen here, so I don't know what Bendis or Marvel are claiming this thing is, but it seems to me like he is re-writing the history. Was this meant to be like that strip that ran during Crisis on Infinite Earths?

    I mean, telling the story of Patsy Walker without mentioning Beast would take some effort, wouldn't it? You couldn't get the wedding of Hank and Jan that wrong without knowing what right is, right? It has to be on purpose, doesn't it?

    The 10/12 feet business is just stupid and lazy. I was reading Avengers back then, and they were always really specific about Pym's size, in that mighty Marvel manner. Stuff like, "grow to my 25 foot height" or "I'm stuck at 10 feet."

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  4. snellApril 21, 2011 at 5:50 PM

    Harlock--By my highly unofficial count, Bendis has 4 issues of Avengers Original (Disassembled), 64 issues of New Avengers, 20 issues of Mighty Avengers, 16 issues of Dark Avengers, 12 of the latest Avengers incarnation, 11 of the (New) New Avengers...throw in assorted annuals and 1 shots, and he's well over 130 issues.

    I have Roy at I have Roy at 70 during his 60s/70s run, 41 on Avengers West Coast, and about 12 Annuals/Specials/Avengers Spotlights...or 123.

    I'm sure I missed a thing or two somewhere, a i did this pretty quick and rough, but it seems that Bendis has indeed written more Avengers than Roy the Boy.

    For the record, I have Englehart st 91...

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  5. snellApril 21, 2011 at 5:52 PM

    Nicholas--I'd being willing to grant that he just has a faulty memory and doesn't bother to look things up...not that that excuses it, but...

    But the Yellowjacket/Wasp wedding? There's no way to rationalize that except as a deliberate retcon.

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  6. Harlock999April 22, 2011 at 3:11 PM

    Thanks for the numbers, Snell.

    Regardless, I'll take "quality" over "quantity" any day.

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  7. notinthefaceApril 22, 2011 at 4:34 PM

    Resisting...chaos...magic...rant....

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  8. algeyaApril 22, 2011 at 5:23 PM

    maybe he has written more issues but Im sure that he wrote less stories with his awful de-compressed style.
    where 1 story that could have been told in just one issue equals 5 bendis style comics

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