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."