2010-05-19 - THE OLD ORDER CHANGETH BACK

So a few years back, when Brian Michael Bendis took over the AVENGERS franchise and started things off by blowing Avengers Mansion to hell and killing off Avengers like Agatha Christie playing a game of CLUE (including my two favorite Avengers, Ant-Man and Hawkeye), well, as you can imagine, this longtime Avengers fan was none too pleased.

When the book was replaced by "The New Avengers," with a team that looked for all the world like it had been put together by a marketing committee (with Marvel mainstays and then-movie stars Spider-Man, Wolverine and Daredevil seemingly foisted on to the team), I went from skeptical to downright derisive. And then a funny thing happened.

I read the book. And damned if it wasn't really good. It wasn't my Avengers, and sometimes it didn't feel like the Avengers at all, but it was really good. After years of being told that "Spider-Man is too much of a loner to join the Avengers," it turns out that Spidey was just what the Avengers needed, not only to serve as the "trickster" character, and to provide a steady stream of comic relief, but also to function as the voice of the audience, to comment on the more outlandish or unbelievable goings-on that occur so regularly with the Avengers. Even the perpetually overexposed Wolverine made for a good fit with the new team, adding a hint of homicidal unpredictability that the Avengers had never really featured. And besides, it was pretty damned funny seeing him constantly eating cereal in the kitchen of Stark Tower. (As for the early-on rumored Daredevil, he only appeared for the first story arc.)

And then a funnier thing happened -- through Marvel event after Marvel event, your CIVIL WARS and SECRET INVASIONS and DARK REIGNS, and all of a sudden the Avengers (be it your New, Mighty or Dark variety) were finally front and center again, the linchpins of the Marvel Universe, after decades of playing second fiddle to the X-Men and Spider-Man. And in time, the things I liked began to come back, like Hawkeye and Hank Pym and a Tony Stark I could relate to. And the things I didn't like actually turned out to work pretty well, like the inclusion of Luke Cage, Spider-Woman and Jessica Jones into the ranks of the Marvel's "big leaguers." Turns out when a writer puts his favorite characters in the spotlight, you start to realize why he likes them so much, and pretty soon they're your favorite characters too. One of my favorite Marvel comics of the last few years was the NEW AVENGERS issue in the middle of the CIVIL WAR craziness where Luke Cage takes a stand, refuses to register with the federal government, and refuses to run and hide. A simple story, well told.

Back when the Avengers were first dismantled to make way for the Bendis regime, when people asked if I was upset about it, my answer was usually "Not really. Comics are cyclical. Everything will come around again." And now, here we are, five years past, and what do you know? Things are about to come around again. And Bendis is still at the creative helm, only we're about to see if he's as comfortable with a brighter, more positive Avengers as he was with a fractured, flawed Avengers. This time around, I'm not prepared to bet against him.

Scott Tipton still won't be happy till Avengers Mansion is back. Got questions about comics? Send 'em here.

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