>>150082611
During the 1990s there was a big comics bubble and crash. Comics as a great American past time were wiped out as more than 50% of shops closed. In the 00s a new wave of writers were pushed, bringing a bunch of ideas, pushing edgy or flinging shit at the walls to see what sticked. Many of these writers had hits, many of them were quite blockbuster sort of books. It feels like their careers started off well but over the years as their gimmicks became entrenched it created issues and they were blamed for problems.
When people recommend Bendis they will recommend books earlier in his career, Ultimate Spider-Man, Daredevil, Powers, Alias. As Bendis went on people began to dislike three major things:
>1. Decompression.
Whilst comics were moving towards decompression, Bendis comics really solidified this. Decompression is the act of "writing for the trades". Rather than writing books with the single issue experience in mind, writing for the trades is constant arcs. To be clear: plenty of comics existed before Bendis that were decompressed, but people feel like he represents it in the early 00s. Some at Marvel believe "writing for the trades" helped their post 90s bounce back.
>2. Bendis speak.
>“Bendis speak?” “Yes, Bendis speak.” “Do you know what I’m talking about?” “You mean Bendis speak, like in those comics, from that writer?” “Yeah, you know, like the writer. Brian Bendis.” “Brian Michael Bendis.” “What?” “The writer. I think he’s credited with three names. Pretentious middle name kinda guy.” “Oh.” “Yeah.”
>3. The Modern Marvel Event.
Bendis helmed some of the big modern Marvel events and really solidified their modern formula. Those events were polarising. One Marvel editor said: anger sells. Because people would complain non stop about Bendis books but they sold. Over time this changed.
I think people really began to turn on Bendis with his awful X-Men run or his awful Guardians of the Galaxy.
