The Four Color Media Monitor

ComicBook wrote a list of 10 Marvel stories - 8 of which are modern - that they say haven't held up over the years, and it's most interesting they actually admit Brian Bendis' writings really are very poor, in example, along with others written by equally left-liberal writers. For example, one of Mark Millar's writings, though they're otherwise lenient:

“Old Man Logan” is considered a Wolverine classic, but it doesn’t really deserve that moniker. The story, by Mark Millar and Steve McNiven, took place in a future where the villains won, Wolverine killed the X-Men under the control of Mysterio, and has become a pacifist, living in the Hulk’s territory. He’s hired by Hawkeye for one last mission, the money meant to pay his debt to the Hulk Gang, with the two heroes going on a cross-country trip. “Old Man Logan” is a story with awesome art and world-building, but the story itself is kind of cliche. This is the movie Unforgiven starring Wolverine; it’s good, but it’s not this amazing work.

Most stories written by Millar really are that overrated, and maybe it's better they admit it late than never. Even so, chances are high that, if the story went to press today, they would sugarcoat it, and that's what makes this unfortunate. And while the premise may be mind control leading to Wolverine wiping out the X-Men, that doesn't make this tale any less horrific. Next is Spider-Verse, and here, possibly based on favoratism, they're being more lenient:

“Spider-Verse” has become something of a legendary story, mostly because of its place in building the titular Spider-Verse, leading to the excellent movies. However, it’s just not the amazing story that it gets credit for being. It’s basically just a team-up comic, and while it does a lot of cool things, it doesn’t really reinvent the wheel. There are definitely some cool chapters to the story, and the original Spider-Gwen stories are pretty great, but this is just a standard multiversal team-up story. Dan Slott is a great Spider-Man writer, but there are many better Slott Spider-Man stories to read (like Superior Spider-Man, “Big Time”, or “Spider-Island”).

Here, regrettably, they're more lenient than the previous example, and Slott's not the best of Spider-writers at all. Based on how he alienated plenty of Spider-fans with the way he lent his "talents" to demeaning Mary Jane Watson, that alone is reason enough to avoid his writings. And we could decidedly do without the whole Spider-Gwen premise, which does no favors for the history of Gwen Stacy either. Next is a modern X-Men premise:

The Krakoa Era was a fruitful time for X-Men fans, but that doesn’t mean that it was all perfect. The ending wasn’t nearly as beloved as the beginning, but the beginning wasn’t flawless either, which leads us to the first major Krakoa crossover, “X of Swords”. This story pit the mutants of Krakoa against the mutants of Arakko, with the demonic forces of Amenth waiting in the wings. This story is badly paced, with most of the first half being pretty boring, and the second half pulling the rug out from under fans who expected something different. Some fans loved it, but re-reading it reveals that a lot of what people loved about it came from the excitement of the early days of Krakoa and not the quality of the story.

People who read this stuff just based on how it's promoted and not based on merit has been a long running problem, much like people who punish fictional characters instead of criticizing the writers, artists and editors. Now, here's where Bendis books come into focus:

House of M is another major story from ’00s Marvel, seeing the X-Men and the Avengers team together to deal with Scarlet Witch’s madness, which led to the birth of a new world, and the “death” of most of a race. Written by Brian Michael Bendis with art by Olivier Coipel, the story is honestly one of the most boring event books ever. The pacing is terrible, there’s little to no action over its eight-issue run, and it was extremely damaging to the X-Men comics. House of M came about at the height of Bendis’s popularity and was one of the most beloved stories of its era. However, it’s always been a long, badly paced, boring comic.

So they belatedly admit this was one of the worst products of Bendis and his padded-out storytelling approach of the times. We can only hope one day, they'll admit his Daredevil run, which depicted Matt Murdock's secret ID being revealed, was one of the worst moments in modern Marvel history, and a leading example of how overrated the Knights imprint truly was during its run for nearly 8 years. Curious, however, they don't admit it was reprehensible Wanda Maximoff would be subject to the humiliation she underwent for as much as 8 years herself, all because at the time, Bendis didn't want to make positive use of her, and the rest of Marvel's contributors at the time clearly didn't either, and look where it led later, to her negative portrayal in Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Next:

Secret Invasion, by Brian Michael Bendis and Leinil Yu, is yet another example of why Bendis wasn’t a great event writer. The Skrulls’ secret invasion was built up over years of stories, and this eight-issue story was the culmination of that plot, and it failed in most ways (beyond the art, which is great). It has a lot of the same problems as House of M — bad pacing, little action, and storytelling more based on shocking moments than anything else. It feels like it spins its wheel for the first five issues, as the story needs to keep the Avengers out of things until then to make it work. At the very least, the ending is good and sets up the best part of Bendis’s time on the Avengers, but that doesn’t save this mediocre story.

Bendis wasn't a great stand-alone writer either, and the premise of Powers, if memory serves, wasn't any better than the visions of Garth Ennis' overrated comics. And let's be clear. If the majority of the story's that bad, then whatever the pace of the ending, it ruins whatever it's supposed to set up next, which is just more crossover stunts. Next:

Bendis’s New Avengers is generally overrated, and that started with the first story. “Breakout”, by Bendis and David Finch, brought together the New Avengers and it’s a perfect example of the bad things about Bendis’s time writing the Avengers. A breakout on the Raft brings together a group of heroes, who soon discover that there’s more going on than they knew, leading them to the Savage Land and a shocking conspiracy. The bad pacing and mediocre action storytelling of Bendis’ comics are there, and the story goes in so many directions. It also begins one of Bendis’s worst tendencies, where he ends the issue on an action cliffhanger and then starts after the fight readers looked forward to ended. “Breakout” has some good art, and a few cool moments, but it’s not actually a good Avengers story.

Even 2004's Disassembled was overrated and terrible, so why pretend that doesn't matter? If they really think the art is any good, then it's bad it had to be wasted on such pretentious, overrated storytelling, which only got as far as it did because of all the fluff-coating in the press at the time, along with a general failure to make clear to the audience that if they really wanted to make clear they don't approve of where Marvel and DC were going at the time, they had to vote with their wallets on practically everything and anything, and if a line-wide boycott is what's needed to send a message, so be it. Today, sales are worse than before, and certainly no different from the otherwise laughable numbers back then, and all audience members who're avoiding them are doing the right thing. But it's a shame more didn't think to do so at the time, as it could've helped tremendously, and Marvel/DC should've folded in the early 2000s, which could've minimized the damage we're seeing now. One more item listed, interestingly enough, is the very Knights imprint title that began the path to Marvel's modern downfall:

“Guardian Devil”, by Kevin Smith, Joe Quesada, and Jimmy Palmiotti, was a massive success back in the late ’90s, bringing loads of fans to Daredevil’s newest book, thanks to Smith getting to write a Marvel book, and launching the Marvel Knights line of comics. The story saw Daredevil being given a child that might be the Antichrist, and how he deals with that, leading to a surprising twist and a fight that changes his life forever. The art is cool, and there is some prime Smith dialogue, but the story itself is pretty unfulfilling, and it fridges Daredevil’s decades-long love interest Karen Page. “Guardian Devil” is a pretty good story, but it runs in so many different directions that it doesn’t ever really come together. There are a lot of better Daredevil stories to start with than this one.

Glad they at least agree the offing of Page was atrocious, and it took place just a few issues into the volume. But a shame this too is an otherwise lenient viewpoint, because the 3 "creators" who helmed this insult to Stan Lee's creation only brought down comicdom to dismal levels in their time. Smith's one of the most overrated filmmakers as Quesada is one of the most overrated artists. Perhaps we should've seen the degradation to Mary Jane Watson coming with how Karen was wiped out in DD's second volume. If Mary Jane were DD's ladyfriend instead of Spider-Man's it's entirely possible she would've met the same fate as Karen did in this volume. And ComicBook's columnist, unfortunately, does nothing to improve the situation if he won't argue the time's come to reverse Karen's fate. Besides, how do we know Marvel Knights sold any better than the flagship line did? Please provide sales figures before telling us it was all worth a huge Macy's style parade in downtown NYC.

As noted before, the downside of this is that, had these stories come out today, the press, specialty or mainstream, would still have ignored how bad they really are, or just shrugged it off long term, no matter how much worse it got going down the rabbit hole. So while it may look flattering on the surface they'd admit belatedly these are poor tales, the problem is that they're not altruistic.

Labels: Avengers, bad editors, Daredevil, golden calf of death, golden calf of villainy, history, marvel comics, misogyny and racism, moonbat artists, moonbat writers, msm propaganda, Spider-Man, violence, women of marvel, X-Men