Tuesday, January 2, 2018

On Bendis's departure for DC

Brian Michael Bendis has been one of Marvel's central creators for 15 years. His departure today for DC comics represents a massive shift in creative talent to DC. Locking up Tom King to an exclusive and putting him on Batman while simultaneously moving Marvel's most consistent writer of the last 20 years to the competition is nothing short of a coup. While Bendis's books no longer perform like they did when he was taking on Avengers, he's still writing top books, like Defenders (with David Marquez), Jessica Jones (a personal favorite), two Iron-Man books (including the new Ironheart character, RiRi Williams) and the Miles Morales Spider-Man book. His books have driven the Marvel U. for an entire generation and he's irreplaceable.

That said, who will replace him? LOL. Donny Cates is a nice little splash, and his new Doctor Strange and Thanos arcs have been well-received, but Marvel will need a big name to come back and grab headlines. DC has dominated the virtuous news cycle this year with the Bendis hiring and the success of Metal and the Wonder Woman films overshadowing poor performance by the JLA film and family of books. I have 3 ideas:

1) Grant Morrison & Frank Quitely return to the X-Men: The current X-Men books are horrible. I'm not sure I buy the conspiracy that Marvel is tanking to hurt Fox or whatever, but that's all over as soon as federal regulators approve the sale of Fox to Disney. Expect big news in the X-family soon. Morrison is the kind of guy that brings a stable of fans. His X-Men run was the last well-received core X-book, and I'm sure that the offices at Marvel are contacting him to see if he'll come back. I love the idea. If accompanied by Quitely art, this book will be number one for as long as it wants to be.

2) Jonathan Hickman returns to Fantastic Four: The FF will be back. We know that the plans are in the works since Marvel 2-in-1 featuring Ben and Johnny just came out in December. It's only a matter of time before the first family of Marvel returns. I suspect Hickman, who continually says he isn't working on superhero books, will be their target. He wrote the best Fantastic Four since Stan and Kirby. It only makes sense that he'd be the person to breathe new life into this product for the inevitable Marvel film relaunch. One other FF idea: Warren Ellis. He wrote the Ultimate FF (and Planetary, an all-world FF tribute book), creating the incredible villainous Reed Richards now haunting the Marvel U. Ellis and start artist could be splashy.

3) Brian K. Vaughn on anything, Runaways: He has a huge name that transcends the medium. His best Marvel book is currently a hit show on Hulu but being written by a total schmuck in the current Marvel U. Getting Vaughn to create a new property for Marvel would be tough, but allowing him to write a year or two of a premium property could be attention grabbing. He'd do well on Miles or Iron Man, I think, both books being abandoned by Bendis.

That leads into another question. Who can take over some of the Bendis books? Defenders I assume is just over and done. He'll wrap it and it'll never be heard from in this incarnation again. Too bad, it's a solid product. But other things like Jessica Jones and Miles Morales, not to mention Iron Man, aren't just books Marvel can easily walk away from. Jones is back by demand because of the success of the Netflix property, Miles is in cartoons and about to be in a feature length cartoon film, meaning they need to keep the books in production. Iron Man is a core Marvel character that isn't that easy to write but is sufficiently high profile that leaving it out of the lineup would be a mistake. I'm not sure there are great answers to some of these, especially JJ who has literally never been written by anyone but Bendis, but it'll be a core question for Marvel to grapple with moving forward.

Finally, what will Bendis be doing for DC? I've seen a lot of speculation on this ranging from the obviously wrong (Batman) to the truly insane (it's a secret Marvel/DC crossover and he's bringing some of Marvel's properties with him, like Jessica Jones and Luke Cage), but others seem highly plausible. I think the most obvious is Teen Titans. Bendis has shown a real penchant for writing teen characters and giving gravitas to their drama while telling big, high-octane stories. That's Teen Titans. He's a perfect fit. From a market standpoint, JLA might be the best idea. It's performing terribly for DC, only getting worse because of the bad movie, and should be their flagship. Bendis has written the core team book for a company more than once with Avengers, Guardians, and X-Men all under his belt. JLA would be in his wheelhouse. If DC is playing to their strengths, there's a lot of interest in Wonder Woman at the moment and Greg Rucka's run on that book just ended to be replaced by no one of note. Having a high-profile writer on the book that represents your best film in 10 years is a good idea and would make sense. He's demonstrated a penchant for writing badass women, but Jessica Jones is also as far from Diana Prince as a woman could be.

If I'm writing a wishlist, I'd say Catwoman. I loved the Brubaker and Cooke (RIP) run on this book 10 years ago, but it's been a dumpster fire since. Bendis would be a solid fit for a too-clever-by-half Selina Kyle. Legion would be pretty high up there, maybe including a reborn Connor Kent as a Superboy and the Legion title. It's a lot like Teen Titans, but not as trite because there have been like 20 good Legion comics written in the last 40 years. It's a big sandbox for Bendis to play in. One downside: his cosmic stuff at Marvel was not his best. He's a bit better on the ground. A revival of Gotham Central would be my last wishlist book. I loved the Brubaker and Rucka book and Bendis could do similarly intricate, gritty stories of the insides of Gotham politics and the shield. If anyone could follow up that run, it'd be him. Probably not a big enough seller to get him on it though.

Keep in mind that DC is doing this push for new stories and new characters right now. It's entirely possible Bendis is just doing something totally new for them and we have no idea what we're speculating on at all. At any rate, it's going to be a wild ride. How Marvel adjusts to his departure and how DC uses him going forward are all interesting questions to ponder and debate today.

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