New Avengers #47

(Note: This is a review of both Secret Invasion and New Avengers. It contains spoilers for Secret Invasion):

I've become convinced there are two Brian Michael Bendises (Bendii?). I call one of them Mighty Bendis, and the other Dark Bendis.

Dark Bendis is clearly talented, and is filled with interesting and intriguing ideas. But he also seems to lack discipline. This week, Dark Bendis came out with Secret Invasion #8. This issue suffered from the same problem as the entire Secret Invasion event: a lack of structure. Bendis seems to have put all his effort into coming up with 40 cool ideas, but put no effort into structuring those ideas into a compelling, well-structured story. So the entire event has felt less like a story and more like a parade of ideas. Nick Fury is training a group of Super-Lads! Noh-Vahrr is taking the reigns as Captain Marvel! The Savage Land is a lousy vacation spot! But none of these ideas went anywhere. Neither the Super-Lads (okay, okay, the Secret Warriors) or Captain Marvel played a pivotal role in the final events. Characters were introduced and then quickly shuffled off. Enough plot threads were left dangling to gather together and form into a nice cardigan for Aunt May.

Last month's penultimate issue felt like it should have been the third or fourth issue. Things were just getting set up. So it's no suprise that in this issue, the story pretty much just ... ends. I mean, the first half of the issue literally wasn't told; it was narrated. Rather than playing out all the story beats, and showing the story unfold, Bendis just had Osborn narrate the whole thing over a series of pretty pictures.

The Wasp is the token Big Death, the bad guys are defeated, the missing heroes return and Norman Osborn is put in charge. It all whooshes by, as the guys at Marvel pray that the audience doesn't stop and think, "wait ... how is this all Iron Man's fault? And why is Norman Osborn being put in charge? Because he has good aim? Seriously?" Put quite simply, it wasn't compelling story-telling.

Thankfully, Mighty Bendis also had a book out this week: New Avengers. Now that's what I'm talking about! An extremely well-crafted, well-told story that makes us care about the characters. Here's the difference between the two books: When I got to the end of Secret Invasion and found out Baby Danielle had been kidnapped, I thought, "eh." But when I got to the end of New Avengers and found out the same thing, I was genuinely worried, and wanted to know what happened next.

Hopefully, someday Brian Michael Bendis will be able to combine the ambition and ideas of Dark Bendis with the storytelling prowess of Might Bendis. If that happens, we'll have something completely new. We'll have -- dare I say it? -- New Bendis.