I not sure if anyone else has noticed this, but almost two weeks ago Tom Brevoort apparently gave away who's behind the upcoming Asgard-based crossover ("Siege of Asgard"?, "Dark Siege"?? the title hasn't been confirmed yet) that's rumoured to be scheduled for the end of the year . Quote Brevoort:
Dark Reign: The List is awesome, and the big thing that Bendis is masterminding out of the Avengers titles for year's end is getting underway.
I think this strongly suggests that Bendis is going to be writing the rumoured Asgard event, whatever it ends up being called. Perhaps lending extra credence to my speculation is the fact that when Rich Johnston reported last week that Matt Fraction would be writing the project Bendis was the one who denied it, expressing his glee at catching the rumour-monger out.
Anyway if I turn out to be right and the "big thing that Bendis is masterminding out of the Avengers" turns out to be this rumoured crossover, I have to admit Im pretty unenthused. Bendis can be a great writer with a strong ear for dialogue and a talent for character-based stuff, but for these big events you really need someone with a skill for tight, simple plotting. Bendis' tendency to play with structure and pacing in unorthodox, ambitious ways always seems to detract from the tension and large set-piece based drama that these big stories rely on.
This is not an original observation - the critical reception to his last two efforts at this sort of thing - House of M and Secret Invasion - was pretty uniform in pointing out that his plotting was a problem.
In fairness to Bendis though there are signs that he has finally taken some of this criticism to heart - his recent Dark Avengers work in particular has been quite straight forward structurally and the recent Avengers: Free Comic Book Day issue was so old-school it could have been plotted by Roger Stern (though the dialogue was uniquely Bendis).
I just hope, for this crossover at least, he doesnt decide to tell the conclusion in flashback again.
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