S
Sin Eater
Guest
Dread said:I've known this since NA #2, which I think still holds the cake for their worst issue for me (and that's saying something). DISASSEMBLED was nothing to write home about. I agree, NA has become a primer for whatever Marvel's doing with their universe that year/month.
According to an interview Quesada gave for ULTIMATE AVENGERS, it seemed to me that getting Spider-Man & Wolverine on the Avengers was a key point for NA regardless of who was writing it. Naturally, the problem is that under Bendis, both they and a good bunch of the team itself don't do very much in their own book. Maybe he feels himself too "superior" for ol' superhero formula.
I'd be interested if Bendis took a few issues off of NA just to see if the sales held up without him. And to see someone else handle the team. Because nearly everyone else who uses them in other books seems to do better with them. JMS, Heinberg, anyone. But Bendis has considerable namepower, and while Marvel likes to deny it, yet at the same time capitilize on it, a writer's name is what can sell a lot of books, regardless of what it is.
Jeph Loeb, before he switched to Marvel, had the best example of this from a WIZARD interview he did with Geoff Johns, Mark Millar, and Bendis: "You're telling me that if you had Millar writing AQUAMAN with Andy Kubert on art, it wouldn't be a Top Ten book? It has nothing to do with the characters." or words to that effect.
Brubaker and Lark didn't affect sales on Daredevil when they replaced Bendis and Maleev, and for some reason, Bru's name isn't a big seller yet, despite his track record of excellence . I think sales would not be affected with NA, because the main selling points are Wolverine and Spider-Man and the fact that it's Marvel's flagship book now. I wish Brubaker was writing the book instead of Uncanny X-Men, and I wish they'd ship Bendis off to another book where his limited skills wouldn't be so glaring. Ugghhh!