Next week’s Avengers #34 marks the title’s milestone 800th issue since its release in the 1960s. It’s being made in a big way by bringing back legendary Avengers screenwriter Brian Michael Bendis and his longtime collaborator Mark Bagley in backup roles. Ahead of Wednesday’s release, Marvel released The Beat!, a first look inside Bendis and Bagley’s return issue.
We asked Bendis about his return to the Marvel Universe. There Bendis became one of the greatest writers of his generation, but it was a place he hadn’t visited in a while. And we heard about the importance of stepping back into the Marvel universe with such a groundbreaking issue.
“One of my main philosophies as a writer on The Avengers was to treat the Avengers like a central part of a whole shared universe,” Bendis told The Beat. “It wasn’t just a team, it was a place where all the ideas of the universe could live in harmony, from the most street-level characters to the most cosmic. So, for me, the Avengers have always been the center of everything. So not only was I coming back to Marvel after a long hiatus, I was literally coming back to the center. I… That’s how we treated this new story. That’s how we treated the collaboration with Bagley. And when people see what he did, they’ll see that he treated it very much like that.”Well, it wasn’t just a return to Marvel characters, it was also a return to some of my favorite collaborators, including Mark Bagley. ”
Of course, this isn’t the first time this has happened. Bendis debuted as an Avengers in #500, and his first Superman-titled issue when he went to DC was Action Comics #1000.
Preview pages for Avengers #34/800, featuring art by the incomparable Bagley, can be found here:
Powers’ return to Dark Horse and Bendis’ return to the Avengers feels like a lifetime ago for the writers. Still, he said he wouldn’t return to the old setting unless he had something to say about the new take and characters.
“There are quite a few things in my life right now that have come full circle like this,” Bendis admitted. “There will be a few more announcements soon. I’m taking great inspiration from some of my storytelling heroes, who have gone back to themes and scenarios with new ideas and evolved their takes through practice and age. It’s so fun to come back to something that means so much to me, but I needed something new to say. I don’t think I would have done it if I didn’t have something new to say.”
Even though Bendis has been heavily involved in both Marvel and DC’s biggest titles over the past decade, it may seem a little strange that he hasn’t been part of the star-studded Batman/Deadpool and Deadpool/Batman one-shots. However, when asked if they had any thoughts on future crossovers, all they responded was a smile and a “stand by.”
Something like this:
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