Fans Call For Boycott of Bendis Guardians of the Galaxy #21

Marvel Cosmic fans may have finally had enough of Brian Michael Bendis and his Guardians of the Galaxy.

When word became known that Marvel Studios was moving forward on a major motion picture based on Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning’s 2008 Guardians of the Galaxy comic book, the head honchos at Marvel Comics canceled their run, in essence firing the cosmic duo off the titles.

Bendis was named as the successor, with many people considering Bendis a backstabber in addition to highjacking DnA’s title, which again inspired a $750 million dollar movie.

Now with Bendis‘ recent attempt to explain the fate of Richard Rider, which interestingly enough was also first written by DnA in the best selling The Thanos Imperative, it’s looking like fans are coming to their senses.

Tom Brevoort was already questioned about the poor quality of the Richard Rider story in recent Bendis issues of Guardians of the Galaxy, which saw numerous misspellings and questionable art choices, with Brevoort blaming fans for – get this –  actually wanting the story to be told.

Now the social network Reddit is responding as a fan has called for a boycott of Bendis‘ Guardians of the Galaxy #21.

Guys, can we all resolve NOT to buy Guardians #21 next week? Because f–k Bendis.Comics

Some comments:

I am on board with this. Plus his handling of the GOTG kind of sucks. I miss the old run.

he should probably have paid more attention to Thanos Imperative, given that what he’s writing is basically its followup. It’s like if I tried to write a sequel to No Country For Old Men without actually watching the film.

I don’t mind the stories so much as the characters. Most of the Guardians have been rewritten to the point where they might as well be new characters. Only, they’re not. And the fact that that he’s kept the names and labels means that any other writer who actually wanted to use the established characters can’t, because Bendis‘ OC characters are masquerading under their names. The only reason Marvel is pushing new cosmic material is because of the movie, and the movie only exists because of how well the 2008 run was received. Surely you can understand people being upset when the new material doesn’t reflect the stuff that parented it in the first place?

I mean, his job is literally to write comics. Having some understanding of the comics he’s writing for seems like it would be part of that job, no? Does Marvel really not have editors who check things like this?

Bendis appears to have no respect for this cosmic saga because the characters feel very different to who Abnett and Lanning.

Abnett & Lanning spent years revitalizing the cosmic side of Marvel and crafted one of the greatest comic book epics of all time. Then Bendis took over, disregarded key events, and changed everyone’s personalities until they were almost unrecognizable. It’s like he completely missed the point of what made the A&L stuff such a fan favorite. I’ve always been a big Bendis supporter but even I have to admit that he made a clusterf–k out of this one.

I wish there was some sort of Omnibus of all the cosmic Omnibus’ for Annihilation through Thanos Imperative.

I only read the first Bendis issue, and I normally like his stuff, but thought it was woeful compared to the DnA run. Still not got any better then?

Sure, Bendis ignores everything that happened in the Thanos Imperative, I mean everything, literally everything, cant even spell Richard Rider’s name right (Ryder). All major points in the story line were ignored. And that is not the worst thing, even ignoring all that, he took a 2 page story and dragged it across three issues with a shitty resolution that makes no sense. We are on issue 20 of Gotg, and nothing really interesting has happened…F— BENDIS

i’ve hated it the whole time anyway. it’s been typical bendis: absolutely no plotting and every character sounds the same.

I don’t hate him, but I think it boils down to this; With Avengers, he completely revamped a comic that wasn’t very good at the time, and it was much better for it. With GotG, he completely revamped a comic that was already one of the best and well loved comics around, and it is much worse for it.

Amen, brother. People need to wake up and stop supporting garbage.

Fans are also upset over Marvel’s decision to replace Richard Rider with an “idiot” (the creator’s own words) that they dub “NINO” (Nova In Name Only). The good news is that the NINO replacement is selling less than Richard Rider, and fans also voted Richard Rider a favorite choice for the Marvel Heroes 2015 video game, and Rider was the best-selling action figure of the Guardians of the Galaxy Infinite movie line.

Regarding Bendis‘ Guardians of the Galaxy and its high sales, Tom Brevoort stated it had nothing to do with Bendis writing the title, but everything to do with the movie interest.

Similar to Joe Quesada stating sales weren’t the factor in Abnett and Lanning’s cancellation, former Marvel Cosmic Editor Bill Rosemann, who was also in essence fired from the Marvel Cosmic titles, recently stated sales on DnA’s books were “rock solid.” Rosemann was also responsible for Rocket Raccoon becoming a member of the Guardians, with Rocket now a household name.