Fix New Avengers, Part 1

Ok, as you probably know, there is a very good blog out there called "Comics Should be Good". And they're right, comics should be good. Unfortunately, New Avengers isn't good. And that's a problem because I believe the Avengers are supposed to be the premiere team of the Marvel Universe. They're supposed to be who you call when the big stuff comes down. And Bendis started off well enough, Electro is hired by someone to help a criminal escape from the Raft, a supervillain prison. Wisely he busts everyone out, since that makes it harder to track the true purpose. A bunch of heroes arrive and try to stop the escape, but 45 succeed in breaking out. Captain America realizes they need the Avengers to track them down. And away we go. Unfortunately, Bendis has killed it with his typical slow style, which feels worse in a team book than a solo book, where you could believe one hero might be having a slow day, so let's see their everyday life. The point of a team is they're working together to deal with thtreats, but so far the focus of the book has seemed to be gathering members. The book has had its moments, but it's not as good as it needs to be. What it needs, first and foremost, is someone who can write a good team book.

So assume for a moment I can somehow get Bendis to relinquish the job, while staying on Ultimate Spider-Man (because I like his work on that book, just not New Avengers), who do I replace him with? The guys at the store, Eric and Len, provided two possibilities:

1. Mark Waid. he was the first person I thought of, I loved his work on JLA. I haven't read his Legion of Superheroes, so I don't know if he's still got it, or if he suffered a Liefield-like talent drop. Unfortunately, he has an exclusive DC contract, so unless I can cause some disharmony between the entities (Devin Grayson? I'd be alright bringing her to Marvel, she did a Ghost Rider mini-series a few years ago I thought was ok. And she wouldn't be doing her fangirl stuff on Nightwing, which might be best for both parties). But as that's unlikely, he's probably out of the running. Moving on.

2. Tony Bedard (Exiles and Negation). Len suggested him, and one of the things I liked was Bedard seems to write from a tactical standpoint in battles. Rather than match your hand-to hand fighter with theirs, use your long-range specialist. I've got kind of thing about that, pitting two groups of characters (or just two characters against each other) against each other, and figuring out what would be the best way for each side to win. And Captain America runs the Avengers, so tacitcally they should be good. He's been in wars, he knows how it works. So Bedard sounds intriguing.

So that's what I got. What about you, suggestions?

Correction: Mallet has informed me that Joe Kelly wrote "Obsidian Age", not Mark Waid, so I guess that's a point in favor of Joe Kelly then. And I'll remove that as a reason for Waid from the post above. I still liked Waid's work on JLA, so he's still on my considerations list.