Siege: Avengers tie-ins

I slammed Bendis pretty hard up there, didn't I? Slightly less dismissive now that I've read the Siege tie-ins he penned, where you find all the character / drama that makes the punching in the main book explicable. There's lovely moments between Luke and Jessica (although some of the dialogue and speechifying meanders a bit) and the Hood and Madame Masque. Over on Dark Avengers, we finally deal with Osborn and the Sentry properly, and there's a genuinely disturbing sequence with Bullseye that reminds you of just how great Bendis's Daredevil was.

Now I'm just annoyed at how this cross-over was organised. No unifying theme behind it (at least Secret Invasion riffed on the 'war on terror'), just an EVENT you can hang lots of different story threads on. Well I'm sorry, but that's not good enough. The Marvel U may be a vibrant community, but the desire to see it all in one place isn't as pressing as the desire for good storytelling. With Siege, all of Bendis's talent was in the background books. The answer is obvious: bring that background to the fore.