Bendis Announces Departure from X-Men and Makes Exclusive Agreement With Marvel
In an exclusive interview with Comic Book Resources, writer Brian Michael Bendis, who has had a pretty big run with the X-Men since 2012's, especially with ALL NEW X-MEN, is coming to an end of his time with the iconic Marvel team.
May is when Bendis' final run starts to take shape with the giant-sized and renumbered UNCANNY X-MEN #600 featuring a recognizable art team and back-up stories from past X-Men creators. While Bendis is known for doing long runs on books, and two years doesn't feel that long, he says that in the past couple of years, he's written almost 90 issue of X-Men. He started with AVENGERS VS X-MEN and his run is ending at SECRET WARS.
Bendis goes on to say that May's #600 issue of UNCANNY X-MEN will conclude the stories he's been writing and there's a big shift coming up in UNCANNY X-MEN #31 which will change the status quo for the team. The issue will revolve a bit around what happened to Hank McCoy throughout this ALL-NEW X-MEN run, with bringing the younger X-Men to the future and things that have happened since then.
[UPDATE]: A few hours after this announcement, Marvel has yet another announcement regarding the future of Bendis with the company.
Marvel Entertainment is excited to announce a renewed exclusive agreement with legendary comic writer Brian Michael Bendis!
The multiple Eisner award-winning writer has come to be one of the premier voices in the comic industry with iconic runs on many of Marvel’s most popular titles including Guardians of the Galaxy, Daredevil, Uncanny X-Men, All-New X-Men, and more. Bendis also boasts two of the longest comic runs in American comic book history with his eight year stretch as writer of Avengers and over 200 consecutive issues of Ultimate Spider-Man – which saw the introduction of hit character, Miles Morales, to Marvel’s Ultimate Universe.
Reflecting on his lengthy career at Marvel, Bendis says, “There's been some speculation that I will be leaving comics because of other cool things going on in my life but I wanted to let everyone know that isn’t the case. I get it, sometimes when people have something going on in other media they tend to drift away from comics. But that is the opposite of what my life's goals are.”
“I want to bring people into comics so they can see the original wonderful magic we have to offer every single week,” Bendis continues. “My partnership with Marvel, since the first day they hired me, has been a continuous dream come true and I'm honored that I get to continue this partnership for many years to come.”
The writer’s lengthy stint at the House of Ideas is set to continue with a new exclusive agreement and a wealth of new stories in 2015 including the cataclysmic closure of the Ultimate Universe with Secret Wars: Ultimate End and a soon-to-be announced Secret Wars series that will have all Marvel fans keeping their eyes on Battleworld!
In addition to Brian’s Marvel Universe work, he will continue with his critically-acclaimed creator-owned series under Marvel’s ICON imprint, POWERS. The first issue of POWERS, by Brian Michael Bendis and Michael Avon Oeming, returns to comic shops for a brand new jumping on point in POWERS #1 and, debuting March 10th, POWERS will now be a live-action drama available only on the Playstation Network.
Once again, Marvel is pleased to welcome Brian Michael Bendis back for his unique blend of action, humor, and heart, exclusively to the Marvel Universe and beyond in 2015.
UNCANNY X-MEN #600 hits stores in May.
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