Brian Michael Bendis To Leave The Avengers – If A Head Explodes On The Internet, Can Anybody Hear It?

A couple hours ago, Comic Book Resources ran an interview with Brian Michael Bendis in which he announced he will be ending his run on The Avengers in 2012. Seemingly instantaneously, message boards, Facebook accounts, and Twitter all exploded with chatter. In the interview, Bendis discusses where his Avengers arc is going, the addition of Storm to the team, and how a newly revitalized Norman Osborn is going to flare up and plague The Avengers like herpes on prom night. And he compared his run on The Avengers to Breaking Bad.

“I’m going to wrap up ‘Avengers’ and ‘New Avengers.’ At the same time the first storyline of ‘Avengers Assemble’ will be done,” Bendis told CBR. “It’s a good time to move on to other things. Before I go, though, I’m ending things big. I’m in countdown mode. You know when you’re watching a show like ‘Breaking Bad,’ and every episode feels like the second to last episode? That’s where I’m at. I’ve been on the Avengers longer than anybody in the history of the book. When you take everything into account, I’ve written over 200 issues. I’m very, very proud of that, and what we have coming up this summer gives me the opportunity to go out on a high note. I know enough about showbiz to know that’s a great time to go.”

Actually Brian, every episode of yours feels like the fourth or fifth to last episode – because we here at the Crisis On Infinite Midlives Home Office love your writing but it takes so God damn long to get anywhere. Seriously. At the rate one of your stories move these days, by the time you get off this Avengers wrap up, Luke Cage and Jessica Jones’s infant child will be in high school.

But, if the interview at CBR wasn’t enough to set the internet a buzz, then Bendis tweeted this:

thanks for the kind words about my avengers departure but my last issue of Avengers is so far away from today you guys are gonna be: ‘wait, i thought he was leaving.’ have no fear, i’m leaving in a while but i’m leaving big!

hastily followed by:

i am not leaving comics and i am not leaving marvel. just signed a new contract a few months ago. i love you guys for caring.

So, relax Internetz. Bendis isn’t going anywhere. He will still be around to give us massively decompressed story arcs full of witty dialogue and fun characters for a long, long time. I leave you with some sage advice from Seth Gecko: