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Brian Michael Bendis is soon leaving the Avengers titles after extended runs writing them going back around eight years. That’s a lot of story, including an immeasurable amount of character development, plot twists, and universe building. Most of it good and compelling, some of it not, but no matter what you think of the years of storytelling, you have to admit that it’s had an impact.

Or at least you have to admit that it had an impact. Because regardless of tenure or reach, Bendis does not own the Avengers. And now that he is moving on to Marvel’s X-Men titles, it is now apparently time to take some of the most impactful events of his time at the wheel… and roll them back to the 2003 status quo, just in time for the next guy to take over, do some stuff, and inevitably roll that back when a new person wants to play with the old toys.

In short, welcome to Avengers #31, the first part of the End Times storyline, and what appears to be the final retcon of a couple of the remaining epic events of Bendis’s Avengers story. He appears to be taking this final opportunity to glue the heads back on the last couple of action figures he mangled while he had custody of the toy box… and while it is giving me a temporary feeling of, “Goddammit, again?”, it is probably a wise long-term choice for Marvel… and one that could wind up being satisfying if executed well, if yet another example of showing that, in the comics world, Thomas Wayne, Martha Wayne and Uncle Ben are the unluckiest sons of bitches in the world.