A few months ago, I posted an article similar to the one you are reading now. In it, I made my case for Matt Fraction and Ed Brubaker as who I hope to be the new shepards of The Avengers series. I still stand by those choices, but today, another name crossed my mind.
Rick Remender has been an awesome talent at Marvel for the past few years now. His Uncanny X-Force and recent take over of Secret Avengers are always mandatory pick-ups for me when ever I go to a comic book store. He has also been killing it over in Venom, which he is about to hand off to Cullen Bunn,
And his leaving Venom has me thinking and hoping that this guy could be the next great Avengers writer. I will admit I enjoyed Brian Bendis' early work on The Avengers. His breaking up the team in the Avengers proper series and inserting a very different line up in The New Avengers was just the shot in the arm the franchise needed at the time, and was personal jumping on point. But that series, and now his transitioning over to the re-numbered Avengers proper series just feel very played out, and I have not picked them up lately. The plots are very formulaic, and the book character interactions are starting to feel like show like Cheers and Friends. That was cool in the beginning, but now it's getting very static.
Remender on the the other hand has been one Marvel's best creative talents in recent memories. He creates new locations, characters, and ideas on a constant basis that he uses in all of his books. And other writers are using hhis ideas as well. David Lapalm is doing a nice job writing the Age of Apocalypse team that Remender set up in Uncanny X-force, and Jason Aaron is making nice use of kid Apocalypse clone from Uncanny over in Wolverine and the X-men. Rememnder himself is making good use of his ideas. His recent arc in Secret Avengers sprang from yet another idea introduced over in Uncanny. The fact he is creating new concepts that he can pull from at later times for future stories and giving other writers new ideas to play with is the sign of a great writer and very good world building skills.
And his character development is some of the best I have seen in comics in a while. he more than lives up the Marvel mandate of giving us complex yet relatble characters. In Uncanny X-Force, his version of Wolverine seems to be the definitive version as man who does not like the things he is sometimes required to do, but yet has come to terms with them. Fantomex and Psychloke always have me guessing what they will do next. AOA Nightcrawler has also been interesting since he is from a different version of our world therefore his views of his team mates reflect different versions of them. And he also writes the smartest take on Deadpool, as being a valuable addition the team, but still deeply psychotic. Also I would love to see Deadpool get a spot on the Avengers. he could be a real wild card, and he just got a new lease on life in his own book. I also think Remender would be a great fit for Deadpool's own series, but that is a whole nother editorial. And his cast in Secret Avengers is proving to just as complex too. And over in Venom, he has given both Flash Thompson and the symbiote a new status quo.
So why am I championing this guy so hard. Well because the way Rememnder writes his superheroes he writes them in a way in a way that not just highlights their powers, but also the weight and consequences of how those powers get used, and how the affect the world other characters. That is what superhero comics should be. In addition to that, he plays with very big concepts that are smart and really make for memorable superhero battles. If he can make a black ops team of mutants and espionage focused group of Avengers so interesting and complex, imagine what he could do for a patriotic super soldier from the 40's, a Norse god, a futurist/ reformed weapons dealer, and whatever other Avengers he uses. His books also rarely rely on events, only tying in when he can tell his own good story around the event. Rather, his books send their own trends. That is something the current Avengers main book is guilty of. It seems lately to act as nothing more than a tie in book for whatever event is currently happening.
Along with Remender though, I also stated that I still stand by my other pics of Brubaker and Fraction. Jeff Parker is also doing good work on his books too. So here are my ideas. Either give the book to one these guys or take an approach from The Amazing Spider-Man a few years and let all of rotate arcs. In terms of art, I would love to see Patrick Zircher do some stuff, and Ariel Olivetti, although he is over at DC now I believe.
It is always when an important series like The Avengers changes hands. Although Bendis' work feels a bit static there is no doubt that he made a huge impact on the team and the brand. With someone like Remender or one of the other guy I mentioned, the books could really go in a new direction and above and beyond what is now or has been before.