Bendis, for those who don’t know, is one of the most popular comic book writers working today. Not only is he the long-time mastermind behind the fantastic Ultimate Spider-Man series, but he has spear-headed the entire Avengers franchise since 2004. Next year’s The Avengers movie owes part of its existence to Bendis’ pen, as he almost single-handedly catapulted the Avengers to their current heights of popularity. Which is why it was pretty big news yesterday that Bendis is going to step down from the Avengers franchise in 2012. The man is walking away at the height of his power. He has the entire world of comics to choose from as to what he wants to write next.

I wish I was Brian Michael Bendis.

Though I draw the line at having his bald babies

Being a comic book writer is my dream job. So Bendis is pretty much the role model in the world of comics. His writing is fantastic, I’m a huge fan of a lot of his stories and he gets to work with the best in the industry. Bendis and artist Mark Bagley hold the record for one creative team working on one single comic the longest, when together they wrote and drew 110 consecutive issues of Ultimate Spider-Man. Bendis has also written over 200 issues of the Avengers and their various spin-off titles, making him the creator who has spent the most time with the team. Bendis is a comic book god!

Bendis got his start writing some independent titles of his own creation. That’s how I plan to break into the industry. His work got him noticed, and he got more and more job offerings from professional companies. Eventually Marvel Comics found him and put him to work on Ultimate Spider-Man. The rest is awesome history. He’s exclusive to Marvel Comics, so he won’t be writing Batman anytime soon, but Marvel has a pretty big toy box to play with. Bendis didn’t announce what he’s going to write next in an interview with ComicBookResources.com, only that he’s got huge plans for ending his run on the Avengers.

“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…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.”

Though frankly, I’ve never been a big fan of Bendis’ work on the Avengers. I’ve bought a few issues here and there, and followed side titles like Mighty Avengers and especially Dark Avengers, but I’ve just never much cared for his work on the main series. Bendis started writing the Avengers by breaking the team apart in 2004, in a story called ‘Avengers Disassembled’. For years, the Avengers had mostly been their own little corner of the Marvel Universe, with traditional characters like Captain America, Iron Man, Thor and the usual rabble. The Avengers kept to themselves in terms of heroes on the team. And for whatever reason, I was never big into the Avengers. I was more of a Spider-Man or X-Men guy.

Compare this to DC comics and their main superhero team: the Justice League. That team is composed of all of DC’s biggest heroes, Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, etc.

Well under Bendis’ pen, he changed the Avengers to be more like the Justice League. After he broke up the team, he started a new series called New Avengers, in which he added Spider-Man and Wolverine, Marvel’s most popular characters, to the team.

Wolverine and Spider-Man solve everything

I’ve never been comfortable with that, and I’m still not. I read comics for the characters, and it just never fit, in my mind, to have Spider-Man and Wolverine as Avengers. Let alone having them on multiple Avengers squads, all in the name of getting the popular characters to sell as many books as possible. But hey, everybody else loved it and the Avengers quickly rose in popularity. No longer hiding in their own little corner, the Avengers were soon the franchise in comic books. All because Bendis is a great writer and really got to spread his wings in terms of writing.

Bendis also got to add his fan-favorite character, Luke Cage, to the Avengers, so that was pretty cool. Cage was always an incredibly minor character, but Bendis was a big fan and so he brought Cage with him when it came to writing New Avengers. Now Cage is one of the main players in the Marvel  Universe.

Anyway, so since 2004, Bendis has been the main architect of the Avengers franchise. He’s played with hundreds of characters, written dozen of Earth-shaking stories and has led the entire Marvel Universe through some of its biggest, wildest adventures. So it’s going to be a shame to see him leave the title in 2012…but at the same time, it’s going to be awesome! Not only will we get to see someone new writing the Avengers, but Bendis will now get to write somebody else.

I can’t wait to see what he’ll do next. I just wish that was my job.