Geeklings, I fully intended to come here today to write up my Thor: Ragnarok review. You see, I really like mapping out my writings for the week. There’s nothing worse than waking up and taking the whole day to figure out what I’m going to write about. If I can get the idea in my head early I can spend the entirety of my work day mapping out my thoughts so they’re at their absolute sharpest when I put them down here for your eyeholes. That’s what I’ve been doing with Thor since Saturday, just formulating and formulating and was all set to lay down my head thoughts tonight. Then I made the mistake of going on Twitter this morning and saw this.

I’m sorry what?! Did that just say Brian Michael Bendis, a writer who is more or less Marvel, is heading over to DC Comics?! Because that’s what it looks like it’s saying and I have no idea what to make of it. For starters, I’m kind of floored. Not kind of, actually floored. There are excitement levels and fear with a dash of curiosity. But none of that really masks the shock over seeing this Tweet.

When I got back into comics many years ago, outside of Mark Millar’s Civil War, it was Bendis’s Avengers books that helped bring me current to the Marvel Universe. From there I kind of fell in love with his writing style and of all the comics I read, the majority of them are written by Brian Michael Bendis. Books like The Defenders, Jessica Jones, Invincible Iron Man with Riri Williams, Spider-Man with Miles Morales, and older books like Guardians of the Galaxy and All New X-Men have been mainstays on my Pull List for a long, long time. I haven’t had a chance to get into his Daredevil run… yet. Bendis’s terrific character work, flowing dialogue (books can be a bit talky but it feeds into character development), story structure, and character creation are what have drawn me to his books time after time.

It’s these attributes that have me excited about him joining the DC Universe. In fact, I’m really curious to see what books he jumps on, cause you know it won’t just be one, and what he can do with some of these characters. I’ve always felt that Bendis’s strong work has been with hero teams and I’d love to see him jump on a book like Justice League or Suicide Squad. As for individual character books? Who wouldn’t want a Bendis Wonder Woman or Green Lantern book? Seriously, the possibilities are kind of endless here, and as someone who has been reading more and more DC books with a dash of Marvel frustration, I’m excited that one of my favorite writers is coming to the company.

Yet, what happens to his Marvel books and characters? There is no timeframe on when Bendis is officially leaving Marvel and a lot of his comics are kind of up in the air. He’s in the midst of a mega Iron Man story centering around the return of Tony Stark that is literally just getting started. Does that story arc get completed or handed off to someone else? And what happens to original character Riri Williams? I’ve fallen in love with this character hard and even mentioned her here before when talking about diversity in comics.  What happens to her once Bendis leaves? Does she get buried out of spite? It’s not like Marvel is afraid to do things like that. Just ask the Fantastic Four.

That’s my biggest concern really. Characters like Riri Williams, Jessica Jones, and Miles Morales are all original characters created by Brian Michael Bendis. These are all characters I’ve gravitated to for a number of reasons with Miles Morales leading the pack. Not being a fan of Dan Slott’s Amazing Spider-Man run, I turned to Bendis’s Ultimate Spider-Man run and found what I was looking for. I can’t think of a writer who better understands Petter Parker than Bendis, and Miles has provided me with everything I love about Spider-Man, and has been missing from Amazing, in the first place. It’s hard to imagine another writer taking him over as Bendis has been painting Miles’s universe for so long now. Especially with the books pointing in the direction of Miles giving up the mantle of Spider-Man. In the hands of Bendis, I was confident that Miles could make that transfer seamlessly. Now… I don’t know. Suddenly the future of my favorite comic hero becomes a little cloudy and that sucks.

There are other books too. The Defenders has been fire since it’s release and Jessica Jones just started a Purple Man story arc that has a lot of promise. Luckily these books have Netflix franchises backing them up so I doubt they’ll get buried but I could also see them concluding with Bendis’s exit. Hopefully, he’ll get to finish the arcs he’s writing and Marvel doesn’t just shoehorn some endings on and call it a day.

The fact of the matter is this is a huge comic book shake-up. In sports terms, it would be if Derek Jeter went to the Red Sox. It’s that big. Bendis has been a part of Marvel comics for almost twenty years. At this point, there isn’t another writer on staff who is more Marvel then him. This doesn’t mean that all his books work, I’ve been vocal about my displeasure with Civil War II, but you can’t deny the importance of Brian Michael Bendis in the Marvel Universe. While there are still a number of questions left to be answered I can’t help but be a bag of mixed emotion. Mostly because I want Marvel to show the respect that Bendis’s books deserve by allowing them to have full closure. Please don’t ruin these characters. I happen to love them so.

But Bendis is going to DC… and that’s pretty cool as well. Ugh, my emotions!