*Sorry for the slight delay, Labor Day weekend threw me for a bit of a loop*
Two weeks ago, Manolis asked me to do a review for Secret Invasion #5, and to recap the mini in the process. I did some rereading of the first five issues to try and sum it all up and I quickly decided against it. Normally, I have problems giving a review on an in-progress miniseries. I don’t believe that it’s fair to pass judgment until after the series has wrapped up. Especially in the case of events, I find that trying to review the unfinished product accomplishes fairly little. Secret Invasion is different though, after reading the first five issues in one sitting I came to a grand conclusion.
I’ve realized that Secret Invasion is not as much a testament to the abilities of Brian Bendis to build towards a grant plot (which he did wonderfully) as it is to the fact that he’s the master of an art that one shouldn’t be proud of.
Decompressed storytelling.
It took five issues from the start to the finish of this scene. FIVE!
Why is this a bad thing you might ask? After all, it gives the reader more room to follow along with the book as it slows the pacing down. Screw that! After reading five issues of an eight issue mini I came to realize Bendis is going to have to work his ass off on the last three issues to try and pull this book together, because as it stands, I’d deem it a waste of a summer crossover.
At least they know how to make a moment
Five issues to establish that everything is still status quo. Everything! We’ve had THREE surprise Skrull reveals. And I’m sorry, but Jarvis and Spider-Woman weren’t exactly big shocking reveals…though Hank Pym was. Jessica’s was beautifully done, but, unfortunately it was NOT done in this book! Sure we got the big confirm, but after the Avengers issue about the Skrull Queen taking her place as Jessie? I put the pieces together before we even saw the issue explaining her switch. Hank’s came out of left field, as he’d been huge in Initiative.
Turning into Jessie
Generally I’m annoyed by tie-in issues, but, generally tie-in issues are cash-in books with the label and not much else. And yes, Secret Invasion has those, but it also has something I’m incredibly impressed with.
Bendis is writing the core mini-series, but he’s also still handling New and Mighty Avengers, which have done more to improve the quality of Secret Invasion then anything else to come about to date. In those two books, he goes covers up for his complete inability to pace a title by showing us all of the needed moments to fully understand the event. We’ve seen the background of the Elektra Skrull which gave us the clear understanding that it wasn’t some random test switch, rather that she was taken as a valuable asset and didn’t make it even remotely easy on them. The Captain America issue granted us a view as to how the Skrulls are transformed, even to the point where we’re shown one of their memory implants.
I believe in Captain America
And what can I say about the Dan Slott tie in issues? His take on Hank Pym was spot on and helped bridge the gap in a very nice fashion, though I am still upset that the Hank I’ve been raving about in The Initiative hasn’t been Hank since before New Avengers even began. It was the perfect example of a writer going out of their way to build up a character for the sake of adding that much more impact to the big reveal. The man had fully redeemed himself in my eyes, he’d been an architect of the next generation of super heroes, forging the hundred ideas to change the world with Reed and Tony, and the entire time….a Skrull? I never saw it coming, honestly, I figured it would have been Gauntlet, but Pym? My hats off to the writers, that has been so far the best part of the entire Invasion.
The shot heard around the world.
Then we also had Crusader, who for issues was built up as a Skrull the readers were aware of, but not so much his loyalties. We knew he was a Skrull in the Initiative, where there was a Skrull ready for the invasion in all fifty states. We knew that he was terrified of discovery, going out of his way at every twist and turn in attempts to disguise himself. The first real clue as to where he would stand in the invasion was when he realized Hank Pym was a Skrull due to something he was eating, and immediately tried to hide from him. Why would a Skrull hide from another? Then we see the giant battle between the Initiative members and the Super Skrulls, and after an incredibly well done back story on Crusader in the same issue, we get to see him fight against what we’re left to assume is his best friend, a battle where he kills him and then decides to live the rest of his days as a human, fighting against his own people.
Crusader has been one of the standout characters, Secret Invasion has been tremendous for him
Delroy Garrett. The new 3-D Man. The former Avengers known as Triathlon. After years of lingering in comic limbo he popped back up in the beginning of the Initiative and has made sporadic appearances since. Now, thanks to the goggles of the original team, he spends his first day as the new leader of the Hawaii Point Men fighting against one of the infiltrating Skrulls before heading back to Camp Hammond to tell the rest. Crusader, out of fear of discovery, used the Freedom Ring to make him see Skrulls as humans and humans as Skrulls, and he takes a Quinjet to find help. The wipe out of Starktech sent him crashing down in New Mexico where he’s going to be leading a new team, the Skrull Kill Krew. If anything, he’s one of the characters benefiting the most. He’s getting more page time, good character development, and we’re being made to care what happens to him.
Brand new life
I don’t have that feeling with Spider-Man right now. I know he’s human, I know One More Day happened, and I know that the invasion isn’t going to fix any of Marvels problems with him. In six months he’s still going to be single, he’s still going to have made his stupid deal with the devil, and I’m still not going to be reading his book. Sure, I’d feel cheapened if they undid things through the Skrull angle, but it would still make me thank God that I had MY Spider-Man back. Oh well, I guess that’s why I read Amazing Spider-Girl. That’s the kind of Spider book I grew up with, that’s my Peter and Mary Jane.
There’s people that kept expecting Captain America to be revealed as a Skrull, that Steve would be fine and hidden away, ready to come back and take his mantle back. Marvel did a quick swerve with the Skrull ship, but anybody who’s read even an issue of Brubaker’s Captain America knew the truth. There was no way that all the work he’d put into the title was going to be wiped clean by an event he wasn’t even taking part in.
I guess that’s one of my problems with all of it. You can call most of the reveals pretty early on just by looking logically at the story and the company.
Iron Man, Captain America, Wolverine, Thor, Ms. Marvel, Daredevil, Cyclops, Emma Frost, Reed Richards, the Invisible Woman, the Human Torch, the Thing, Spider-Man, the Hulk, Iron Fist, Luke Cage, Hawkeye, Black Widow, Wasp. What does this list of characters have in common?
Simple. Each is a main fixture in either their own solo book, or a big popular team book. Each is a character that Marvel has invested a lot into lately, and they’re all characters that wouldn’t make sense to have a Skrull reveal. How do you take a top selling solo book and say that the main character is actually an evil alien impostor? How do you rebound from that? If Tony was a Skrull, then would his book have magically turned into the real Tony coming back with a wealth of retcons to patch him together as Marvel saw fit, disregarding years of character development
Actually, now that I think about it, this is how Marvel should have done One More Day. Had Peter be a Skrull since before he ever got married, then bam, you get the Peter that Joey Q jerks off to at night and you get a big reveal for an over hyped crossover! Yay! Logic without having to use the fucking devil!
I wish!
It’s really sad that I can outweigh the good of the Invasion with the bad, and it really defeats the purpose of calling it the ‘Gold Standard’. So what’s my verdict on the entire thing?
As a whole, Secret Invasion thus far has been a complete waste of an event. Nothing overly major has happened that Marvel can’t clean up in a single month of issues, there’s been no universe shaking reveals or happenings. It’s just…..it’s a testement to decompressed storytelling. That’s it.
We have this to look forward to. Remember that, I know I am.
At the same time though, take a look at the tie in issues for New Avengers, Mighty Avengers, and Avengers: The Initiative. Check out the character pieces and explanations, watch the story weave itself together through flashbacks and the eyes of singled out heroes. Amazing work for the most part. In fact, you might even call it…
The Gold Standard
