Mighty Avengers: Secret Invasion Book One

Writer: Brian Michael Bendis
Artists: Alex Maleev, Khoi Pham, John Romita Jr.
Collects: Mighty Avengers #12-15

So, yeah. Secret Invasion. Kinda sucked, sad to say. So what the hell am I doing reading a tie-in? Curiosity, mostly. The bulk of Secret Invasions intrigue had to do with who was a Skrull and when they had replaced the real McCoy. The main series offered almost none of that, so what the hell. May as well read a tie-in volume and see if the whole thing could have been as interesting as I thought, right?

This is the first of two Secret Invasion tie-in volumes for Mighty Avengers. Collects four of the eight tie-in issues. Why only four? Well, if they did the whole eight, they wouldn't be able to milk the consumer for another fifteen bucks SRP, now would they?

The tie-ins are kind of scatter-shot, it seems. They jump around a lot and don't offer any kind of continuous narrative. It's more a snapshot of different characters leading up to Secret Invasion, basically showing in detail how folks were abducted, when and why. As such, much of it is very continuity heavy. If you haven't really kept up with Marvel around this time, you're not going to get a lot out of this; it seems to assume you've been reading a lot of Marvel comics, looking for clues.

The first two issues collected here follow Nick Fury from his disappearance post Secret Wars on. It's really the best story of the volume; and I enjoyed it more than I did Secret Invasion itself, which ended up being a giant extended fight and little else. We see Fury catch wind of the invasion long before the heroes did, quickly settling in to save the world yet again. We see the start of the Caterpillars - who are part of the Secret Warriors series - and even get a playful jab or two at Samuel Jacks-I mean Ultimate Nick Fury.

The only thing wrong with it is that it feels less like a direct tie-in and more a proper prequel to the invasion itself or at least the start of one, seeing as it's two issues here. Perhaps it would have been better served as an actual prequel mini? Or maybe not, I dunno; after all, Fury and his troops ended up being little more than several more bodies in the fray of Secret Invasion anyways. The event should have just been about Nick Fury going undercover and turning back the invasion before the other heroes even knew what the deal was. That probably wouldn't have sold as much though.

These two issues sees Bendis work with one of his best collaborators - and the favorite of many fans - Alex Maleev. His art is dirty and grimy, which is really best suited for crime comics. Thankfully, this story fits right in his wheelhouse. Removed from the colorful superheroics, this story is a bit darker and more street level. Maleev does good work, though it's not entirely my favorite stuff.

The next issue is a one-off about what the Skrulls want to do about the Sentry, which amounts to "shift into the Void and the dude will totally freak". It feels like a waste of an issue to me. It's understandable that the Skrulls would be concerned about Captain Overpowered Schizo, but Secret Invasion made it clear enough that the Skrulls had tricked Sentry - being the easily manipulated wreck he is - without a whole issue dedicated to Skrulls standing around going "dude, we should totally tweak the headcase".

Khoi Pham does the art and it's rather respectable. Nothing spectacular though. Some of his faces are just way too funny, though they're clearly not intended to be. Sentry's "NOOOOO" face late in the issue is just too much.

Rounding out this thin volume is a whole issue dedicated to how the Skrulls totally roped in Hank Pym, got him out of the way and replaced him. We get the gist of his life as it went wrong before the switch - his wife's a drunkard and then leaves him when he gets irritated because she won't take her drunk ass to bed and sleep it off - and then he cheats on The Drunken Wasp with some blond university student. Pym's clearly kind of a sleaze; that or he's a moron who doesn't exactly seem to understand that cheating on the boozer is probably not the best reaction. I won't spoil how he's replaced, but come on, you've probably figured it out by this point in the description.

JRjr. does the art. He seems to be rather polarizing, but I like what I saw here. It's just a shame there isn't much for him to work with here. It's very much a talky issue with only a quick bit of action late in the book; Pym goes down like a wuss before anything interesting can happen.

Here's the problem. While the first two issues are fine, the second two don't work quite as well. They're exactly what I feared we'd get when it became clear the flashbacks would be separate from the main story. They're padded as all get out to fill twenty two pages, all based around continuity minutia and how so-and-so got jacked. There's a lot in the latter two issues that could have been a part of Secret Invasion proper and compressed down to a couple of panels; instead, they take one very minor cog and throw a full issue behind it.

What we're left with is a feeling that a lot of nothing happened with a few little nuggets of gold buried within. I genuinely like the Nick Fury half of this volume - though I've got no clue how much more of it there is - but the other stuff feels like it's been ruined by circumstance. Still, all of it held my attention. I'm not sure how I feel about all of this, because I've got issues with the book and yet I actually feel like I got more out of it than Secret Invasion itself. Yet again, there's the feeling that Bendis might have had a great story on his hands had the crucial elements not been scattered to the four winds.

The Score: 6 out of 10

Okay, but only half of this volume feels genuinely good on its own merits. More evidence Bendis had a grand plan in mind that I genuinely wish had worked out. I really enjoyed the Fury stuff, but I'm not sure it's worth buying this for.

Secret Invasion (comics)

Writer: Brian Michael Bendis
Artist: Lenil Yu
Collects: Secret Invasion #1-8

Well now, that was certainly a waste of time.

Marvel doesn't exactly have a great track record with events in the 2000's. Most of them sucked. Harsh, maybe, but it's true. Some did have redeeming qualities, but I can't think of one that was genuinely good.

I thought this would be the one to break the trend. It had a good setup - hell, if we're being honest the entirety of New Avengers up to that point had been leading to it - a decent hook and it had readers completely engaged. People were scrambling about, searching past Bendis comics for hints or clues; that's pretty much when you know you've got everyones attention and interest. It should have worked.

Should have.

Bendis and Marvel promised that you could read just the main miniseries and get a complete story, so I put that to the test. Well, the claim certainly holds up, mostly because there's nothing here. Skrulls invade and the heroes fight back. That's it. This comic is one giant brawl between heroes and aliens. A brawl that someone decided it should take eight issues to tell. Even on a payoff level it doesn't deliver.

At one point, the entire event was going to be split between Mighty and New Avengers, showing characters abductions and replacements by Skrull agents in the past while the battle raged in the present. Think what DC did with Sinestro Corps War. But eventually they went with a standalone miniseries, with all the abductions relegated to the tie-ins. The reason boils down to money, but it damaged the integrity of the event; eight issues of fighting could have been eight issues of deftly plotted invasions, reveals, answers as to when people were abducted and all the trimmings. Instead, we get filler.

Now lets be real here; the question of who was a Skrull and who wasn't comes out to about ninety percent of the buildup to Secret Invasion, including the ad campaigns. With all the explanations held elsewhere, the most interesting part of the story is gone. It's like they stripped the meat off a bone and then handed it to us. As a result, we get eight issues of fighting in the Savage Land and New York City. Eight issues of fighting that had the entire line tying into it for upwards of ten months.

Worse still, after all that buildup, the Skrull reveals aren't even all that interesting. There are maybe four major reveals and they all happen in the first issue. Half of them aren't even superheroes. There was a very real fear going around at the time that the event was going to be used as a cop-out for the actions of certain characters over the past couple of years. Turns out Secret Invasion didn't pull any of that at all - Bendis pokes fun at it with a few fake-outs - but the flipside is that we went through months of characters braying about how they couldn't trust anyone - to the point where fans were saying "enough already, lets get to the invasion" - only to have almost all of the heroes be the real deal. All that hysteria over nothing. Moderation is good - and if the story went too far in the opposite direction I would have been pissed about that - but it felt like the infiltration didn't have the impact that it needed.

Secret Invasion is also packed with filler. Lots of it. Seriously, there are sequences where it's so obvious wheels are being spun because "holy crap I have to fill eight issues". This is at its most noticeable when characters seem to flit in and out of the story at random, ultimately doing nothing of consequence. One of the most ridiculous involves Marvel Boy. We see him from time to time in the course of the story before he's inspired to join the battle. He then makes his presence known on the battlefield, telling the Skrulls that the battle is over and they've lost. We don't even see him again after that aside from him being present in a crowd scene. He just vanishes from the story. That's just one example; they're all over this book.

There's also an occasion where a scene just straight up does not make sense. The climax of the book involves some last resort doomsday weapon the Skrulls had. What it is or how it's actually resolved, I really don't know. Bendis doesn't tell us anything about it, much less how it's resolved. It looks like a tornado hits the character in question and they dissolve on impact. Whatever it was, it happens and then the story goes on its way with no explanation in sight.

I'm not even going to touch the ending, because it's simply insane and makes no sense whatsoever; I realize Marvel - and Bendis - wanted a certain status quo, but what they went for is more like trying to shove the meat clever in a slot made for the steak knife.

It's written, well, like a Bendis comic. Which is to say that it's at times overly quippy. Better people than I have pointed out Bendis' flaws as a scripter - there are times where everyone sounds the same, it's all too fixated on cool lines and so on - but the man can write a good comic. I've read some of them. This isn't one. Most of his bad habits as a writer are on display here.

Lenil Yu does the art; I can't say I'm a fan, but I don't dislike his work either. He does well enough - and packs detail into the fights - but there are times when his art is too scratchy for my liking. I guess it comes down to my personal preference. Others seem to get more mileage out of it than I did.

At any rate, this story is deeply, deeply flawed. There is so much wrong with it that I simply cannot recommend it. Bendis had a good thing going here, but whether it's the format getting in the way or otherwise, it just didn't work. Damn shame too; part of me thinks it should have worked. I hate it when potential is wasted.

My Opinion: Skip It