Secret Invasion
Secret Invasion spoilers ahead:
Secret Invasion finished this past week. I was waiting for something big to happen, but this series really ended disappointingly. Some of the stuff I had problems with:
1. This was MAYBE four issues of story spread out over eight issues. Quick, someone name something that happened between issues #1 and #8 and the issue it happened in. Bet you couldn't think of anything beyond, "Skrulls and heroes fight each other," except maybe for when Cap and Thor showed up.
2. It should have been the Avengers event it was clearly conceived as. The non-Avengers characters, with the exception of Reed Richards, felt bolted on and never really did anything.
3. What was the point of Nick Fury's team? I don't mean the commercial reason - selling a book abotu Nick Fury's team - I mean the storytelling reason. They didn't really do anything of note except waste several issues of Mighty Avengers.
4. Jan's death didn't work for me at all. For starters, she had little to do with the rest of the story. Yes, Hank was a Skrull and she obviously has a long-time relationship with the Skrulls. Despite this, though, she barely appeared during the story and the build-up to it.
More importantly, I didn't CARE that she'd died. The Wasp hasn't really been an important characters since at least the late 80s. Sure, she's been a member of various Avengers team, but the most notable thing she did was get smacked by her husband and that was forever ago. This means that her death, to have any emotional impact, has to be sufficiently built up to. We have to be given a reason within THIS story to care. I get the sense that she was chosen because OMG FOUNDING AVENGER. Who cares?
5. Did anyone else find it retarded that the Skrulls brought ship of human prisoners with them to Earth?
6. Can someone tell me what Thor did to the Wasp? The narration seemed to imply that he did something, but I'll be damned if I could tell from the art.
7. Outside of the Savage Land diversion, the paranoia angle wasn't sufficiently paid off. It's ridiculous to me that none of the heroes except Nick Fury seem to have considered that there are STILL Skrulls within their team.
8. The Skrulls are shapeshifters. I found it stupid that the queen wouldn't think to change her shape so she's not a giant target. If someone like Obsborn is able to kill you, you didn't do a very good job of protecting yourself.
9. How boring was it that ALL of the heroes on that ship in the Savage Land were Skrulls? They couldn't stick one or two real heroes in there to make it interesting? How much sadder would it have been if the Mockingbird who got killed in the Savage Land WASN'T a Skrull, but the real thing? But, of course, then Bendis couldn't inexplicably bring back the real Mockingbird at the end.
10. The religion angle didn't really pay off in any significant way. If the idea was that the reader is supposed to sympathize with them a little because they lost their homeworlds...well, that didn't happen. Rather than having Skrulls running around Manhattan slaughtering innocent people (hello, Secret Invasion: Frontline!), it would have been a lot more interesting if, while targeting the heroes, they were able to rally the general citizenry to their side. It seemed like this WAS part of the Skrulls' strategy, at least at the beginning, but then it got dumped along with all of the other interesting ideas.
There was just so much wasted potential in this series. The build-up was well done and the first issue was really solid. Then...nothing. The only part that worked for me, at least on an emotional level, was the Luke/Jessica subplot. Did Marvel seriously think that, after all of that build-up, what we wanted was seven straight issues of heroes and Skrulls punching each other? What were they thinking? After about issue #3 or so, they could have been fighting the Badoon and the story would barely have changed.
The more I think about it, the more of a letdown this story was. On an issue-by-issue level, it was entertaining, at least for the first half, at which point I realized that it would just be lots of punching. I just hope that the next event turns out better.
It probably won't, though.
Secret Invasion finished this past week. I was waiting for something big to happen, but this series really ended disappointingly. Some of the stuff I had problems with:
1. This was MAYBE four issues of story spread out over eight issues. Quick, someone name something that happened between issues #1 and #8 and the issue it happened in. Bet you couldn't think of anything beyond, "Skrulls and heroes fight each other," except maybe for when Cap and Thor showed up.
2. It should have been the Avengers event it was clearly conceived as. The non-Avengers characters, with the exception of Reed Richards, felt bolted on and never really did anything.
3. What was the point of Nick Fury's team? I don't mean the commercial reason - selling a book abotu Nick Fury's team - I mean the storytelling reason. They didn't really do anything of note except waste several issues of Mighty Avengers.
4. Jan's death didn't work for me at all. For starters, she had little to do with the rest of the story. Yes, Hank was a Skrull and she obviously has a long-time relationship with the Skrulls. Despite this, though, she barely appeared during the story and the build-up to it.
More importantly, I didn't CARE that she'd died. The Wasp hasn't really been an important characters since at least the late 80s. Sure, she's been a member of various Avengers team, but the most notable thing she did was get smacked by her husband and that was forever ago. This means that her death, to have any emotional impact, has to be sufficiently built up to. We have to be given a reason within THIS story to care. I get the sense that she was chosen because OMG FOUNDING AVENGER. Who cares?
5. Did anyone else find it retarded that the Skrulls brought ship of human prisoners with them to Earth?
6. Can someone tell me what Thor did to the Wasp? The narration seemed to imply that he did something, but I'll be damned if I could tell from the art.
7. Outside of the Savage Land diversion, the paranoia angle wasn't sufficiently paid off. It's ridiculous to me that none of the heroes except Nick Fury seem to have considered that there are STILL Skrulls within their team.
8. The Skrulls are shapeshifters. I found it stupid that the queen wouldn't think to change her shape so she's not a giant target. If someone like Obsborn is able to kill you, you didn't do a very good job of protecting yourself.
9. How boring was it that ALL of the heroes on that ship in the Savage Land were Skrulls? They couldn't stick one or two real heroes in there to make it interesting? How much sadder would it have been if the Mockingbird who got killed in the Savage Land WASN'T a Skrull, but the real thing? But, of course, then Bendis couldn't inexplicably bring back the real Mockingbird at the end.
10. The religion angle didn't really pay off in any significant way. If the idea was that the reader is supposed to sympathize with them a little because they lost their homeworlds...well, that didn't happen. Rather than having Skrulls running around Manhattan slaughtering innocent people (hello, Secret Invasion: Frontline!), it would have been a lot more interesting if, while targeting the heroes, they were able to rally the general citizenry to their side. It seemed like this WAS part of the Skrulls' strategy, at least at the beginning, but then it got dumped along with all of the other interesting ideas.
There was just so much wasted potential in this series. The build-up was well done and the first issue was really solid. Then...nothing. The only part that worked for me, at least on an emotional level, was the Luke/Jessica subplot. Did Marvel seriously think that, after all of that build-up, what we wanted was seven straight issues of heroes and Skrulls punching each other? What were they thinking? After about issue #3 or so, they could have been fighting the Badoon and the story would barely have changed.
The more I think about it, the more of a letdown this story was. On an issue-by-issue level, it was entertaining, at least for the first half, at which point I realized that it would just be lots of punching. I just hope that the next event turns out better.
It probably won't, though.