Secret Invasion #4

Jul 10

Well, this week saw us hit the midway point with Marvel’s Secret Invasion event.

I must admit, despite a strong start, I feel the main series is really starting to struggle. For the last 3 issues, its really felt like precious little has happened to move the story forward. This is underlined by last month’s cliffhanger, as Fury and his Secret Commandos entered the fray.

And this month they did pretty much nothing. We got yet more pages of Skrull fighting, but in terms of moving the plot forward, there was precious little. In fact this month’s cliffhanger strikes me as the same as last month’s where we’re supposed to think “Oh! <x> has turned up. Not its on!”. (Substitute Nick Fury with Thor as appropriate).

Its a pity, as this is a strong event, but I feel that without my reading the tieins, I’d have probably lost all momentum on this story by now. I’d be wondering who the heck these people Fury turned up with are, I’d be wondering what the heck happened to the Fantastic 4 (seriously, the disappearance of the Baxter Building is a huge event that’s being completely ignored by the main book). As it stands, I’m wondering who this woman floating through space onto the Skrull ships is supposed to be. I’m guessing a SHIELD agent, but am I supposed to have recognised her?

I’ve been enjoying this event up until now, and the tie-ins, and first issue show the potential of this event. But the main book needs to start picking up the pace I feel.

On the flipside, this month also saw the release of Captain Britain and MI13 #3. Probably the best Secret Invasion book going at the moment, and as a non-Marvel guy, once Secret Invasion is over this book will probably rank only along with Captain America as the two Marvel books I keep collecting.

Also unlike Secret Invasion, this book has a real feeling of movement in its plotline. Captain Britain’s return to life was brilliantly handled. A really epic, punch-the-air moment. Nice to see Merlin key to Brian’s return (again), and the use of the Fury fragment was a nice touch.

While I’m not really up on a lot of the mythology and characters that are in this title, its a great read, and to my mind is absolutely key at the moment to giving the Skrull invasion a more global feel than its getting in any of the main Secret Invasion books.

Captain Britain, Comics, Marvel Comics, Secret Invasion

Comments

Pie Man 70

July 11th, 2008 at 9:36 AM

The woman is space you should recognise, she was the head of the SWORD space station in #1, come on, keep track. Will comment furtehr once I’ve picked up the issue but the event may be the first wehre we say “You know what, actually 6 issues woudl have been better, see how #5 pans out.

Not sticking with the initiative then?
Alan

July 11th, 2008 at 9:46 AM

Bah. Its been 40 odd pages of random Skrull fight scenes since issue #1

I can’t be the only one who’s a bit annoyed we’ve not had more big reveals regarding that Skrull ship either.

I know Bendis is known for his decompressed storytelling, but I just think this series needs to get moving. Certainly the last 3 issues could’ve been cut down to 2 issues and been just as effective I think. Hopefully the second half of the series will pick up the pace.

On the flipside, Final Crisis is going with a slow burn, but despite that, there’s still a feeling that its going somewhere across the two issues we’ve had (of course, if its still going at the same pace by issue 4 then there’ll probably be complaints, however given that its all supposed to hit the fan in issue 3, I doubt that’ll be the case).

Good point, I forgot about the Initiative. Ok, maybe 3 Marvel titles

Oh, and I *didn’t* pick up Final Crisis: Requiem this week. Look at me avoiding tie ins. Yay me!
Pie Man 70

July 14th, 2008 at 8:37 AM

Agreed that the last 3 issues could haev been compressed. probably thought this was the best of the 3, liked the reference that none of the various resistance groups coudl trust each other. Also think it has shown the first bit of mis-sequencing since the start of SI, the last issue of Ms Marvel seems to take place after SI #4, if any of you are concerned, She’s fine. But you are right, at the moment it does look like Bendis wrote a 6 part story and was given 8 to tell it in. But yes, we have had 3 issues of random Skrull fights. It does seem to be getting moving now though, hopefully with Thor and Cap (It will be the new Bucky cap you realise) on the move and Tony recovering we should be getting somewhere next issue. In fact, Thor, Cap, Iron Man, I say Pimms o’clock. Oh wait I mean, and there came a day…..
Alan

July 14th, 2008 at 12:44 PM

I probably should be fairer about the “loads of random Skrull fight scenes” that I’ve been. Given that there’s an invasion going on there should be a lot of them, its just that they haven’t seemed to move the story along. Even if it focused on the Skrulls winning more, then it’d be moving the story forward.

Agree that it looks like Tony should be back on his feet, and with Bucky Cap and Thor turning up, could we be looking at a quasi-original Avengers team coming to the fore?

I did read a good point online though. Black Widow was ruddy lucky that Beast and Jean were Skrulls. That could’ve easily gone wrong for her.

Continuity-mangling aside though, its a bit disappointing that so many of the ship’s occupants are being revealed as Skrulls. I’d have liked it to be more mixed up at this stage.
Pie Man 70

July 15th, 2008 at 8:41 AM

Well you coudl always take it tht they may not have been the ships occupants. Its teh problem with everyone being separated. As for the story moving, I’m guessing bendis is trying to show how events have ufolded, indeed why no-one has commented on the baxter building being a big hole to the Negative Zone at the moment is most likely because the invasion has been on for around an hour tops, Bendis hasn’t exactly managed to execute this adequately yet mind but if this is the pace then the invasion will only last until tea time. I am also waiting for someone’s “Shoot first” policy to kill an innocent. In fact if we have a significant death in this series I’d hope it comes from friendly fire.
Alan

July 15th, 2008 at 8:54 AM

Well, current Jean is still dead (I think. Its hard to tell) and current Beast’s a cat, so it was definitely the ones from the ship. I like how most reviewers have pointed out the flaw in Black Widow’s strategy though

She does come across as hard-as-nails which I really liked though. While I may be complaining about the pacing, there’s still some good stuff going on. The villains entering the fray should be interesting.

The fact that so little time’s past is interesting. I wonder if there’s going to be a timejump at somepoint in the story. It’d be odd if this whole thing was over by teatime, as you say.
Pie Man 70

July 15th, 2008 at 10:07 AM

Thats my suspicion, I reckon #5 is hopefully going to give us a big throw down where the humans loose due to not knowing who to trust, #6 and #7 will hopefully flash forward to earth under Skrulls, or at least with a bigger foothold, to then have a way of detecting them found and a full retalliation in #7-#8
Alan

July 15th, 2008 at 1:48 PM

That sounds pretty smart. The main thing I agree on is that issue 5 should see the humans basically losing, but the resistance movements starting to band together.

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