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.

Well, its been a busy couple of weeks, with a tonne of Secret Invasion stuff.

First up was Mighty Avengers, which filled in some of the backstory as to how and when Hank Pym was replaced. To be honest, this was the first MA issue I felt was a bit missable, although I can see how knowing when he was replaced was important to the rest of the story. The new serum he gives to Janet at the end of the issue is probably going to be significant later on though.

The issue did play into this week’s Avengers Initiative well though, which further filled in some of the gaps with Hank-Skrull’s backstory. I loved the running gag with the Skrull using his superskrull powers to escape various near-death situations and then having to explain it away with “I shrank really small”. The standout part of the book though was 3-D Man. Formerly Triathalon, I remember him being a character I didn’t care about back in the Busiek run. Although here he came across really well, when he discovers that he has the ability to detect Skrulls and finds an infiltrator on his new team.

This paid off well against the other plot thread, with good-guy Skrull Crusader realising that Hank Pym is a Skrull infiltrator, but then also realising he’s left it too long to reveal he’s a Skrull himself once the Invasion begins. Great title. I really need to pick up the trades of this series.

New Avengers followed suit with filling in the backstory. This time it was Spider-Woman and her replacement by the Skrull Queen. This one definitely ticked the boxes for me. Nice art, and we get a good look at how deeply involved in events in the MU the Skrulls have been. We also have them specifically single out the mutant population as a significant threat, which leads into House of M. I’m not going to be too surprised if we find out the Skrulls managed to influence Wanda into her “No more mutants” moment, as we now know that was a big win to the Skrull plans.

Meanwhile Secret Invasion Fantastic 4 #2 continued the story of Ben and Johnny trapped in the Baxter building, which was transported to the Negative Zone by Lyja in Secret Invasion #1 (something I hope is dealt with properly in the main series, as its a big event which has currently been completely ignored in the main narrative). This was a cracking read, largely due to the witty internal dialogue from Johnny. We also see him start to get through to Lyja, so it’ll be interesting to see how this plays out, as Franklin points out that their best bet to get home is via the super-powered prison from Civil War.

Finally I picked up the first issue of Front Line.

Carrying on the succes from the Civil War tie-in, this series aims to give us more of a street-level view of the action. Its a good start, with Ben Urich trapped in a hospital as the invasion hits, and various others trapped in Stark Tower, which goes into lockdown at the first sign of the Skrull virus. Although while I enjoyed the issue, picking up the full run will probably go against my desire to keep the tie-ins to a minimum, since I’m currently picking up 3 big events (although Batman RIP I’m just buying the main Batman book and my usual monthly fix of Tomasi’s Nightwing). Worth checking out though, its just that my budget won’t really stretch to it (I’m only really picking up the F4 tie-in because its only 3 issues long).

Well, I’m struggling to stay awake after a long shift at work, but I thought I’d still chuck up some comments on this week’s comics (at least the ones I’ve read tonight).

While I was saying last month that I was thinking of trade-waiting on JSA, I still ended up getting this month’s issue.  And I’m glad I did.   While the Kingdom Come stuff is stuff not working as well as I might’ve liked, the appearance of Gog, a soul surviving God of the Third World is an interesting idea.  Especially with us witnessing the birth of the Fifth World Gods over in Final Crisis.

Also I found it interesting that Gog seems to have been the mystery “burning man” from DCU #0.  Although I’m sure it was said somewhere else that that was supposed to have been Darkseid, the description also seems to fit Gog, going by what he said in this issue.

Unless its hinting to a parallel between Gog and Darkseid?   Its fairly cliche for these seemingly benign Gods to turn out to be nasty in some way.   It’ll be interesting to see how this arc plays out.

Meanwhile, over at Marvel, this week brought us Secret Invasion #3.  I must admit, this event is doing a cracking job of keeping the issues flowing.  The fact that the two Avengers books are so closely tied in is really helping keep up the momentum on this one.

That being said, I don’t feel either issue 2 or 3 has had the same punch as the first issue.  I’m really enjoying the story, but the main title’s been lacking that really epic feeling an event should have.    Saying that, I am pretty tired at the moment.

I don’t really buy the idea that Iron Man’s a Skrull.  While I thought Civil War was in many ways a badly-handled event, I’ve always felt that registration made a lot of sense, and the whole thing had left the Marvel Universe a more interesting place.   While it’d be nice to chalk some of Tony’s more dubious actions up to “he was a Skrull”, I think it’d be a real cop out.  Especially since the creators have said previously there was no unseen force manipulating the Civil War.   I think Skrull Spider-Woman is just messing with Tony’s head.

Did we really just see Echo getting killed off though?  That was unexpected.

Rann-Thanagar Holy War #2 didn’t grab me as much as the first issue (again, I’m knackered, so I suspect that is colouring my enjoyment of the books a bit tonight).  This felt very much like an issue which was just slowly moving things along, and introducing a main part of the mystery (the anomalies appearing over Rann).

I was really happy to see the Weird turn up though.  Admittedly, in light to the fact this series is a direct sequel to Mystery in Space, this makes a lot of sense.  But still, when he was revealed, I was slightly kicking myself for not realising who the ghost was.

My main interest in this series is still currently the Captain Comet plot.  We’re doubtless going to see him face something that forces him to confront his demons, but I’m interested in seeing where it goes with the subplot of him pretending to be his own nephew.

I’ll also be very interested to see if this series does resolve the Rann-Thanagar War, once and for all.  Its been running since Infinite Crisis, so Final Crisis does seem the logical place for it to draw to a close.  However, I do feel its invigorated DC’s non-GL space titles, and I’d like to see more of a cold war-style conflict replace the out-and-out inter-galactic war we’ve had for the last few years.

It would be good though, to have a series really focusing on the war.  While its been used to spark a few titles, it doesn’t feel like we’ve really delved into it in any way since the original mini.  A mini-series really playing up the fact that this is a huge inter-galactic war could be interesting.  There’s still some untapped story potential here I think, but I do also think it needs to move on soon, before it becomes stale.

Well, as a treat to myself following my IT disaster, and since I was in the shops buying a fresh copy of Oblivion anyway, I picked up the Iron Man movie game.

Ok, so I know. Its a movie tie-in. Possibly the only thing that tends to be worse is a movie tie-in to a video game. However, I found this one to be a lot of fun.

While it borrows from the film plot, the game embellishes it a lot with elements from the comics. Of course, if it had more strictly followed the plot of the movie, there wouldn’t have been as many chances for big fight scenes, but this allows the game to have its own identity.

The action picks up in the caves in Afghanistan. Tony’s already been captured and has just finished building his Mark 1 suit. Level 1 is a tutorial to the basics of moving around as you escape from your captors. Level 2 finds Tony back at Stark Industries. He’s announced (as in the film) that he’s no longer going to manufacture weapons. However at this point we deviate from the film. Angered by the lack of new weapons, one of Tony’s biggest customers, the Maggia stage a raid on his warehouses for any remaining supplies. Fortunately Tony’s in the area conducting flight tests on his new Mark 2 Iron Man suit.

Level 3 introduces the Mark 3 suit from the movie, which remains the default armour for the rest of the game. Further levels explore Tony ridding the Maggia of his weapons (which reminded me a lot of the Armour Wars), meanwhile Obidiah is revealed to be in league with AIM, and is working with them to reverse engineer the remains of Tony’s Mark 1 armour (again, similar to the movie).

The game uses this plot to introduce more armoured enemies. The Titanium Man turns up, as one of AIM’s first attempts to duplicate the armour, and further levels see Tony trying to shut down AIM’s operation, before learning of Obidiah’s involvement and confronting him in his Iron Monger armour.

The graphics are great. The movie suits are well captured, with the flaps in the Mark 2 and 3 suits used for flight captured, and there’s a small element of free roaming as you fly around levels dispatching villains, although this is still fairly linear, with fixed objectives, compared to say, Spider-Man 2, where you could happily ignore the missions and spend all your time web-slinging around New York (heck, that was the best part of the game).

At your command you get a variety of weapons including the trademark repulsors and uni-beam, along with the more regular missles and gattling gun. Through use of these different weapons you can slowly level each up, gaining new varients, or boosting the stats of the existing weapon.

The great thing though, is the unlockable armours. As you complete certain levels, you’ll unlock different armours you can use when replaying missions. There’s 6 available on the PC, with the first 3 being the movie suits. From their they’ve included 3 classic suits from the comics: the original tin can from Iron Man’s first appearance, his classic 70s red-and-gold armour, and, a personal favourite, the silver centurion armour. I’m always a sucker for this kind of thing and its great fun attacking Maggia’s Flying Fortress in the Silver Centurion suit.

The game’s probably not going to win many awards, but I found it a lot of fun. The graphics are great, the story’s had a bit of effort put in, and there’s certainly a kick to be had flying around as Iron Man, laying waste to AIM’s evil beekeepers with your repulsors.

I’ve put together a quick gameplay video showing off the different suits of armour and a couple of the levels in the game. Enjoy

Bit of a mixed bag this week comics-wise.

First up, and possibly the biggest release of the week for DC fans is the Final Crisis sketchbook.

As a tease of what’s upcoming I think it works well.  We get a look at the redesigns instore for some of the New Gods as well as a look at some of the new superhero teams Morrison has lined up.

As I’ve said before, I’m not a big fan of the New Gods, but I liked the look of these redesigns, and the concepts behind them (although I’m still unsure about the Darkseid having trouble moving thing).   We get a really interesting tease in terms of the “Multiverse Machine” (perhaps a sign that there’s a larger plan for the multiverse which will definitely see it sticking around?  I hope so), and a look at some of the new Japanese super teams (I love the Super Young Team a crazy Japanese version of the JLA).

Less successful for me, was Titans #2.   I’m not a dyed-in-the-wool Titans fan, although I enjoyed Geoff’s relaunch of the Teen Titans, and I like the characters well enough.   I thought I’d give this series a couple of issues, but to be honest, its not grabbing me.  Some of the characterisations felt a bit off to me, and I’m not big on the art.   The three crossovers going on that I’m picking up, I’m going to have to get brutal on titles that I don’t love, so I can’t see me picking up the next issue.

The first part of Batman RIP though, I enjoyed.  While it very much felt like a first part, with not a huge amount happening, and more introducing things, I’m definitely intrigued enough to be sticking with this crossover for now.  I have to say though, as someone who’s not been buying Morrison’s Batman, I loved the interaction between Bruce, Tim and Alfred.

From the non-DC side of things, I had Knights of the Old Republic #28.  Although not a series I talk about a lot on the blog, its one I’ve enjoyed immensely, possibly ranking alongside GL in terms of my pull list.

I have to say though, that the much-vaunted Vector crossover has done nothing for me.   I disliked the fact that most of the main cast were missing for the last 4 issues, and I found the art badly off-putting.   I can’t say I’ve been left with any real desire to pick up the rest of the crossover, and I’m really hoping that now its over, the series will get back to telling stories I more enjoy.    I will say though, that I did appreciate the writer trying to fit the crossover around his ongoing story of Zhane being on the run from the Jedi Masters.

From Marvel, I picked up Captain Britain #1.   Now being written by Paul Cornell (of Dr Who fame), and with “Secret Invasion” stamped on the top, I couldn’t resist.

I really enjoyed this book.  It was probably the surprise hit of the week for me, as something I ended up enjoying a lot more than I thought I would.  Its really grabbed me, and its really nice to be reading about a British hero, and set in Britain as well.   In that regard, I think Marvel have probably done a very wise thing in getting a British writer on board.   However, I’m going to stop saying “Britain” now, lest I end up sounding like an episode of League of Gentlemen.

I do love the setup though, with Captain Britain resolving to be more like a proper counterpart to Captain America, and the Skrull disguised as John Lennon who’s working with MI 13 (the agency Cap works for) to help find other Skrull infiltrators.  I’m definitely onboard for the next issue.

Has it been a month already?  Doesn’t feel like it.

Anyway, this week brought us both the second issue of Secret Invasion, and the new issue of The Mighty Avengers.  I’m really enjoying how both the Avengers titles are showing us different aspects of this invasion, with New Avengers giving us an interesting look at the Skrull side of things, showing the events prior to the invasion, while Mighty Avengers shows us what Nick Fury was up to after discovering the Invasion for himself, gathering together a team of new characters he knows he can trust, as only he knows about them.

Secret Invasion #2 lacked the big shocks of issue 1, but still delivered.   The issue focuses entirely on events in the Savage land, as the modern day Marvel heroes confront their retro selves, fresh from a Skrull ship.   It was interesting to see how some characters from the ship are quickly revealed as Skrulls.  Spider-Man and Hawkeye from the ship are revealed to be Skrulls in short order.  Of course, I suppose this doesn’t mean that the current versions aren’t Skrulls (double bluff), but it looks unlikely.  However, we’re also presented with the idea that this Mockingbird is the real deal, and she is reunited with our Hawkeye, finally giving the character a moment of happiness after the last couple of years (something he himself touches on at one point).

We’re also shown Tony flown to safety by Miss Marvel, and he promptly starts work on a new (presumably temporary) suit of armour (which suits me fine.  I’m not a fan of the Extremis suit - I far prefer the variation of it used in the movie).

Good second issue.  While lacking the gut-punch moments of the first, it keeps the story moving along nicely.  I’m looking forward to the next issue, which promises to widen the scope a bit, going back to the other Skrull attacks from the first issue.

Well, I’m just back from seeing Iron Man.

That was easily one of the best comic book movies to date. Robert Downey Jnr *is* Tony Stark in the way that Christopher Reeve was Superman. The film wisely kept itself centred around his performance as we see his decadent lifestyle (the scene on the private plane was a classic), followed by his drive to correct his mistakes.

The script stays faithful to the tone of the comics while chopping and changing some elements to work as an origin story. Obidiah Stane is reinvented as a life-long friend of Tony’s father, who runs Stark International alongside Tony. This change works well, as the character stays true to his comics-self, while the changing of his relationship to Tony allows them to spend time on other parts of the film.

The key thing about this film though, is that its fun. There were so many sequences where I was killing myself laughing (the scene on the private plane, the various boot-jet tests). But the humour doesn’t undercut the characters. There’s a great balance going on between the humour, the character work, and the action.

This summer’s off to a great start with Iron Man.

I’ve been reading discussions online regarding the recent Secret Invasion. Needless to say, a lot of the discussions are of the “Who is a Skrull” variety. Regardless of the big shocks in issue 1, you know there’s got to be a few other big names lurking in the wings to be revealed later on.

A lot of the speculation is centering around the ship of Marvel characters from the first issue. Most people seem to be agreeing that its unlikely that they’re all genuine or all Skrulls, and it’ll be a mix. So who’s likely to be a Skrull and who’s real?

Well, one big name being floated around that I agree with is Luke Cage. Luke Cage has been Brian Bendis’ pet project for the last few years, building him from a D-list to A-list character. Having him turn out to be a Skrull (and the one from the ship the real deal) would be high on the shock list, and I think quite likely as a result. Granted it throws a lot of Brian Bendis work on the character out of the window, but there’s some big story points as a result. Jessica Jones must suddenly deal with the fact that her husband wasn’t who she thought he was. Their child is half-Skrull (presumably), and, most importantly to the post-Civil War Marvel Universe. The leader of the biggest anti-Registration names (The New Avengers) turns out to be a Skrull. That’d be huge.

Captain America from the ship has to be a Skrull. Anything else would throw a spanner into Ed Brubaker’s story and that’s just not on. I’ve mentioned before how good his run is, and to ruin it for the sake of a big crossover would be unthinkable. Can’t see it happening.

Indeed, with a lot of characters from the ship, revealing them to be the genuine article would be a nightmare. You’d wreck havok with past stories going back 20/30 years.

So (while I think its unlikely) I’d like to see Spider-Man from the ship revealed as the original. Think about it. His continuity is already a mess thanks to One More Day. He’s (effectively) been retconned back to his 70s incarnation anyway. Plus you’d have the advantage of a 70s Spider-Man unencumbered by any dodgy, satanic deals.

The other suggestion I read which I thought was interesting was Hawkeye. Have the Clint from the ship the original, but have the current one not a Skrull. Basically the Skrull-Hawkeye was killed during Avengers Dissassembled, and when Wanda resurrected him during House of M, as she didn’t know he was a Skrull sleeper agent, that part got left out.

So you’d then have two Clint Barton’s running around. One of whom as Ronin, which would be quite appropriate given the backstory to that identity.

So, for a good while now, I’ve been a DC man.  I can’t really say when it happened.  Used to be big into Marvel when I first started getting into comics.  I bought Spider-Man during the Clone Saga (which I enjoyed - but I’ll agree it went on far longer than it should’ve), Iron Man, Deadpool, Heroes Reborn.   But at somepoint (well, for Spider-Man, it was when Aunt May was resurrected and Amazing #400 retconned) I slowly drifted over to DC.  But a good friend of mine is still a true believer and keeps me up-to-date with the goings on at Marvel (although I’ll admit to reading all Brubaker’s run on Captain America.  That’s comic book gold).

So, with the hype around Secret Invasion, and the artwork I enjoyed so much in Superman Birthright, I thought I’d check out the competition Final Crisis has.

Grant Morrison better have something special up his sleeves.   I’m a DC guy, but that was a phenomenal read.  Even as someone who hasn’t read much Marvel lately (albeit someone up-to-date on the current goings-on) even I was picking my jaw off the desk at some of the twists.

I’m definitely on board for the whole 8 issues (glad to see 8 issues and not 7 - recent events, *cough*Infinite Crisis*cough*, felt too rushed at 7 issues).

Of course, many recent events have proven that writing a killer first issue is only a fraction of the battle.   The afore-mentioned Infinite Crisis had a dynamite first issue as well (”This looks like a job for Superman!”), but fizzled out badly as it went on.   If Secret Invasion can maintain this level of quality though, DC should be a bit concerned.

My only concern: I looked at the checklist for tie in titles at the back and shook my head.   I’m intrigued to pick up some of them (both Avengers books at a minimum I’d have thought), but there’s no way I’m buying them all.  I fell into that trap with Infinite Crisis, and if the story can’t stand on its own 8 issues, then I’ll have a problem with it.

A new Iron Man trailer has turned up on MySpace. We see a lot more of Stark in this one than the superbowl spot, and he gets some excellent lines