Newsarama have put up Diamond’s end-of-year sales figures, which show that Marvel, and specifically Secret Invasion really handed out kickings all round, with 8 of the top ten sellers being the Secret Invasion issues.

I suppose this shouldn’t really be a surprise.  Secret Invasion was hugely popular, and despite sagging in the middle (IMO) was still a very enjoyable event.   I guess its just a surprise seeing it there so starkly, that aside from Final Crisis #1 and Uncanny X-Men #500 nothing could top Marvel’s big event. Not even DC’s own, much-publicised event.

I’ve talked about my feelings towards Final Crisis and Secret Invasion in length here, so its not really worth going over all that again, but I find it a shame that the sales are so easily grabbed by Marvel. I mean, what did DC do wrong? Final Crisis was hyped at the cons, features one of DC’s best writing talents, includes the all-important Crisis name, and a recognisable big-bad in terms of Darkseid. The fact that only its first issue cracked the top 10 is disappointing.

So how did Secret Invasion prove so popular and outdo all competition? As I’ve said (and read online other people saying the same thing), I felt the series itself sagged badly in the middle, but it still dominated the sales charts none-the-less.

Was it down to the simplicity of the idea (Skrulls can be anyone and have invaded. Queue fight scene)?
Was it down to the instant pull of that first issue with all its shocks, and that was enough to ensure the remaining 7 issues were top sellers (versus Final Crisis’ slow burn approach)?
Was it simply down to the popularity and strong market position of the Marvel Universe as a whole, meaning any event they put out was going to dominate?
Is this a vote for the all encompassing summer event, with lots of tie-ins? Certainly more books in a month adds to the epic feel of the event. While costing the reader a fortune, there’s no doubt it adds some weight to what’s happening in the main mini-series.
Am I wrong about the mini-series and was it simply the best book on the market all last year (I find that hard to believe. Captain America for a start).

Not sure quite where I’m going with this train of thought, but are we simply in a situation where Marvel could come up with any old rubbish, tack “Big Summer Event” on the cover, and be guaranteed a mammoth seller?

I know for me, it was probably the killer twists in the first issue that really suckered me in and made me want to see how it was all going to end. After the gut-punch of Jarvis being a Skrull, I was really waiting for further twists, and finding out what had happened to the originals and how they would come back. In those respects I was largely let down, with no real further shock reveals as to who was a Skrull, and the matter of the originals being rushed in the final issue. I’ve said elsewhere (and possibly here) that I frequently felt that Secret Invasion (the mini-series) peaked with its first issue. That book was easily one of the most exciting comics of the year as the scope of the Skrull plans was revealed, and what followed never quite seemed to live up to the promise of that initial issue.

Another aspect that kept me buying the series was the event as a whole more than the series itself. I was really enjoying the idea of the world-spanning invasion and tie-ins like Captain Britain and The Initiative really helped sell the idea that the Skrull invasion was having a big impact. This momentum kept me interesting in Secret Invasion The Event, more than Secret Invasion The Series.

Can DC turn things around next year? Final Crisis is wrapping up and we’ve got Blackest Night to look forward to. Sinestro Corps was a huge success for DC, so Blackest Night is going to have a lot of good feeling behind it. Blackest Night is also sounding like its going to have much larger scope than Final Crisis. Whereas DC have tried to keep Final Crisis contained to just a few core books, there’s a vibe from various interviews that we’re going to see a lot more tie-ins with Blackest Night, and I must say I’m ok with this. Prior to 2008 I’d have argued more for what Final Crisis has done, but I do think that the tie-ins helped give Secret Invasion a weight that Final Crisis (as an event, not a story) has lacked. Kudos for DC trying something more contained though.

And what about the other companies? While I admit I (like so many others) don’t buy a lot from non-DC or Marvel companies, it’d be nice to see one or two of them crack the top 10.

Of course, its worth noting that one area DC did very well in is the top 10 trades, with stalwarts Watchmen, Dark Knight Returns and Killing Joke all still selling well. Y The Last Man also appears heavily (and I must admit to buying the first 4 trades of that series myself last year).

So, in the final analysis? Well, I think my original feelings still stand, in that Final Crisis seems to be (for me) telling the better, more layered story, while Secret Invasion suffered from really weird pacing issues. It felt like we spent an eternity in the Savage Land, where pretty much nothing of consequence actually happened. Then in this finale, several big events happen in a matter of panels. Things like the Wasp’s fate, and the discovery of the original people duplicated by the Skrulls felt incredibly rushed given the meandering pace earlier in this series. Its similar to the problem I had a couple of issues ago, where once Reed Richards was freed, suddenly the whole invasion was being wrapped up in a matter of minutes. All this series seemed to show was that for all their planning, the Skrulls really sucked when the chips were down. While the feeling of threat was high during infiltration, it felt that once the heroes had stopped mucking about the Savage Land, getting shot of the Skrulls was about 5 minutes work.

There’s still some dangling plot threads as well. I’m not sure (as I got bored of collecting the Avengers tie ins), but did the “He loves you” thing ever get explained? It seemed to be really significant early on, but never actually went anywhere. I was waiting for some big revelation as to who “he” was.

However, I will say that overall, and despite these negatives, I’ve quite enjoyed this event. While the main series has been a bit of a dissappointment at times, the overall event, and the infiltration build up was a lot of fun. The idea of not being able to trust anyone was fun, but it was a shame that the series seemed to blow all its big reveals in the first issue. I’d have loved to see a couple of other big twist reveals in the last couple of issues to really throw things for a loop, but it never happened. Really I tend to think this series peaked with that first brilliant issue.

Lord help me, while I’m currently jettisoning DC monthlies, some of this Marvel Dark Reign stuff looks really interesting. I’m intrigued to grab the first couple of issues of Dark Avengers, to see what they’re all about (and who they are). And the upcoming Iron Man stuff looks very interesting, with him taking the blame for the whole Skrull mess, and ending up wanted and on the run. Really, for all the dodgy, dodgy stuff Iron Man got up to in Civil War, I can’t help but feel he’s taking the blame for this one unfairly. In SI #8, Thor turns his back on him, saying its because its his fault the invasion happened, and I just felt sorry for Tony. Now if Thor had said “Thou madest an evil clone of me!” then fair enough.

I’m determined to keep my monthly costs as low as I can, but I reckon I’ll be picking up a few of the Dark Reign titles anyway, at least for a month or two to see what its about. Thank God DC cancelled the Bat-titles I was buying.

Following on from last month’s issue, this part is effectively one giant fight scene between the humans and the Skrulls. There’s some great moments though, best of which is probably Hawkeye’s revenge for the fake Mockingbird (seriously, when are Marvel going be just get him back in his proper ID, this is the second time this mini that a big deal’s been made of him picking up a bow and arrow again).

Once again I can’t help but feel the issue’s cliffhanger is pretty weak. The improved growth formula Skrulljacket gave to the Wasp back in New Avengers (or was it Mighty?) comes into play, but to be honest its left incredibly unclear what’s actually happening to her.

Issue 7 was always going to be a big fight scene, so this manages it well. Overall, I still feel this series never quite managed to top issue 1, but this was fun. I’m increasingly concerned that issue 8 isn’t really going to resolve much however (with all the Dark Reign stuff being pushed). I hope I’m wrong as I can’t see myself picking up another event (as I’m trying to cut down my pull list), and I’ll be quite annoyed if I don’t get some kind of resolution.

This week also gave us the latest issue of New Avengers. Whereas last week’s Mighty Avengers was probably the worst tie-in yet (there wasn’t really anything that hadn’t happened in a few panels in SI itself and as a result the story was fantastically absent), I really enjoyed this week’s New Avengers tie-in. Switching from the usual view of what the heroes have been up to, Bendis switches events to the villain’s perspective as we find Madame Masque captured by SHIELD and The Hood coming to her rescue. Only one killing the SHIELD agents holding her, they’re revealed as Skrulls and they both realise they were going to substitute Masque with one of their own, and that something big is going on.

While some of these tie-ins haven’t really worked for me, there’s always fun to be had seeing the various parties figure out what’s going on, be it the Avengers discovering the Skrull Elektra, Fury finding the Skrulls infiltrating SHIELD, or in this case, the villains realising the Skrulls are trying to infiltrate their own. I’ve not really seen the Hood before this, but I was aware that Marvel were pushing him as the new Kingpin. He seems like an interesting character, barely able to hold his alliance of villains together in the face of the Skrull threat, but its interesting that, like the 3D-Man, his hood allows him to spot the Skrulls. I’m looking forward to the next part of things from the villain’s perspective.

Captain America #42 wraps up Brubaker’s The Man Who Stole America arc, as well as many of the plots he began at the start of his run. With Bucky just having publicly launched himself into the limelight as Captain America to stop the Red Skull’s daughter assassinating the presidential candidates, he has to ensure she’s stopped, while The Falcon and Black Widow attempt to save Sharon Carter from the Red Skull’s stronghold.

Its a nice tie-up to many of the plots Brubaker’s been running. It was nice to see Bucky and Black Widow hook up at the end, and it’ll be interesting to see how Sharon’s memory loss is dealt with in later issues. I also liked the Red Skull’s fate: that scene really captured his horror at being trapped as he is. There’s still a few outstanding questions however, the exact plan that the Red Skull had involving Doom’s time machine for example. It seemed to be key to transferring the Skull to a new body, but what exactly they were trying to do remained a bit vague. We’ve also still got the 50s Captain America out there. I’m definitely looking forward to seeing where this series goes, now that Bucky’s establishing himself as Captain America.

One of my other favourite series to rave about is, of course, Avengers: The Initiative. Following up on last month’s issue, the Skrulls have arrived at Camp Hammond in force, and with most of the recruits out fighting in New York, only a few trainers, and Ant Man remain. Its yet another great issue from Dan Slott, and I just loved Ant Man. I missed his solo series from a couple of years back, but I’m definitely going to have to check out the trades. I loved his reluctance to play hero, and how his first reaction to trouble was to hide. I especially loved how that proved to give him an advantage against the Skrulls as he remains undiscovered while they took down the other heroes. It’ll be interesting to see what he’s discovered about their plans.

To be honest, I found issue 6 a bit disposable. Whereas issue 5 felt like everything was back on track again finally, this issue seemed to largely serve to setup yet more big splash scenes. I don’t mind that for this issue, but if issue 7 doesn’t have a lot going on (and as the penultimate issue, I’d be surprised if it didn’t), then we’ll find ourselves back in the same situation as in earlier issues in this series, where one or two small things happening, doesn’t really seem enough to justify a whole issue.

We also finally get pay off for the Cap/Thor tease a couple of issues ago. Except that its basically a couple of panels with Thor commenting that Bucky isn’t Cap, and Bucky retorting that Thor’s supposed to be dead.

There’s also another reference to the Wasp, hinting back to the Hank Pym issue of Mighty (?) Avengers, and you get the feeling that whatever they’ve done to poor Janet, its going to be pretty nasty.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m enjoying Secret Invasion:The Event, but in many ways, the main mini-series seems to be in place largely for all the spin-offs to jump off from. Unlike Final Crisis, in which the story seems to be pretty well contained in the mini-series, Secret Invasion seems to require the tie-ins more to get more enjoyment from the larger storyline.

New Avengers revisits the Skrull Throneworld after the Illuminati’s disasterous retaliation. Here we get to see the Skrulls attempting to discover a way to infiltrate Earth undetected, and the throwaway comment from SI #5, where Reed Richards hints that its all his fault is addressed, as we get to see the role he (unwittingly) played in the Skrull’s infiltration. Its all still background that anyone just wanting to read the main series could cheerfully read though, but its interesting none-the-less. In retrospect, I think the best way (for me at least) to read this series would’ve been to get the main series, and then buy the trades of New and Mighty Avengers for the background. There’s been little in them that’s been vital to the main series, but they do provide some interesting looks into what went into the Skrull Invasion.

Mighty Avengers continues looking at Hank Pym’s replacement, and we’re introduced to an interesting idea. That replacing Pym seems to cause some instability in the agents, and there’s the clear indication that the Pym agents have a far higher tendancy to decide the whole thing’s a bad idea, than the other Skrulls. The Skrulls are putting this down to the fact that Hank Pym isn’t as great as he thinks he is, and this instability is bleeding over into their replacement agents, but you can’t help wonder if there’s something else to it. Despite his issues, there’s no doubt that Pym is one of the smartest minds in the Marvel Universe. He’s no Richards or Tony Stark, but then, the Skrulls haven’t replaced them. Maybe we’d see similar behaviour from Skrulls replacing the other big brains, and infact, the Pym Skrulls are onto something?

Avengers Initative continues to be one of the best SI tie-in titles I’m picking up. Here, we revisit 3D-Man, who survives his Quinjet crash only to be rescued by She-Thing, who he promptly recognises as a Skrull. Fortunately the Skrull Kill Krew are on hand.

Once again Dan Slott does a great job of bringing humour to the storyline, but not sacrificing the drama. We’re seeing Skrulljacket’s plan in the Initiative slowly being discovered, with 3D-Man realising the Initiative’s been compromised, then Crusader and now Ant Man has caught Pym in the act of conferring with other Skrulls.

The real fun in this issue is the Kill Krew though. I haven’t read their original appearances, but there’s a great element of dark humour in this group riding around the country killing off Skrulls. Its given me probably my favourite line of the week, when, on finding out there’s a Skrull in every team of the Initiative, one of them replies “I’ll tell you what this means…Road Trip!”

Its a good week for people picking up Secret Invasion. Admittedly there was about 8 million tie-ins this week, but I avoided most of them (Captain Britain being a must-buy). However, after the last 3 issues picking up increasing complaints about padding, issue 5 pulled out all the stops.

The green-haired woman who’s the Director of SWORD (apparently) manages to free Reed Richards in a great scene. From there everything starts to change, as Reed manages to build a Skrull revealing ray and promptly zaps everyone in the Savage Land, revealing everyone from the ship was a Skrull (including Mockingbird – needless to say, Clint doesn’t take it well). This could also mean that the popular “Luke Cage is a Skrull” rumour has just been debunked.

There’s a real feeling in this issue that the turning point’s just been reached. Infact, if I was going to have only one complaint about the book, its that after being the cliffhanger of last month’s issue, neither Captain America or Thor actually turn up, which kind’ve reinforces the idea that issues 2-4 could’ve really been told in 2 issues rather than 3.

Bendis does a much better job of balancing the feel that this is a big war than in previous issues. We get snippets of the Young Avengers at Nick Fury’s hideout, Captain Marvel at Thunderbolt mountain is finally addressed, and there’s a cracking resolution to Maria Hill’s predicament (if Marvel are smart, they’ll release those T-shirts). Secret Invasion has finally found its footing again, and this was a cracking read.

Meanwhile, on our side of the pond, things are going even better for the Brits. With Captain Britain restored to life by Merlin, he wastes no time in taking the fight to the magical Super Skrull. Meanwhile the rest of MI13 have been captured, and it sadly doesn’t end well for John the Skrull, who eventually antogonises the Skrulls so much that he’s killed (sorry to see him go. I was loving his character).

Paul Cornell does a great job in wrapping up this arc here. With Brian fighting the Super Skrull, Wisdom’s releasing of the evil magic has an unexpected payoff. With all the complaints regarding the padding in Secret Invasion, its refreshing to see a writer tell a big storyarc in only 4 issues.

By the end of the issue, the scene is firmly set for the rest of the series, as the team comes together with a new purpose. And the bit with Excalibur at the end was yet another unexpected twist from Cornell.

With so many of the big name comics being US-focused, this book has done a great job of not just being set in Britain with British characters, but of having a great British feel to it. I’m really looking forward to seeing what Paul Cornell does in the next arc.

After the missable Hank Pym issue of Might Avengers, I decided to just skip the Elektra-focussed issue of Mighty this month, as I’m more interested in the ongoing storyline of Secret Invasion. While the die hard Marvel fans will no doubt appreciate that level of extra background, as someone who’s just come onboard for this event, its not of much interest to me.

Whereas this month I was looking forward to the continuation of the Spider-Woman storyline and seeing how the Skrulls influenced House of M, having really enjoyed the first part of the Spider-Woman story, instead this month’s New Avengers was entirely focused on the Skrull Captain America in the Savage Land. To me, this was even more missable than the Hank Pym issue. At least Hank’s switch was a big part of the story. This was a one-off character. I’m not even sure I followed the logic of the Skrull plot in this instance either. So all these Skrulls are completely brain-washed to believe they are the genuine article? Why are they not similar to the other substitute Skrulls we’ve already seen? The simple fact all these duplicates have turned up together has casted suspicion on them. Captain America’s already dead in the Marvel Universe, and didn’t turn into a Skrull, so they know he was the genuine article. I’m just not sure how this Cap was supposed to successfully infiltrate as some deep cover agent. The invasion was already underway, the heroes were going to be on the lookout for Skrulls, so this Skrull Cap never really had a chance of infiltrating in the same way as Skrull-Jarvis.

I’d have much rather had the second part of the Spider-Woman storyline.

Meanwhile The Initiative continues to rock. This , Captain Britain and Fantastic Four have been the best tie ins so far for me.

In this issue we see the events of Secret Invasion #4 from the point of view of the Initiative, as they’re all rushed to the battle in New York. Poor old 3D-Man doesn’t do well in this issue, but I’m not convinced that his story is quite over yet. Instead this issue focused on Crusader, and his struggle choosing between his adopted homeworld (we see him being sent to Earth, and slowly “going native”), and his people, as he’s forced into the middle of the conflict.

Its a cracking issue, and a nice character piece. And it adds some nice depth to the New York fight we’d seen previously.

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.

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).