Secret Invasion

Collects Secret Invasion #1-8 written by Brian Michael Bendis and drawn by Leinil Yu.

This is it. The Marvel mega-event that everyone and their grandmother have been talking about for what feels like an eternity. The brainchild of Brian Michael Bendis, the infamous writer who have set forth to change the face of the Marvel Universe, one universe-spanning event at a time. This is his magnum opus (in a Marvel context, anyway), and this is most likely what he will be remembered for the most once the dust has settled and everything's back to normal (ohh, the cynicism of long-time comic book readers...). And let me start by saying that it's actually pretty good. Not in the "Holy shit, I need a new pair of pants!"-kinda way, but more in the "Hm, not bad, not bad. Pretty good actually."-kinda way. I enjoyed it.

I won't bother with a detailed explanation of the story, lets just say that Earth is invaded by Skrulls and the heroes need to get together to save the world while not being able to trust each other or, in some cases, even themselves. Pretty much every corner of the MU is represented in some form or another in here, although obviously the main focus is on the Avengers cast of characters. The main strengths of the script is the massive scale of the event and the spectacularity that automatically comes from having every major Marvel character in the story. There's a bunch of cool plot twists that you will probably already know about if you've been anywhere near an active internet connection within the last year or so, and plenty of action to spice up the whole thing. This book has been accused of being just one long outdrawn fight scene, but I have to disagree with this. There is a lot action, maybe even more than in your average monthly, but the plot moves along at a nice pace and the action only helps to increase the feel for the gravity of the situation. The finale doesn't disappoint either, as was the case with Civil War to some extent, and of course it has a suspenseful ending that leads into the next big universe-spanning event, Dark Reign... Ah, will it never stop?

The main problem with this book is that it does not read as a complete story. It has a beginning, a middle and an end, so you'd think that it's a complete story. But the problem is that there are so many unanswered questions remaining after turning the last page, that it makes the X-Files seem pretty self-explanatory. I assume all or most of these questions will be answered in the numerous Secret Invasion tie-in books, which I will be getting like any other Marvel-addicted junkie out there, but at the end of the day I'd be hard pressed to call this book a complete story in and of itself. It seems to me that Marvel wants to put it out as a stand alone book while also benefiting from the added sales of tie-ins, and that does compromise the overall quality of the main title.

Yu is one of my favorite Marvel artists these days. His quirky style has given personality to a book like New Avengers, but unfortunately he has chosen to change that in this book to a much cleaner style. Personally I prefer his usual style to this one which seems a bit more, well, anonymous. Still, his compositions and ability to bring out the personality of every single Marvel character on the page, does put him a head above the rest.

One thing I want to praise Marvel for is the speed at which this book was put out. The last issue of the series was put on the stands in December (if I'm not mistaken) so it's only been a month or so until this book came out. This is in stark contrast to earlier publishing fiascoes where books of the same series came out in wrong order because one of the books has to come out in a HC version first. Lets hope that Marvel keeps up this good publishing policy, although I've been told that it's only something they do for major event books.

Yes, I'm quite pleased with the way this book came out and I recommend it to anyone who wants to know what the fuzz is all about or if their specific Marvel idol was a Skrull all along. If you're planning on getting this book, you might also consider getting the latest New Avengers book and the New Avengers: Illuminati book which both function as prologues to Secret Invasion. Now all we can do is sit and wait for Dark Reign...

7/10