I just read Secret Invasion #1 about a half-an-hour ago. Me and Comics Are Expensive's Chris Lamb are planning on doing a point/counterpoint sort of review on the book over the next day or so, but until then:
What'd you all think?
Thursday, April 03, 2008
Secret Invasion #1: Your Reactions?
I just read Secret Invasion #1 about a half-an-hour ago. Me and Comics Are Expensive's Chris Lamb are planning on doing a point/counterpoint sort of review on the book over the next day or so, but until then:
What'd you all think?
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If Secret Invasion was a DC title, issue one would have been a dirt cheap 0 issue that served as a prelude to the entire thing with the actual invasion beginning in issue 1.
ReplyDeleteAs is, this was basically an issue of New Avengers, except with an inker.
Also, as per course with Marvel Events, there is now no need to read any issue until issue 8 since this issue was all set up.
i liked it. thought it was fun, goofy, filled with "wtf," & whatever...i just can't wait for god squad (who will fight the "he" of he loves you, i'm guessing...i'm also guessing it is a kree/skrull duet)
ReplyDeleteI was thinking about picking this up, but I've been so uninvolved with the majority of Marvel's books. I flipped through this, saw some of the stuff that happens, and said, "this is going to make me care, and I'm done caring."
ReplyDeleteCivil War just killed me. I figured I'd just find out about what happened on Wikipedia.
I enjoyed the issue. It wasn't as over the top as I expected, and the BIG REVEAL (what came out of the ship)didn't seem very big at all and obviously just some misdirection.
ReplyDeleteHere's hoping everything goes crazy from here on out.
Personally I've never been a fan of the "Everything you know is wrong!" plot device. I think it can take away from character development... And of there's the whole is this a convenient way to bring back Steve Rogers?
ReplyDeleteEh we'll see I guess, otherwise good comic, don't know if I'll buy the rest though.
Great start. I think it's brilliant that they throw us in with a lot more questions than answers and then make us ask even more questions.
ReplyDeleteGood art, good start to the story.
I liked it, the same I liked the first issues of Civil War, even if the idea is stupid. The art and inking is of a much much higher quality than New Avengers. It's like, yeah, a big summer movie, big dumb and fun.
ReplyDeleteIt's also very apparent the people behind this have seen Battlestar Galactica. No beef with that.
Eh. It was OK I guess. My gf who works at St. Mark's comics says it's been selling like whoa. The merry Marvel marketing department strikes again.
ReplyDeleteI have to be honest: if I were to guess that anyone were a skrull, Val, I'd pick you.
ReplyDelete"if I were to guess that anyone were a skrull, Val, I'd pick you."
ReplyDeletedo they have a good dental plan?
I thought it was a terrific start. There was some nice menace ("He loves you" is enigmatic and creepy) and a lot of mystery and uncertainty. Dire straits all around. I'm more excited after reading it as I was before; a job well done.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI found it OK. Not crazy about it, but that often happens to me with first issues: setting the events into motion, giving the readers at least a flash of each important character involved, providing some background... I suppose it is extremely difficult to make a good first issue.
ReplyDeleteStill, there are some things to like here. The scope of the story seems appropriately big, it delivers what was promised. It is also shown that this invasion is a global event affecting many characters. Still, those scenes are used as a nice moment in the overall story to give some context. They didn't work that well in Civil War, they often screamed "New Miniseries launch!" or "To get any real emotional resonance from this, read adjoined tie-in"; here, however, they fit in the flow of the story as well as being reasonable start-up situations for sideways series.
This issue has more rhythm than the whole "House of M" mini, Bendis' last foray into big events. Yu is better here than in Nu-Avengers. His big weakness is roughness -some unclear storytelling, some weird anatomy, and of course his own inkless drawings and the muddy coloring which tend to produce a too-fast-done finish- and everything looks better here, although still lacking some of the strength it used to have some years ago. Oh well, you can't have it all I guess.
Because this is a conspiracy, intrigue, almost-espionage story with shapeshifters, there is no use in discussing the "Everything you knew is wrong!" moments until everything is revealed. It could well be misdirection.
Particular moments I liked: the F4 moments, the shooting of Richards, Captain Marvel as an Avenging Angel (though for people not following his mini, this will come as a WTF is this moment). Any Marvel Boy is good.
Helicarrier falling from the sky is getting old, fast. "Alien Virus"? C'mon, lazy, lazy and cheap. Iran Man getting cybercontrolled is also overused, as is both Avengers teams meeting and failing to clash because... um... shyness?
Oh, and "He even loves you". Creepy.
Not bad. Promising. Still, I also liked the first issues of CW or HoM, so I just will not expect much.
internet spoilers ruined it for me :(
ReplyDeleteI dug it. It rolls back to the style of the original secret warwith big set pieces keeping the pace running along.
ReplyDelete>>do they have a good dental plan?
ReplyDeleteThe best. You can just turn your teeth into any sort you want.
I liked it. More meat to it than a lot of Marvel first issues have, and a couple of nice twists.
ReplyDeleteSolidly entertaining, although I am slightly worried about the fate of one of my favorite characters...
oh dear god please dont let them do a big retcon, i think it woulda ctually pt me off marvel if they undid the civil war arc and retconne dback to the 90's character deisgns again. itd mean so many series like the x men and spiderman wich had some great sotrys would have bene nothing but filler.
ReplyDeletemy two cents?
There not proper skrulls but human skrull clone hybrid things , like the ultimate sleeper agent, whent a certain phrase or signal like "he lvoes you" for example is uttered the skrull DNA takes over adn the supe becomes a skrull, so
SPOILER!!!!!
maybe the ones form the crashed ship are experiments with used there combined skills, wich if they are clones would be a fomridable team, to escape before they could be seeded as replacements, becasue in there minds there the real deals right?, so they escape not knowing there clones and then they run into the real deals....
-thats all i can think of ,becasue such an obviouse retcon would just be so SO cheap if they were jsut bringing bakc wolverine with amnesia, jean grey AGAIN, ape beast ect. ect.
Absolutely nothing wrong with Secret Invasion #1, but I think we can all agree it was never, ever going to be as entertaining as the inevitable fan outcry/backlash decrying it as everything that's wrong with comics - which I look forward to reading over my breakfast bagel tomorrow. In that respect, Secret Invasion is the event book that just keeps on giving.
ReplyDeleteMy money's on Sharon Carter as a Skrull.
I felt loved.
ReplyDeleteBut seriously, the first issue raised a lot of questions that better be answered and answered well.
I really enjoyed it. I thought it moved well and it was intense in certain areas. I like the fact that Pym is a skrull. I hated what Marvel has done to him over the years. It time to move him forward.
ReplyDeleteOne mistake I think people are making is assuming that just because someone is revealed to be a Skrull now (either in Secret Invasion #1 or from here on) I think that does NOT mean they have been a Skrull for a undefined period of time.
ReplyDeleteHank being revealed as a Skrull doesn't mean he's been one for years. He could have been replaced anywhere from years ago to on the way to Tony's place just prior to SI #1.
What I would like to see is just WHEN these characters were replaced. Remeber in Civil War when Hulkling replaced the Shield officer off-screen? I felt it was a cheap and sloppy excuse to shoe-horn a needed component into the end. I do not want to see the same sort of thing here.
I also wound up seeing the spoilers online before hand (including that fact that the "return of the 70's Marvel characters" thingy was on the freaking COVER of the last Wizard)so this issue actually meant less to me than I think it would have if I had been in the dark. Shame on me though for giving in to temptation and looking at the spoilers before hand.
The main complaint for me? The art. I know a lot of people love Yu's stuff... but his art leaves me flat. It looks sloppy to me and it's difficult to get into books he does art for. I wasn't the biggest fan of Civil War... but I will say the art was great.
I'm very unhappy with Marvel overall these days... the "One More Day" fiasco has put almost the final nail in their coffin as far as I'm concerned, and I've dropped a large number of Marvel stuff I used to get every month. this event needs to be good for me to continue to buy their stuff. There wasn't anything n the first issue that was BAD per-sey (except maybe the art) so I'm on board for the duration.
Decent start, but I agree that the helicarriers have to go. As far as I can tell, the ONLY reason for having an aircraft carrier that can fly is so that it can fall out of the sky and crash. Otherwise, what's the point? It can't possibly fly faster than any jets that it can launch. And we have these things called "airports" and "regular aircraft carriers" that can launch jets just fine too.
ReplyDeleteAlso, why are these 8 books being called "Secret" Invasion? It would seem to me that since they blew the "secret" part wide open in issue one, they should just call it "Invasion" and retcon the "Secret" title onto every comic that took place in the last two years...
Despite Bendis' trademark "realistic" (aka crappy and annoying) dialogue, I was surprised to actually like the book so far. Yu's pencils have FINALLY cleaned up since New Avengers (where everything he drew was incomprehensible), so the presentation was good. Hopefully, though, this doesn't fizzle out like most other Bendis-helmed events tend to do. House of M, anyone?
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed it immensely. With the widespread surgical strikes against the Earth's greatest defenses (S.W.O.R.D., Reed Richards, Tony Stark, etc.) coupled with the rampant paranoia of not knowing who to trust and the souped up uber-Skrulls each of which appear powerful enough to take out the Avengers single-handedly, it has already successfully rehabilitated the once-pathetic Skrulls into a legitimate menace.
ReplyDeleteI look forward to reading the rest. It's already legions better than 52.