Secret Invasion
by Brian Michael Bendis
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Book Summary Information
Author: Brian Michael BendisIllustrator: Leinil Francis Yu
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2009-01-21
ISBN: 078513297X
Number of pages: 248
Publisher: Marvel
Book Reviews of Secret Invasion
Book Review: Agreed, disapointing
Summary: 2 Stars
I have been anxiously following the build up to this story for years, as have many others. I have previously enjoyed Bendis' work on House of M, New Avengers, and many others. But this book is a gigantic flop.
The first problem is the pacing. The beginning of the book drags as far too much time is spent in the Savage Land. Then the back half of the book is rushed to the point where the final confrontation is just brief afterthought. It's almost as if the authors got through half the issues and then realized they were running out of pages with which to wrap up the story!
Indeed, it seems as if this final phase of the Secret Invasion is resolved over the course of 24 hours (Marvel U time), when readers have been following the build-up over the course of several years! How much richer could this book have been if the whole thing wasn't tidily resolved with 4 pages of illustrations featuring every character Yu could squeeze on a page simply shaking their fists and glaring at each other?
The second problem is the way the characters are used. There is virtually no invention or creativity in terms of the way the characters interact, either dramatically or when the fight scenes and battles take place. The witty banter is rehashed and too drawn-out, and worse, the fights are just "scenes" in which one or two panels of a lot of characters posing stands in for a sequential illustration of a true battle.
The book is full of nonsensical plot elements. For example, early in the story a spaceship full of Skrulls impersonating a gaggle of superheroes (some dead? some duplicates of the living? some older versions of the living/dead?) crashes to earth in the Savage Land, and our present-day heroes investigate. This episode dominated the first half of the book, but the reader is left mystified as to the point. It isn't even clear what the motivation of the Skrulls was in creating such a ship full of obvious impersonators.
Another mess is the confusing existence one group of Skrulls who are apparently brainwashed into thinking they actually ARE the people they are supposed to be impersonating, vs. the other group who are simply made to LOOK like the ones who they are impersonating. The two different groups apparently have completely different characteristics, abilities, and methods of concealment/detection. It is impossible for the reader to tell the difference, however, and the differences seem to be arbitrary and constantly shifting and contradictory in any case. Finally, the plot mechanics of how the heroes at last detect and reveal/defeat the Skrulls is lazy and unconvincing, to say the least.
Bendis' biggest problem throughout this story is that nothing much happens, and what does happen, happens at the wrong pace. The narrative thrust gets completely bogged down in a series of "witty" interactions that ultimately are meaningless, alternated with the usual (and utterly boring) bragging, boasting, and threatening that simply rehash classic super-hero/villain blab fests. It seems hard to believe that this is the writer who gave us the cleverly plotted and inventive House of M.
Possibly most offensive of all, is the terrible work of the artist, Leinil Francis Yu. He indeed has a unique style, with an interesting use of line, and, looked at individually, his drawings might be considered good. However, he lacks any ability to tell a sequential story from panel to panel. Page after page is filled with repetitive pose-downs between heroes, or between heroes and villains. The battle scenes are simply a series of posters, processions of static images. The battles are not illustrated sequentially and logically. One of the biggest missed opportunities in this work is that we don't get any sense of the various characters' powers and abilities interacting with each other. The characters just pose and flex and execute their most basic moves in jumbled panels of frozen action. Eventually, the book becomes a procession of halfway decent cover art.
I will say that the individual Secret Invasion tie-ins, the issues involving the Secret Invasion story in New/Mighty Avengers and Ms. Marvel series, for example, were very well done, and are consistent with the basic problem that I and other reviewers note: effective build-up, lousy payoff. In fact, the issues of the Avengers written to tie in are a series of stories looking back at the past few years of Marvel History with an eye to showing how cleverly the Skrull invasion was plotted and carried out. It is clear that Bendis was more excited about revealing to readers his labyrinthine build-up to this story in the Avengers books than he was in actually executing the denouement in this Secret Invasion limited series.
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