Secret Invasion discussion [Spoilers]

[Ultimate Houde]

So I just read this fully in one go, which only took me ten minutes. An event comic shouldn't be able to be read in TEN MINUTES.

First off, I saw a Galactus Skrull? ARE YOU ****ING KIDDING ME? It is getting punched out by Cassie Lang. A GALACTUS SKRULL TOOK A SUCKER PUNCH? You are copying Galactus for Christ sake, and you don't start eating the world? What the hell is wrong with you?

And Reed comes by with a gun and shoots people, turning them back to a Skrull. And correct me if I'm wrong, but everyone on the ship was a Skrull? The random crash landed ship in the Savage Land turned out to be a Skrull? And hey, Ka Zar wants to join the fight in New York, LET'S GO!

A gun was his Dues Ex Machina.

A GUN!

GALACTUS SKRULL!

And then Norman Osborn shoots the Queen and becomes a hero.

I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I READ.

The best part of the whole comic was Agent Brand breaking into the Skrull ship. Then leaving all her men out there to die while she picked up the heroes in the Savage Land.

 

[E]

I liked the first issue, but after that it got horrible fast.

The thing that really sticks out in my mind as sucking is how he arbitrarily changed the fundamentals of the Skrulls' powers, making it so that they change on a molecular level and as such are completely undetectable. It was a profound moment of laziness from a notoriously lazy writer.

 

[Ice]

I liked the first issue, but after that it got horrible fast.

The thing that really sticks out in my mind as sucking is how he arbitrarily changed the fundamentals of the Skrulls' powers, making it so that they change on a molecular level and as such are completely undetectable. It was a profound moment of laziness from a notoriously lazy writer.

And that nothing about the war was a secret either.

 

[E]

And that nothing about the war was a secret either.

Well, I think it was the invasion/occupation that was secret more so than the war.

But that brings up another good point that supports a post Zombipanda made in another thread about how marvel wastes good ideas.

Instead of using this to bring back a bunch of b-list characters (Mockingbird? SERIOUSLY? THAT was a lasting effect of this story?), why not use this and the countless crossovers to examine what would happen when we find out that major characters or even political figures or actors were Skrulls? What happens if they had an elaborate plan to take over the planet which they genuinely believed was theirs and that plan was almost carried out? This should have changed EVERYTHING - not knowing who you can trust. But instead, we got a bad rehash of Infinity War where evil versions of everybody started cropping up everywhere.

Why does everything have to be written for the lowest common denominator?

 

[Captain Canuck]

Why does everything have to be written for the lowest common denominator?

Because no one likes factoring.

 

[Ice]

Because no one likes factoring.

Or working in factories. Hey-ooo!!

 

[thee great one]

This was so bad. Not just the main series. I read like no good tie-ins either. How exactly did they use if they replicate the Phoenix Force, the Nova Force, and the Power Cosmic for starters?

 

[J. Agamemnon]

I still remember picking up that last issue of New Avengers where Elektra turned out to be a Skrull. After that, I stopped reading the title for fear of what may happen. And I'm glad I didn't waste the money on this.

 

[E]

This was so bad. Not just the main series. I read like no good tie-ins either. How exactly did they use if they replicate the Phoenix Force, the Nova Force, and the Power Cosmic for starters?

Exactly. That is just idiotic.

I still remember picking up that last issue of New Avengers where Elektra turned out to be a Skrull. After that, I stopped reading the title for fear of what may happen. And I'm glad I didn't waste the money on this.

That's what got me interested. It was a meaningless but interesting introduction that I stupidly believed would move into an interesting story.

 

[J. Agamemnon]

Exactly. That is just idiotic.



That's what got me interested. It was a meaningless but interesting introduction that I stupidly believed would move into an interesting story.

When I first read Secret War, I was hooked back into comics, and I started visiting this site and taking recommendations and I was really into House of M and every other crossover after that. When Civil War hit, I collected majority of the tie-ins and I bought those $20 special cover issues. I have like 6 of those like the one with Clone Thor standing on a mountains of superhero bodies. It was cool. Then the NA tie-in's sucked wit hthe exception of the Luke Cage issue. Then the story, written by Millar(one of my faves), tanked and it took 5 minutes to read the whole damn thing. it took 5+ hours to read Secret War which was heavy in dialogue. In Civil War, you could go 5 panels without so much as reading "mmph" or "buddabuddabudda." Then Cap died! and it wasn't just that he died, but that he died in the most uninspiring way imaginable. He didn't die wrestling with his morals, or going out standing in what he believed in and dying to the death. No, he died like a chump, with his hands literally tied behind his back and everyone immediately regretting the war effort. So he died for nothing because everyone forgot about the bad guys. Which I didn't get, because what was the main issue of the story to begin with?

So now the staff gets to pick and choose, at will, during any time of the story to just completely change whatever has been mapped out. But I'd be giving the ad wizards at Marvel too much credit by assuming they actually planned any of the story as opposed to just "running" with the idea. It was at that moment I stopped buying a major bulk of my comics. My spending amount went from about $50 to $15. The only thing I really collected was NA, Nova, Wolverine and maybe one other comic. Then once that Elektra issue came out, I knew what it meant and I made my decision right there, so I just dropped comics altogether.

 

[Ice]

You guys want to see a real Secret Invasion? Watch Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes season 2 eps. 1-13.

 

[E]

You guys want to see a real Secret Invasion? Watch Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes season 2 eps. 1-13.

Do you mean it's a better-done Secret Invasion than the comic?

I doubt I'll ever have a chance to watch it - can you summarize?

 

[Ultimate Houde]

The way they set up the invasion was better. They had various Skrulls sneak into various organizations, and one of the people they replaced was Captain America.

Then it showed Captain America sneaking his way out of the skrull ship with a bunch of other people, and managing to make it back to Earth.

Meanwhile, the Skrulls had basically broke up the Avengers completely, and managed to hurt every other organization until Cap's break made them fast forward heir plans. They used Skrull Cap to tell the people of Earth to sit down and roll over for them, and then a massive fight broke out in Washington.

It was done alot better than the comics.

 

[E]

I found a download of this and decided to check it out, because I hadn't read it since it first came out I think.

This is, without a doubt, the most disappointing book Marvel has published in years. Maybe ever. Proj mentioned on Twitter that this should have been about the Skrulls have already infiltrated Earth and I agree. They had a great intro with the Elektra Skrull thing, and instead of going with that they just ruined the whole concept. They could have had so many opportunities for great stories and LEGITIMATE ways to bring characters back to life, and they blew it because Bendis is a lazy writer and it's like no editors ever challenge him or something.

Three things I particularly hate: instead of having generic errors or, even better, nothing, the computers involved kept flashing "ALIEN VIRUS DETECTED". They couldn't have them behave like an actual infected computer, they had to spoon-feed the reader that Skrulls had infiltrated Earth's tech. It was idiotic.

Also: "He loves you". It was pointless and completely meaningless. It could've been great and tragic to turn things around and have the reader sympathize with Skrulls, having been nearly wiped out and their empire in shambles, and have them really truly only want to use the Earth to rebuild and not destroy it, but they didn't. They turned it into some ridiculous religious mandate, in which sending a ship full of copies of Earth's heroes makes no sense at all.

And the biggest thing was how the Skrulls were undetectable. It was just typical Bendis crap about molecular changes and magic and whatever else he throws in without making it make any kind of sense. This should have been a huge plot point and important to the story, and it wasn't.

So yeah, I hate it, not because it's a crap story - we get plenty of those and this is indistinguishable from the rest - but because it could've been so much more and it seems like any chance of doing something like what this should have been has been ruined.