The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

**Spoilers Ahead**

Good:

• Answers. Questions from issue #1 of New Avengers have finally been answered . Brian Michael Bendis had Secret Invasion in mind for more than 5 years, even before the first issue of New Avengers. Going back, one can see small hints in both the dialogue and art that many passed off as simply mistakes or didn't even notice at all.
• Tie-ins. If you just want to see your favorite heroes punch aliens in the face you can just read the main series but if you want more story to go along with it you also have the option of picking up a large number of tie-in issues. These help to flesh out the invasion. New and Mighty Avengers both gave more back story as to the Skrulls plans while others showed the battle going on around the globe. The best of the bunch were by far Captain Britain and the MI:13, Incredible Hercules, and Avengers: The Initiative.
• Art. The art and coloring is phenomenal. You'll find yourself going back again and again just to look at the pictures.
• Great action. Bendis really gives the reader a sense of a worldwide invasion instead of an isolated incident. Seeing all the Marvel heroes fighting alongside each other for the first time in years is a treat. Seeing the Marvel villains join in to fight the Skrulls alongside their enemies is something that is really cool to see.
• Characters are at their most bad ass. For some reason, when it comes to aliens, characters from the Marvel U don't see aliens as living creatures at all. Because of this, heroes who would never take a human life are seen slicing, stabbing, shooting, exploding, disentergrating, and breaking any green skinned freak unlucky enough to get in the way.
• Dark Reign. If nothing else, SI set the stage for a huge shake up in the Marvel Universe as Dark Reign begins to take over. The effects of Secret Invasion and Dark Reign will go on to last years to come.

Bad:

• X-men. For some reason, writers seem to put the X-men in their own universe outside of the regular Marvel U. while most Marvel heroes interact with each other frequently, the X-Men rarely if ever reference or interact with other heroes. Aside from their own SI mini, no mention of them was made in the regular series, even in a scene where multiple other battlefronts around the globe were being fought. It's frustrating as a fan when the only of the X-Men involved is the over used Wolverine.
• Pacing. SI has taken more than 9 months for every issue to come out. With most crossover events this is ok, in the story however, very little time has passed and it's annoying for readers to wait a whole month and see very little in terms of story progression. Because Bendis tries to show the vast scope of the invasion, very little time is spent on most of the incidents, and some aren't mentioned again for more than an issue.
• Issue #8. On one hand, issue 8 did exactly what it was supposed to do, it tied up all the loose end in the series and push us forward into Dark Reign. On the other hand though, it seemed very rushed. The huge cliffhanger from last issue was solved in the first three pages.
• Pricing. While I mentioned the tie-ins as one of the best parts about the event, it also got a bit rough on the wallet. While none of the tie-ins were essential reading to understanding the main series, it is if you want to know more than just the Skrulls are green and the heroes are going to punch them. New and Mighty Avengers both were the only place to actually find the reasons for the invasion in the first place. I don't want to complain to much about this because I enjoy having the option to pick and choose side stories I'm interested in, I gladly would have payed an extra couple dollars for them to make each of the SI issues Giant-sized and gotten more back story there.
• Skrull Sleeper Agents. While the idea of Skrulls having infiltrated all the major factions is intriguing, it also hits a snag in a very important spot. These are heroes that we want to root for. Telling us that our favorite hero wasn't actually the one doing all the heroic things for the past 4 years kind of takes away from them in my opinion.

Ugly:

• Captain America. Captain America has been the hero of all citizens of the the Marvel U, both ordinary and extraordinary, since WWII. Although a new person has filled Steve Rogers spot as Captain America, he is still the Captain America. I feel that he was done a huge disservice in this series by Bendis. Buck Barnes still hadn't officially come out of the super hero closet so to speak and this was to be the big reveal that he had taken over the red, white, and blue shield. I, along with many others were looking forward to seeing Cap take control of the different factions and lead them to victory. What did we get? Not even two sentences. Seriously. Not even two sentences.
• Nick Fury. Same deal with Cap. Marvel touted SI as Nick Fury's big return after years of exile. He would come to save the heroes of the Marvel Universe in their time of need. Nope. He shot a gun a couple of times. Acted like the grizzled war veteran he is and then fell back into place with the other under used heroes.
• Savage Land. The first issue ends with the heroes stranded in the Savage Land(AKA:Jungle) coming upon a crashed Skrull ship. Inside the ship, some of the same heroes in much older uniforms. Everyone turns on each other, not knowing which person is the imposter, the one from the ship or the one from their team. Not only does the whole encounter in the Savage Land take about 4 issues to long, none of the heroes from the ship turn out to be the real heroes, just Skrull imposters. While I wouldn't like to hear that for the last 30 years, the real hero had been held captive as an alien impersonated him, I did feel kind of cheated that there was no big reveal.

Afterthoughts:
All together, Secret Invasion was an enjoyable read with a few, if large mistakes. If looking for more than just action and fighting, look for some of the tie-in issues to help give your SI experience a more balanced feel. If nothing else, Secret Invasion is just dumb fun and sets the stage for much larger things to come.

Final Grade: B