The first work of Brian Michael Bendis that I ever read was Avengers Disassembled, which came after Geoff Johns’ often forgotten run on Avengers, which was one of my favorites. Then came New Avengers, which I always considered pretty snoozy. Then came Secret Invasion. The premise is extremely intriguing. Just imagining which characters could secretly be Skrulls sent shivers down my spine. So I was willing to give Bendis a break, considering that so much of his work had been building towards this. I was even willing to cut Leinil Francis Yu some slack, since his work on New Avengers was pretty terrible. Secret Invasion #1 was all I had hoped for. Yellowjacket, the Invisible Woman, and Jarvis were all revealed as Skrulls. The world was in chaos. My hopes were so high.
Alas, my hopes were dashed on the rocks the very next issue. Issue #2 was one big brawl, and there were no interesting Skrull reveals. This actually continued throughout the entire rest of the series. Big brawls and basically no other “WHAT?!” moments. Sure, the Spider-Woman reveal and the Wasp bio-bomb revelation were interesting. But neither were shocking. I had never even read the original issue when Skrulljacket gave Wasp the serum, but when I read Mighty Avengers #15, I told my friend that would be important. And lo and behold. Bendis telegraphs it again.
For being this huge storyline that was supposed to change the future of Marvel Comics, it was pretty boring. Bendis never picked anyone to be replaced who was really crazy. I actually thought Dr. Doom was going to be a Skrull post-return from the Mobius Dimension. That would have been awesome. Or maybe Wonder Man, which would have screwed up Ms. Marvel’s love life even more. Or perhaps one, just one of the X-Men. But no. Bendis shied away from doing anything truly amazing. The whole invasion is just one, long, drawn-out slugfest.
And what happens in the end? Norman Osborn kills the Skrull Queen, Veranke. HUH?! Norman Osborn, who had lost relevance until Warren Ellis’ amazing run on Thunderbolts?! He’s been picked by Barack Obama to replace Tony Stark and to lead the new agency H.A.M.M.E.R. (terrible name, by the way)?! Not only does that take away from some of Barack Obama’s momentous victory by calling his Marvel incarnation an idiot, it was also so poorly led to that nobody could have seen that coming. For all the wrong reasons.
So what was Secret Invasion? A means to an end, largely. Now we have Dark Reign, to make the Marvel Universe even darker. The Dark Illuminati, or the Cabal, is a terribly mismatched group. Dr. Doom and Loki would never stoop to working with the rest of them. Namor has allied himself with Doom, but he wouldn’t attend for the same reason Doom wouldn’t. Emma Frost is an X-Man, and I don’t care what the excuse is for her joining. The Hood is probably the only person who belongs there. I am excited that the Mighty Avengers will actually be a group of real Avengers. And the New Avengers team looks pretty cool, despite the fact that I wish that Wolverine wouldn’t be in half the comics Marvel publishes at once.
But still. Secret Invasion could have been so much more. Marvel history could have been impacted in such a greater way. And why, of all people, did Wasp have to die? I’m not going to fall into the trap of “Bendis hates old-school Avengers.” What he did was take the first great female character of Marvel and kill her off while taking away everything that was worthwhile about her. That just made me so sad. Janet Van Dyne was always one of my favorite Avengers. And why, of all people, did he ressurect Mockingbird? Seriously, nobody stays dead anymore. Jason Todd, Uncle Ben, Bucky, Mockingbird, Barry Allen, everybody comes back.
The one really good thing about this series was the art. Leinil Francis Yu proved my skepticism wrong completely. All the visuals were gorgeous, and the Skrulls looked awesome. Sure, everyone had the same jawline. Oh well. Yu still did some of the best work of his career on this book. Too bad everything else couldn’t have been that awesome. Can’t wait already for Dark Reign to be over. And it just started. Final Crisis, for all its problems, was and is way better.
Plot: 5.9 Art: 8.8 Dialogue: 6.9 Overall: 6.3
