Speaking of the devil...
SECRET INVASION #8: Despite a delay of a few weeks with the last chapter, SECRET INVASION has actually come out on schedule, which is something FINAL CRISIS could not do which is a large reason, many believe, of why it is outselling the competition. That and the simpler premise.
This is the main event, folks. I may be here a while. As SECRET INVASION comes to a close, it, of course, leads to the next event, as well as gives a chance to comment on the entire body of work, now that it is done.
As always, Bendis offers no one any surprises. In many ways, the ending is similar to the ending of SECRET WAR. In SECRET WAR, the head villain, some nasty chick, creates a giant biological bomb that makes everyone scream and levitate, according to the art. She is then taken down by someone out of nowhere with a big gun. SECRET INVASION #8 ends the exact same way. Only this time, trade "bunch of supervillians" for "the Wasp" as the bomb, trade Von Bardas for Veranke, and swap the "gunman out of nowhere" from Nick Fury to Norman Osborn. Yes, yes, Osborn has done some stuff in IRON MAN: DIRECTOR OF SHIELD and THUNDERBOLTS to build up to this. But little has been done to build Osborn in the core mini that most people read, and haggles like that remind me of CIVIL WAR. Everyone lashed out on WORLD WAR HULK, but in retrospect Pak was far more focused. I am waiting for the day when Bendis can write something, anything, that every single reader on the Internet can't predict with 100% accuracy and that doesn't just rip off some past work of his. Claremont is a hack now but he made it over 15 years before he had to rip himself off shamelessly. Bendis hasn't even been going for one decade and he's never written anything new for years now. He just changes the details and the agents.
There also is a strange and disturbing trend of misogyny in his work. Under Bendis' pen, Scarlet Witch went from stable and strong heroine to typical out-of-control hysterical nymphomaniac. Tigra was pistol whipped and made to beg for mercy in her own bedroom by the Hood and Jigsaw; a scene a few female readers on blogs claimed "felt like reading a rape". He wrote Dr. Doom making the most crass and low down insults about female bodies since Andrew Dice Clay was banned from MTV. He sets up seemingly invincible female adversaries like Von Bardas or Veranke who in the end can be undone and made into whimpering feebs by random attackers. And nearly every large scale event of his requires the personal or physical death of a female character, this time the Wasp. The Wasp is a curious figure; over 40 years old and a founding Avenger, but is barely on the B-List and probably not one too many people will miss. While I am not saying Bendis is a sexist; he has also written his share of interesting and dynamic women, I am just saying if Bendis continues, there may be no decent heroines left in the Avengers franchise.
Thor manages to save everyone from the Wasp-bomb by banishing her into oblivion with a tornado (or something). Bendis writes a few speaking scenes and of course has missed the memo from JMS that Thor no longer speaks in "thy" and "thou" in his own book. In just a few pages, as if it was no threat at all, the heroes finish off the Skrulls and smash all of their ships. Um, yay? Eh, oh well.
On the plus side, everyone the Skrulls had taken are found alive. An explanation is given that "their new shifting process needed DNA" and "live hostages were a bargaining chip" and all that and it almost makes sense. That at least means that the worst superhero ever, at least in Bendis' eyes, Hank "I did nothing but beat my wife for 40 years" Pym is perfectly fine, as are Dugan, Elektra, Susan Richards and of course, Spider-Woman. That limits the damage done to the universe and at least means that other writers who want to use some of these characters won't have to mop up much. The biggest caveat is Mockingbird, who was seemingly taken from the Skrulls during the West Coast days. The problem is that various heroes have literally MET HER IN THE UNDERWORLD. There is no way to explain that if the dead Mockingbird was a Skrull. None. It would have been a Skrull soul. It would not have looked human. She's been on the LEGION OF THE UNLIVING how many times? Don't get me wrong, I'm all for some romance or reunions, but this is one where the explanation, "oh, the one who was killed by Mephisto was a Skrull" doesn't work. It doesn't work so much that it makes me genuinely curious about whether Bendis actually knows HOW Mockingbird was killed, as in the details. I suppose someone could try winning a No-Prize by going, "Mephisto knew it was a Skrull but hid her identity, even after she was killed and would have reverted, just to be nasty to Hawkeye, because he is mean & petty like that", but even that is more annoying than it should be. I pity the poor Handbook writer who has to make sense of that crap. Retcons suck, don't they?
Can Clint go back to at least using arrows? Ninjas are old hat. They even used arrows anyway. No? Forget it, then. Bendis is one of those guys whose only research on ninjas was watching the Ninja Turtles in the 80's, or AMERICAN NINJA films on CINEMAX.
