Dread's Skrullinated Reviews for 8/13/08 - The Obligatory Bendis Rant:
SECRET INVASION #5: The last page of issue #4 promised a flash of thunder, a dramatic shadow of Thor (hammer aloft), as well as the iconic image of "New Cap" getting ready to enter the fray, and the Skrulls looking like they were taking cover. So, of course, this issue...has Maria Hill, Savage Land hyjinks, Reed Richards pulling a Bruce Banner ("STRETCH MAD!"), and Agent Brand showing that these "new Skrulls" are about as stupid as the Old Skrulls.
Makes perfect sense, right? I mean, that's like promising a showdown between Ultimate Spider-Man and Green Goblin and then the next issue...is all useless flashbacks. That never happened, right? Oh, wait, it did. And that was when Bendis was in his prime and everyone gushed about how gosh darned genius that was. Well, how do you like it now? The CLEAR effort to drag **** out another issue at $4 a pop?
Ah, yes, that Bendis. His biggest flaw, or at least one of them, is he believes he is more clever than he is. That the normal expectations of a story don't apply to him, because he writes on a higher level. Little things like audience expectations, power levels, characterization, or genre conventions are just obstacles in his way to providing a story with pages full of pithy dialogue that usually says very little.
This is also a bit of a middling issue. A lessor, more primitive writer might have gotten all this done in 10 pages or less if they were clever. But this is Bendis with an 8 issue story. At the very least, I suppose that $3.99 price is justified, because instead of the normal 22 page count, we got...23. WOW. When this story is finished, we will likely say that it needed to be cut down about 1-2 issues, and this issue would be part of the evidence why.
Overall, the event mini is average, C+ fare. I've less anticipation for it than I had for WWH and CW, but at the very least it seems to be an improvement over HOM, which was a D+ at best. This issue, however, it a letdown and a bog down. In other words, a typical Bendis issue where a lot happens and yet little happens. Or at least nothing that was expected. But, like all Bendis stories, other writers in other comics are handling it a lot better than he ever could, which is one of many reasons why he would make a better editor than writer; his ideas aren't all bad, it is his execution that is hokey and overrated. Naturally, seeing his strength, he refuses to capitalize on it and stays a writer, much like he insists on full blown superhero team comics when his strength is short noir stories.
The best part is Yu's art. He clearly has more lead in time for SECRET INVASION, or at the least has a better inker, than he did for most of his NEW AVENGERS issues and the art actually looks good, reminding me of his prime years on X-MEN and WOLVERINE. No scribble-scrabble with colors here. The only downer is he still draws creepy, Ninja Turtle-esque veins in odd places. But to each their own. Oh, and Daisy Johnson and Maria Hill are drawn exactly alike, so if you read quickly, you may mistake them for being in two locations at once when they clearly aren't in the story. Yu isn't the only one who made this error, though.
Oh, and could the cover be any MORE generic? Angry looking Skrull face. Wow. Okay. Bland. Next!
The issue opens with Norman Osborn convincing Captain Marvel (Or Skrull-Vell) that he has to choose his own destiny and not kill the Thunderbolts for the Skrulls. That's IT!? The guy could have simply fought for the side of humanity at the start like Xavin or Crusader in other, better stories. Why did we need the contrived "Marvel surrenders" stuff for the one-shot if it was just going to lead to him deciding against it based on a rant from Osborn? While I could see the point here, I all but rolled my eyes about Norman's SLEDGEHAMMER SUBTLE allusions to the Green Goblin and how it made him an authority on the matter. Y'know, the whole "pink face, green face" stuff? It just seemed way too easy; Reed ended the CM mini in an interesting place, but the hackneyed bits for SI have been a drag. Then we have the Young Avengers and the rest of the Initiative in Nick Fury's underground base. Vision 2.0 is repaired lickety-split, so his "death" scene a few issues back loses all of it's impact (which sucks as in RUNAWAYS/YOUNG AVENGERS this week, we are supposed to take it seriously). I knew Vision would be rebuilt, I just thought it was a little fast. I guess if you want a green person to rip Vision in half and make it last a while, it has to be She-Hulk. Then they watch a televised address from the Skrulls where they speak on TV across the globe as nearly every noteworthy Earth citizen, from Oprah to Obama, McCain to Magneto, and a few in-between (even Paris Hilton). They give the token speach about how the aliens will bring peace and understanding, and paradise will belong to Earth as soon as they rule it and finish killing anyone who resists. Now, I love how Bendis is perfectly willing to satisfy audience and genre expectations when it comes to a long, boring speech, but when it comes to Thor or Cap, nada. Gotta wait for that one. Pfft. He puts the "I" in Obnoxious.
The wiggy thing here is both Maria Hill and Agent Brand appear in the same issue, and they're essentially the exact same character (made by Bendis and Whedon, respectively). They're both lady spymasters who are known for being B****s, obnoxious one-liners, and sheer arrogance. Fulfilling the cliches of the femme fatale' without providing anything more in terms of character. I will say that Whedon's Brand is superior, though. Firstly, green haired alien chicks are hot. Secondly, from her interactions with Beast, she at least may have a sense of humor (or a desire besides doing her job, belittling men, and sounding b****y). Thirdly, she doesn't have a "Supercuts" hairdo (thank Fraction for that one). Brand lands on a Skrull ship and is surrounded by Skrulls. So how does she get out of that one? Trick them into thinking she is of higher rank by, uh, telling them so. Yeah, it was in their native language, but then a page later she complains about how her Skrullian is poor enough that "she sounds like a drunken toddler". So how in the hell did she JUST CONVINCE A GUARD TO LITERALLY HAND OVER HIS BLASTER SO SHE COULD SLAUGHTER DOZENS OF THEM!? And considering the threat that Mr. Fantastic is and how powerful his allies are, Brand (who is hardly a powerhouse) breached his cell and freed him pathetically easily. THIS has been Bendis' huge plot-hole; he has bent over backwards to convince us that "this time", the Skrulls are SERIOUS. This time they are PREPARED. This time they aren't PLAYING AROUND. So what do they do? Take hostages that obviously are going to escape or get freed (Like Reed and Black Bolt) and fall for tactics that a Looney Toon guard wouldn't fall for (either Three Stooges esque tactics or someone screaming, "YOU'RE A SKRULL!!!" enough times). Bendis has always mangled power levels; it simply becomes embarassing when they are his own. He wants me to take these Skrulls seriously, but aside for swarming the planet with Super-Skrulls, they're almost dumber than they were before and falling for the same old tricks. At least the Lee & Kirby stories didn't reak of pretentiousness.
As for Maria Hill, she takes an entire page to explain the idea of a LMD and then blows up the helicarrier to escape. Much like everything she does, it was obnoxious and drawn out by chatter. Bendis has to understand that absolutely no one enjoys this character but him, and he can stage a gazillion "cool" sequences. She still will be the sort the reader always enjoys seeing get dissed out, like in INVINCIBLE IRON MAN. I don't care for Phobos, either. Just seems awkward.
Back to the tactic of foggy New Skrull levels, while I liked the fact that Reed for once lost his temper under appropriate circumstances yet still retained his genius, the thing he does to "expose" the Skrulls is the DEFINITION of a plot hole. After all the talk of the Skrulls being immune to everything and everyone. Resisting Stark Tech, Dr. Strange's spells, any power, psychic scan, or sense under the sun, and Reed just cobbles together some generic blaster that reveals the Skrulls with one blast. Wow. People have MOCKED the Four for such "pulling answer out of rectum" tactics. Why does Bendis feel the need to ignore genre conventions when it comes to satisfying a prior issue cliffhanger, but follow them when it comes to the most tired and overdone Reed Richards action EVER!? He can just duct tape together any dues ex machina device and solve any problem, like the whole Batman Prep Time gimmick. Granted, considering he is Mr. Fantastic, it comes with the territory, but this is Reed jerry rigging something from Skrull ship scraps. Once again, I am expected to take the Skrull armada so seriously, yet Reed can patch together a gun that exposes them flawlessly within 2 pages. HOW THE ****ING GOD DAMNED HELL IS THIS ANY DIFFERENT THAN EVERY OTHER SKRULL STORY YET WRITTEN!? How!? If Bendis was satisfied with telling "just another" story, it would be different. But he always goes on and on and on and on about how different, better, and superior his stories are, and they're ****ing NOT! They drip with more pretentiousness than a packed United Nations building. SECRET INVASION has the simplest storyline you could think of (aliens invade and attack) and Bendis can't even do it right. He can needlessly drag out Thor & Bucky an issue when he shouldn't, but he can't drag out Reed's Insta-Solve Gizmo a few more pages! ****, man.
Clint gets the final page cliffhanger this time, doing one of those Mark Millar Tough-Guy poses after having to kill Skrull Mockingbird. On the one hand, I was afraid of the idea of Bendis trying to "replace" some of the characters we have known and loved for years by claiming they'd been Skrulls since the 70's. But, in reality, none of them were and the latest anyone was replaced was around 2004, right before HOM. One would think that if the entire ruse was to incapacitate Iron Man and kill the Avengers, the Skrulls could have done a better job of it. Instead of "confusing" them, why not have simply had an armada of super-Skrulls waiting like they used to attack Times Square (and Britain, etc.)? It just seemed an exercise in futility and distraction. The Skrulls were supposed to be SERIOUS, right? They really haven't been. People complained about Great Ultron in ANNIHILATION CONQUEST, but at least he killed someone noteworthy (Moondragon, a former Defender and Avenger). All the Skrulls can claim is Geldoff. GELDOFF.
Other issues, especially the first few, were better than this. But now we enter the typical stages of a Bendis event story. Part 1: Potential, Good Moments. Then Part 2: Middling, and finally what may be inevitable, Part 3: Sucktastic Ending. Still, compared to HOUSE OF M, I am enjoying it more, and based on those low expectations, Bendis has improved in his event-writing. I simply could easily list a half dozen writers who could have done this WAY better (Abnett, Lanning, Fraction, Slott, Brubaker, Cornell, Brian Reed...) And at least Bendis hasn't really "deleted" any major characters aside for Hank Pym (who he probably gets sexual satisfaction in making look bad), Elektra (who doesn't matter), and Spider-Woman (who is SO alive because Bendis won't stab the heart on his chest). Considering all my retcon fears, at least this is an underwhelming event whose harm is somewhat limited. But, damn, it is underwhelming, especially this month, and this issue.
