Secret Invasion

So this is it. The comics event of 2008. The Skrulls are invading Earth. Years of storyline find their end-point here, in the jungle of the Savage Land and the streets of Manhattan. Countless other arcs have had this central secret at their heart: the Skrull have infiltrated Earth's mightiest heroes, with a scheme for permanent occupation.  The first thing to say about Secret Invasion is that there's little point going anywhere near it if you haven't been on board for the duration. There's just too much backstory for any of this to be making sense without a good idea of the last three or four years of Marvel continuity. The book begins with the final battle – the prelude to it can be found in writer Brian Michael Bendis' run on Mighty and New Avengers.  The second thing to say – and I wish I didn't have to write these words – is that Secret Invasion is a hugely underwhelming experience. It could be the sheer amount of time and money spent keeping up with what takes place in its pages, or simply the content of the book itself, but with so much at stake, Secret Invasion falls badly at the last hurdle.

What you have here is a decent storyline which has been overhyped to the point of death. This isn't a reference to Marvel's marketing blitzkrieg ahead of the event, but the years of storyline which led up to the invasion, all of which were told in hushed, seismic tones - full of weighty and self-important dialogue, and a general feeling that  we were witnessing some of the most crucial events in the Marvel universe's long history. That really isn't the case. 

It's becoming increasingly clear – and again, it gives me no pleasure to say this – that Bendis is far better at writing engaging, witty dialogue, and sophisticated stories than he is dealing with thematic or conceptual content. These are superhero stories, and they are not designed to be high art, but with DC producing astute, important work on themes of paranoia and mistrust, Marvel's offering – along the same lines – totally fails to offer anything but the most superficial treatment of the issues it raises. It's worth noting that Marvel's deepest, most interesting story – Civil War – was the only recent event not to be penned by Bendis. 

It's best to start with the nuts and bolts of a large-scale event book – the battle sequences. Bendis' form on these things is becoming increasingly standard and uninspired. There's a big battle at the beginning, then atomised groupings, then a large final battle. If you've been keeping track of his New Avengers run you'll not be surprised by the structure here. Bendis' best event – House of M – was the only one not to confirm to this structure. 

The battle themselves aren't given anything like the space they deserve. A couple of splashes featuring half the characters in the Marvel Universe usually frame a handful of pages showing individual actions with mad fighting in the background. We don't follow interesting conflicts between individual character to anything like the extent necessary to make an engaging read.

And on this subject, something needs to be said about these double page, character-filled splash pages, with our heroes facing off against legions of bad guys. Of course, this is an event, and the readers of individual series need to see their character in the thick of things. But the form is becoming irritatingly conventional and boring. Secret Invasion loses a great deal of pace because of this little necessity and its about time comic readers had a conversation about whether they shouldn't go the way of the thought balloon. It's particularly noticeable here, where some of the panel layouts in the book are damn-near inspired. It feels old fashioned and boring to endlessly resort to this way of doing things. 

The moment of full-scale invasion is equally a non-event. It carries none of the solemnity or menace you would expect and the decision to grant all the Skrull a mixture of hero powers looks untidy and weirdly unthreatening. It's hard to tell quite how powerful or not an individual Skrull is. They seem awesomely powerful in the build up to this book, but later become weak and useless as soon as the story demands it. 

I'm not giving anything away here that Bendis doesn't give away himself, but the decision to flip into a past tense narrative halfway through the final battle is a mistake of epic proportions. It sucks all the tension and excitement from the moment as if someone unplugged a drain from the story. I read on, shaking my head in disbelief that this decision had been made. 

The 'Is Tony Stark a Skrull?' storyline reaches a crescendo in a pivotal scene which is impeccably handled. It's the highlight of the story, but, rather insanely, the storyline proceeds to go nowhere at all. It is resolved, in the most cursory of manners. It's another terrible error of judgement. Everything has been set up to do something really interesting here, and then it's wrapped up in a wholly unsatisfying manner – a suitable example of all the problems in this book.

The moment Captain America and Thor return is fantastic. We see flashes of Thor's silhouette against the sky, and a daringly non-conventional panel of Captain America executed in a Spike-Lee-angles sort of way. My heart started beating harder. But their subsequent conversations are unrevealing and their presence quickly forgotten. I don't keep up with either character's individual title, and presumably all the backstory is there, but surely more could have been fitted into Secret Invasion to make their return fundamental to the story itself. 

In terms of wrapping up the myriad of unresolved storylines from countless events and Avengers stories in the past, Secret Invasion does a pretty convincing job of making you think this has been a fully planned arc. It's not perfect, but you can't fault the level of preparation. There's pitifully little of this in Secret Invasion itself, most of it can be found in the flashbacks that constitute the New and Mighty Avengers Secret Invasion books, but for what it's worth it's all tied together nicely.

The future implications of what happens here are far harder to summarise, especially without revealing anything. Suffice to say the ending does take the Marvel Universe in an exciting and unprecedented direction, but this feel almost entirely disconnected from the Skrull invasion. Anything could have triggered the new status quo. The way Dark Reign – the next stage of the story – follows on from Secret Invasion is not entirely dissimilar to the way New Avengers: Collective follows on from House of M. It continues more as an after-effect of the epilogue, than as a result of the storyline itself. The current consensus on Marvel is that it is spewing out great ideas and then executing them with embarrassing incompetence. Secret Invasion – both the concept of the Skrull infiltration and the Dark Reign which follows from it – is a perfect example of this theory. 

So it feels good to discuss the art. Ironically enough, at first glance the art is a disappointment. As I flicked through it, I was surprised Marvel would have opted for such a sketchy artist as Leinil Francis Yu. I was expecting the insanely high production values pumped into Steve McNiven's work in the Civil War. I found Yu's art scrappy and over-lined, with too many pencil lines covering people's faces. 

I couldn't have been more wrong. As you bury yourself in the book it's hard not to become overawed by the work executed with such panache by the art team. The images of heroes going to battle have a sneaky majesty to them which retains the attention. Laura Martin and Emily Warren's colouring is a pleasure to look at. It has high production value, but in a quiet, unassuming way which is ultimately more rewarding. Mark Morales' inking is a masterclass. The subtlety of expression here is memorable in the extreme.

There are similarly strong moments in the plot – the first chapter particularly stands out as reveal after reveal shows the true depth of the Skrull battle plan. But the effect of the book is uniquely dispiriting. You have to give Marvel, and Bendis in particular, credit for being the ones to set this all up so well. But to do so little with the material they themselves provided is borderline criminal. This was an opportunity lost. It could have been something really special.