Secret Invasion: Talking Shop

featuring the 4thletter! and Funnybook Babylon gang! David U, David B, Jamaal, Gavin, Chris, and Joe

Secret Invasion hit this week, and I’m sure that you’re already clued in about the spoilers. I gathered up some friends and we decided to take a look at the issue. All of us enjoyed the issue a great deal, and you can check out a couple of reviews from Gavin and David U here. Despite that, a few of us had some issues, so we ended up with plenty to talk about. 3500 words, in fact. It’s lengthy, but give it a read and talk it out with us in the comments.

Look for more SI coverage at PCS in the coming weeks. This has been Marvel’s most interesting crossover yet, so we’re gonna talk it out and see if we can get some predictions in.

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David B.: All right, the first issue is out. What are our first impressions? Good things, bad things, happy things, sad things?

There were a couple things that impressed me about this issue- the pace and the continuity. The issue really feels like a slow burn, despite a fast-paced start. Bendis hits the ground running, but ramps up the speed toward the end of the issue until you’re finally hit with something like one “Oh, snap!” moment a page for the last dozen or so pages. It’s a neat trick and shows that Bendis has really learned his lesson from House of M. Setup is good, but getting right into the action is much better.

The continuity surprised me in how little of it you had to know. Maybe Joe can speak to this better than I can since he’s newer to comics than me, but I felt like the reveal of the kidnapped (?) heroes was done in a way that made it plain that these are older, or alternate, versions of the heroes we’ve been following. I don’t need to know about the Civil War or House of M or whatever for Secret Invasion to make sense.

David U.: I think what Bendis is doing continuity-wise, actually - and it’ll take a few more weeks before I can say for sure, but - is doing as much as he can to make Secret Invasion a standalone story, while moving all of the continuity-based revelations to the Avengers books. If you just want to follow the main story, SI #1-8; however, if you’ve been reading Avengers since NA1 and want to know how it all fits together, then the Avengers books will provide those revelations and context.

Also, Civil War #6 is now Completely hilarious when you consider the fact that Hulkling went to the West Coast, pretended to be a SHIELD agent, got the Skrull pretending to be Hank Pym alone, knocked out the Skrull, and then pretended to be another Hank Pym, who was actually a Skrull in the first place, probably laughing his ass off.

Gavin: Anyone else notice the use of foreground silhouettes? Every single revealed Skrull got one. Here’s a list of those who also got one:

- Bald dude at SHIELD that kind of looks like the guy from Cloud City.
- Wolverine, twice
- Johnny Storm
- Thunderbolts, Johnny and the Richards kids when reacting to explosions, so that may not count.
- Someone standing next to Spider-Man. Wolverine again?
- Sentry

I’d think I’d be on to something, but the F4 part probably tosses a wrench in it.

David B.: I’m pretty sure that Wolverine was the guy standing next to Spidey, but we’ll let the images here tell the tale. It’s an interesting theory, but I’m not sure if it holds up since the F4 also get silhouettes. We’ll find out next issue, I think.

Am I the only one who wouldn’t mind Wolverine being a Skrull? Again? It was pretty awesome the first time it happened.

My two front-runners for Skrulls in the Avengers were Spider-Woman and Black Widow, due mainly to their actions in Mighty and New Avengers, but now I’m not so sure. The first thing Spider-Woman does is call the Secret Avengers and fill them in, which is either her being very straightforward about the invasion or her playing mind games as a Skrull infiltrator. She did call them right in front of Jarvis, which is fishy…

Gavin: I still think Spider-Woman is a good guy in this, despite being a Skrull. Somebody has to be in stories like this.

People think it can’t be Wolverine because he’s already been impersonated. If he turns out to be a Skrull, it would be very Scream. Like in that movie, the boyfriend was made the #1 suspect and shown to be a red herring, only for him to turn out to really be one of the killers. It would definitely bring this whole event up another level by having someone truly major be a Skrull. Pym doesn’t count.

As for Sentry, that’s a scary concept. The guy is a walking personality disorder already. What happens when he realizes he isn’t even himself? If he is one, it would be cool if Lindy figured it out and that’s why she was warning Iron Man a few issues back.

I really like Secret Invasion based on its potential. This isn’t a thing where they say it will change the Marvel world and in the end it probably won’t. Everything has to change. Cop-out is impossible.

Joe: Never say Never.

I did enjoy the hell out of Secret Invasion #1, I must say. It was a wild roller coaster ride, Bendis seems to mesh really well with Yu on this one. The action comes in quick and heavy, and doesn’t waste anytime with exposition. There are Skrulls, no one knows who, and bam lets go

The only qualm I have about the book is the reveal of the wayback avengers that are clones, time-doubles, or Skrulls, Leinil’s Yu’s awesome drawings of the old school style avengers distracted me from the groan I experienced on the second go around.

Jamaal: When did you see this storyline before in a superhero book? I’m not calling shenanigans, but I’d like to have a better idea of what you’re comparing this to.

I don’t think this is particularly similar to the Clone Saga (Spider-Man storyline), or even the LSH clone plotline (which is only remembered by Giffen, the Bierbaums, and I) chiefly because Bendis seems to know how he wants to resolve it. The reason you get the bullshit endings of the other storylines is because no one knew how to end them, and they were developed for extrinsic reasons (people didn’t like the sad Spider-Man/LSH).

Joe:This is going to end (as I see it) one of 3 ways, since we’ve all seen this story line before:

Option 1 - BSG Rip off: They are revealed to be a Skrulls, the question is to they even know. They get discovered or found out, and it’s simply a storyline lifted from Battlestar Galactica. Or, They don’t know that they are Skrulls, but are, and get replace by the way back avengers, again somewhat lifted from the way back avengers.

Option 2 - Classic Marvel Style: They’re time shifted, They fight along side the avenger against the Skrulls, and it ends with Bucky shaking Steve Rogers’s hand in a tearful goodbye.

Option 3 - Clone Saga part 2: They’re clones, and they stick around in continuity for a while, confusing the hell out of everyone for the next two years, when it finally gets ret-conned or mostly dying and just bringing Steve Rogers back.

Those are the only options I can see, and they all look pretty stupid, and very crappy-crossovery, to me. But I think I’ve figured out what’s been bugging the hell out of me about the whole Secret Invasion thing. I went through this whole process of guesswork and shock revelations last year with Battlestar Galactica, and it was done so masterfully over there, that I feel like the whole Secret Invasion thing might have too much of a re-hashed feel for me to get too excited about it. Maybe a bit like trying to watch Law & Order after an episode of The Wire. Law & Order’s a great show, but it’s not really grounded, and doesn’t have the emotional impact for me that The Wire does.

I don’t know… I really hope Bendis has a 4th option I have thought of.

Still though, I don’t want to take away that the writing bristles with fast paced energy, the art is fantastic, and that despite all my conjectures, I do want to know what happens next… Needless to say I am staying tuned, I’m just bit wary at where this is all going, because I have a sneaking suspicion of a BIG FAT COP-OUT ENDING.

David U.: Honestly, the best comparison in terms of previous event comics is DC’s Millennium, which had nowhere near the amount of proper build-up this had and was also really crappy. I also don’t suspect a cop-out ending, largely because I don’t recall the cop-out endings to anything else Bendis has done other than maybe Disassembled.

Joe: As far as following the events of Battlestar Galactica… One is about genocidal religious-zealots space aliens that can look just like us, and one is about genocidal religious-zealots space robots that can look just like us. You can’t deny that there are at least common themes here. HEY LOOK! They infiltrated the defense organization of the planet/colonies and shut down our Battlestars/Iron Man, our most powerful defense, by hacking our computers! Oh, and it’s partially an allegory about the war on terror!

Look, it’s not a new story, it’s been done by plenty of people before Battlestar (see Invasion of the Body Snatchers) and I’m not accusing Bendis of cribbing, but to not see that this plot-line isn’t something we’ve seen before is willful denial. But, we’re here to see how the Bendis cover version of the body-snatchers plotline is played out with the Avengers backing him, and that’s fine. That’s the setup.

The point I was trying to make is that the ship full of time-displaced/ clone/Skrully heroes is that doesn’t strike me as a story that can go anywhere interesting. Instead of ACTUALLY dealing with the trust & identity issues inherent in a Secret Invasion, we’re going to get the throw-back heroes. It seems that it is in itself a cop-out.

If it is a mix time-displaced/clone/Skrull retro-heroes, it would take a few exposition heavy issues just to explain the damn thing, let alone resolve it. Reed Richard splayed out in silly string was fucking dramatic and shocking. The super-friend Avengers back from some secret war in space, not so much.

For my money, they’re time-displaced, and you all know how much I hate stupid time-travel plots. The more I think about the retro-heroes the more I get depressed about the series.

Joe: Despite loving the art, and liking the story so up to this point, the whole retro-heroes thing really sticks in my craw. It strikes me as a bad idea, one that’s going to end stupidly. If the next issues doesn’t deal with the retro-heroes, I’m going to say, “what happened to the retro heroes”, if it does, I’m likely to say, “why are we spending all this time dealing with retro heroes?”. I don’t like the retro-heroes direction that this is going in so far, even less so the more I think about it. Truth be told, since I’m going to have to hear about the Secret Invasion for the next few months, I hope I’m wrong.

But, I never said that I’m bailing on this book, I’m just saying that I don’t currently see where the retro-heroes story line could possibly go that’s of any interest to me. Bendis has surprised me in the past, and I’m staying on in hopes of being surprised.

As a fan of the medium, can I enjoy the art, layout decision, scripting decisions at the panel/page level even if I think the overarching story is (or in this case might be) crap?

There’s so much more going on in this book than the simple plot, Leinil Yu’s doing some fantastic work at the page panel level. Bendis is doing some great scripting at the page panel level. The way that the retro-heroes were revealed was great, stack of 7 smaller and smaller horizontal panels, followed by a wide of the retro heroes coming back from an regular old adventure, cutting to close ups of the new-heroes. Exquisitely done. Everything packs a punch.

Doesn’t change that I think bringing whatever retro-heroes is a dumb idea. And I don’t care who’s a Skrull, as long as it gets revealed in as dramatic a fashion as Hank Pym blowing Mr. Fantastic into ribbons.

As far as continuity:

-Who the hell is Khn’nr? -And also I have no idea who is Captain Marvel is (this one doesn’t look like he’s gonna say shazam!), or Marvel-Boy or his cube…

So I guess the concept of this being devoid of continuity is out of the water… but there were still 37 pages of the 40 that I was able to understand so I guess I should be thankful.

David U.: These are aspects that will be introduced into the main series later, I’m talking about it from the point of view of someone who’s been keeping up with this story extensively. You’re not criticizing the book, you’re criticizing my comments about it - everything you need to know about those characters is laid out (Marvel Boy is a terrorist, Captain Marvel is acting weird).

Chris: Captain Marvel (or Mar-Vell) was a military leader and hero of the Kree civilization, who are traditional nemeses of the Skrulls. He got cancer somehow from fighting Nitro (the exploding guy who blew up Stamford and was the Gavrillo Princip of Civil War) and died about twenty five years ago our time.

Captain Marvel came back during Civil War, apparently time-displaced from a period after he got cancer but before he died. He got put in charge of the Negative Zone Prison, but apparently quit that job and is currently featured in his own mini-series, where it’s currently posited (by a Skrull) that he is actually Khn’nr, a Skrull sleeper agent. The final issue of the mini hasn’t come out yet, but I assume that his connection to the government’s Negative Zone prison is tied into his attack on the Thunderbolts. Whether it’s as an agent of the Skrulls or not, who knows…

Marvel Boy is Noh-Varr, another Kree who’s apparently from an alternate dimension. He showed up on “our” Earth back in a 2001 mini- series by Grant Morrison and JG Jones, which I imagine will be the subject of some sort of Event Interview pissing contest in coming months. Like the Skrulls, he wants Earth to serve as the new throneworld for his people’s empire. He’s barely appeared since his mini-series, popping up in the Young Avengers/Runaways Civil War mini, but more importantly in issue four of Bendis’s Illuminati. In that story, the Illuminati appeal to his better principles, pointing to Captain Marvel as an inspiration for peaceful Kree-Human relations. This pep-talk seemed to get through to him at least a bit, which means I imagine he’s going to run across potential-Skrull Captain Marvel at some point.

I agree these two introductions were a little opaque to a fresh reader, but one hopes that Bendis will develop and explain both characters and their motivations more in the next seven issues.

Jamaal: Why would it be good for Secret Invasion to be divorced from continuity?

David B.: I think that it’d be a good thing to be divorced at least a little so that it reads better as a standalone story. Civil War bugged me because characters would switch allegiances in another comic, and then suddenly appear on the other side in the main event book.

I think what David U. said was on the money– Secret Invasion will be a story in and of itself. “Aliens invade, infiltrate, and start wrecking things and sow seeds of mistrust around the heroes.” That’ll read fine on its own. However, in New or Mighty Avengers, we’re going to get the touches that tie things back to Kree-Skrull War or Disassembled or whatever.

I’m sure that some of that will come into play during the course of the series, but I don’t really expect to see a continuity trawl that doesn’t at the same time include a flashback that’ll explain everything you need to know.

I guess I was a little off on the continuity point, but I was close. Joe not knowing just who Captain Marvel and Noh-varr are is a pretty good start. I do feel like Bendis did a great job setting the stage in terms of introductions. “Here are the Avengers. They don’t like the Secret Avengers. Here’s the Fantastic Four– Susan is the mommy.” And so on.

Looking at the characters who appeared out of the ship, they can be divided up into two big factions, and then one for remainders.

Avengers prisoners:Old School Thor, Leisure Suit Wonder Man, Non-cat Beast, Old Hawkeye, Classic Iron Man, the Vision, Scarlet Witch, Mockingbird, Captain America, and Old school Ms Marvel. X-Men prisoners: Dominatrix Emma Frost, Phoenix, and Wolverine.

The leftovers are Spider-Man, Classic Luke Cage, Old (or maybe Waid/Ringo-era) Susan Storm, and Jewel.

I think this is a clue as to when the Skrulls may have started infiltrating the world. The X-Men prisoners are kind of clearly a reference to the Dark Phoenix Saga, but I don’t know Avengers history well enough to place that team.

Jamaal: I think the X-prisoners (assuming they’re prisoners), come from that era, but it’s not necessarily tied into any plotline (even though the Emma Frost part kind of skews things - how the hell did she end up with that group). I would actually tie Jewel and Cage in with the Avengers, because these versions of the characters were around during that era of the Avengers (so they may have been abducted/copied during that time period).

There’s something that’s very meta about the retro-heroes part of this story, though. Do you guys think that this works apart from the meta text?

David B.: Meta in what way? In terms of showing the present day vs the Silver Age?

Jamaal: It offers false hope to disaffected fans. Or at least is consciously toying with that possibility. Think about all the:

- drastic changes in a character’s personality
- mysterious deaths and rebirths
- drastic changes in character appearance and/or costume
- popular characters that are commonly guest stars in other people’s books

Over the last year, fans have developed theories about the identity of Skrull sleeper agents. Any one who was acting ‘out of character’, or had a ‘mysterious change’ could be a candidate, especially if that character was involved in a storyline that the fan didn’t like (like Civil War). I think that Bendis is tempting those fans with the notion that everything that happened in the last few years (Civil War, House of M, Disassembled, OMD) was part of a Skrull plot, along with some of the little things that old-school fans used to complain about (Beast, Phoenix, Sue Storm). Now, I think that he’s going to burst everyone’s bubble with issue 2, but it makes me wonder if the development works in the context of the story itself.

Not to speculate (because Chris might beat me up), but the selection of heroes seems completely random otherwise.

Chris: The only real connection that seems to exist in the line-up is that it very tightly mirrors the cast of the Avengers circa issue 200 or so, in the Michelinie era.

http://www.coverbrowser.com/image/avengers/200-1.jpg

Check out the cover: Jocasta and the Wasp are unaccounted for, and I guess Hank Pym but he’s off being a Skrull elsewhere. I don’t have a great recollection of this run, but I don’t recall anything particularly “cosmic” going on, and Ms. Marvel and Hawkeye both had moved on from the costumes they’re wearing here, so I don’t know if this is really a connection or not.

The whole group of people is pretty clearly not from the same ‘moment’ in the era either, as the Hawkeye and Ms. Marvel costumes had been discarded by the time that Emma Frost or Mockingbird debuted.

It’s also interesting to note that the leaked script (which was what Huxford had, not spoilers, a script) has a lot of changes, but describes the heroes coming out of the ship as “Spider-Man with web armpits” and “Wolverine in his Hulk 181″ costume as well.

Remember in the first arc of New Avengers, where they ended up in the Savage Land? They end up getting captured and strung up naked in a laboratory. Spider-Woman mentioned this in the last issue of Mighty Avengers, actually.

Anyway, while held captive the Savage Land guy (the one in cahoots with the people who broke everyone out of the Raft) gloated over being able to “continue my experiments on [their] unique biology”. With the exception of Spider-Woman, every single person hung up there (Luke, Cap, Iron Man, Wolverine, Spider-Man) are in the boat of Retro Heroes.

Maybe that means nothing, but the first issue of SI took place right by that bunker where they were held. I have to assume it’s going to be brought back up.

David B.: Oh, I just realized something– Spider-Woman can’t be a Skrull. She’s been secretly working with Fury this entire time.

David U.: Unless Fury knows she’s a Skrull that’s a sleeper, or knows she’s a Skrull that’s turned.

Also, God I hope script leaking doesn’t become the new vogue in comics.

Related posts

• Secret Invasion: Another Look
• Secret Invasion Roundtable: Captain Marvel & Mighty Avengers
• Review: Secret Invasion #1 (Spoiler-free!)
• Double Review: Secret Invasion: Who Do You Trust?
• Comic Double Shock: New Avengers #44 & Mighty Avengers #17