Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION Dr. Gym'll's Cultural Rarities Marvel's Secret Invasion (SPOILERS)

Well after enjoying the crossover pretty thoroughly for the duration of it, I'm feeling that the finale was a bit anti-climatic and didn't really come through with all that much delivery. That's not to say it was bad, it just wasn't spectacular. And that's a pretty typical Bendis problem for *superhero* stories of this grand a nature. He's great in more 'street-level' stuff in regards to finales and endings, but I've yet to see him really deliver on this cosmic level when it comes to an ending. Basically it was several splash page shots of fighting by Leinul Yu, who isn't one of my favorite artists.

Some good stuff does happen though, and there are both good moments and great set-up for the future of the MU. While I loathe the usage of Norman Osborn in general, I did find it fascinating to see the Anti-Illuminati gathered. The inclusion of Namor and Emma Frost was especially great because it implies a much deeper set of motivations and development than just a round-up of 'bad guys and villains'.

Several of Bendis' favorites shined, like the Hood, and I like Fury's role post-SI, and wonder where that will go. I have no real interest in the rest of his new crew but SI did make me do one thing that took about 5 years to happen: I now like Maria Hill despite myself.

<span class="spoiler_containter"><span class="spoiler_wording">Click Here For A Spoiler</span><span class="spoiler_text">The Wasp's death, however, was pretty poorly done. Not that its offensive or an insult to her fans and all that--all of which are viable arguements, but honestly I've seen so many of these in recent years that I almost take it in stride with the expectation that certain characters are immune to really dying, and the Wasp is surely one. It was the manner in which it was done--again, Bendis' problem with delivery. Very anti-climatic, lacking completely of drama, no real emotional connection to the scene because the Wasp has been a background player so thoroughly for some time now, only showing up to be botched characterization wise. NOt done very well at all.</span></span>

All in all, I enjoyed Secret Invasion very much. I enjoyed the Avengers tie-in issues, I enjoyed the tie-ins in Nova, GotG and Hercules, and I pretty much liked the whole mini, I just didn't like the last issue, because essentially it was all build up with no end. That's a common problem in comics these days, particularly with Bendis' Avengers stories (he doesn't have that problem with Daredevil, Ultimate Spider-Man and several other of his stories).

But even Civil War interested me in seeing where the MU went from there, and SI is no Civil War (that mini-series / event just plain was terrible and indefensible). The post-SI Marvel U seems again to be providing some interesting ground-work.

I HATE that "big" stories nowadays seem to follow the following format:
-- the main miniseries that gives us the plot points of the BIG story, while completely glossing over characterization or details that might actually give the plot any kind of real human drama.
-- various tie-ins that "fill-in the blanks" by giving us the human drama that couldn't be weaved into the "BIG" story.
-- A "big" story that ultimately is little more than stringing us along just to sell us on the NEXT "big" story.

Funny how Marvel's "Dark Reign" is on the heels of DC's "The Day Evil Won" (Final Crisis) and its followup spotlight on the "Faces of Evil". I don't know who came up with what first, but it can't be a coincidence...

Now how lame was that event? Oh my... this was Wizards "event of the year", oh my god! And Leinil Yu was the "best artist of the year", the man whose art was often hard to tell what was actually happening, the artist whose Death of the Wasp was impossible to make out (what the hell was happening there?)...

That's it for me and Marvel. I'll cut down my monthlies to New Avengers - just to get an idea what's the new lousy idea of the year - and turn my back to the rest.

Dark Reign, Osborn chief of everything. Can it get more ridiculous?

I think the event had the same trappings as most events. It affected the other Marvel titles too much.

Bendis running an event is even worse. I can't tell the difference between Mighty Avengers, New Avengers, or Secret Invasion. All of them are done in the same style, etc.

There weren't that many big reveals as Skrulls. I guess that may be a good thing.

Tony Stark WOULD NOT put all his eggs in one basket. Bendis said imagine anything made by Microsoft that is Windows based. I get that. But Tony would have the back ups of things based on other tech/software like Linux, Mac OS, Unix, and a dozen of his own software made different from each other on purpose. Anyways...

Why didn't the Skrulls fight as heroes? Imagine the final battle it was just all heroes? Thor wouldn't know who to hit. The heroes would get beat bad. You would have to have Reed Richards come up with a Brainy5 Durlan spray to save the day but still...it would've been nice to see.