Secret (Cylon) Invasion

Secret (Cylon) Invasion

Apr 03

It’s early April, spring is stinking up the Central Florida humidity, and the megaevent season has begun yet again for comics fans. (Does it ever end anymore? Not really.)

As you’ll no doubt have noticed, every website on God’s green earth has chimed in with their Secret Invasion #1 review. Now it’s our turn.

This is a really good comic book. It’s paced like a motherfucker, relentless, big dominoes falling on every other page and doing serious damage to the Marvel Universe as they tumble. Lenil Yu’s artwork seems more measured, probably because of the inking, and yet there’s still a sense of sketchy unease to the whole affair, like you’re seeing the whole picture but the details remain unclear. That suits the tone of this book perfectly. Bendis at this point has such a command of this universe and these characters that he’s able to cash in a lot of the goodwill his work has built up over the past several years and just take the company’s entire line of books off the rails.

That’s a bullshit review, but what else can be said? Abhay said it all better anyway. He’s got a way better headline too. This bit, though, is priceless:

Having the bad guys be Skrulls means the focus is squarely on characters the audience cares about already, and asking questions about why those characters work for the audience. That feature is what made Civil War so much fun for me. That’s why World War Hulk worked for me, too. That’s why most crossovers don’t– because they focus on a bunch of “who cares” and “who gives a shits”. Secret Wars 2 was about a white guy with a jeri-curl. DC hinged a massive crossover involving dozens of comics series around Maxwell Lord (!) and an ornery alternate universe version of Superboy… who the hell cares about Superboy and where do I buy them a comically large lollipop?

EXACTLY. Where Civil War let these characters look at each other and know exactly where they stood, who their friends were and who their opponents were, Secret Invasion takes the same baseline–who are these characters, and what do they mean?–and flips it on its fucking head. It’s revealing these characters to us in new ways by showing us everything we DON’T know about them, everything we’ve missed, all the bits and pieces that there’s no way we could ever have known.

I feel as though I would be remiss if I didn’t spend a moment diving into the BLATANT RIPOFF of Battlestar Galactica we have going on here. Actually, it’s a ripoff of the Manhunters from DC too, but I doubt Bendis is leafing through battered old issues of Millennium with a cackle and saying, “OH, that’s good STUFF I can use.” More likely he’s doing the same whilst watching well-worn DVDs of BSG.

Cylons=Skrulls. That’s kind of a no-brainer, but it’s the whole “living among us all this time and HOLY SHIT WE NEVER KNEW IT” angle that’s the true parallel. Also, the idea of the “sleeper agent,” the Cylon/Skrull who’s been part of humanity and believes they are human, and then something clicks and suddenly Sharon is jamming a pistol into the Old Man’s guts. (Oops, SPOILER.) That hasn’t been seen yet but Bendis has mentioned in interviews that not all the Skrulls know they’re Skrulls quite yet. I’m sure that will be a key plot point in issues to come.

The religious overtones. According to Bendis, the Skrulls aren’t just attacking Earth because we deserve it for beaming episodes of Breaking Bonaduce into the ether of space. They’re working us over because they feel it’s their destiny based on some crazy religious beliefs…JUST LIKE THE CYLONS AND THEIR MYSTERIOUS FAITH IN A ONE TRUE GOD. This might be a more subtle plot point in Secret Invasion if Bendis didn’t open the issue with a made-up quote from the Skrull bible. (At least, I assume it’s made up; I’ve never read the Skrull bible.)

“They have a plan.” Every week on BSG, the opening titles tell us that the Cylons “have a plan.” It’s this weird idea that’s been hanging over the show’s action for years; you read it each time, and it sorta settles into your brain, but you never REALLY take it in, right? Because if you did stop to think about it, the questions would make your head hurt: OMG what’s their plan? How are they executing it? Has it started already? What will it do to humanity? And so on. The Skrulls have a plan too, only they just spent the first issue busting it out on humanity’s sorry asses. The Negative Zone prison? Busted. The Baxter Building? Gone. The Helicarrier and SWORD? Blowed up real good. And the heroes? Most of them up in the Savage Land, meeting themselves from ten years ago. There’s an overall strategy at work here.

I don’t fault Bendis and Marvel for swiping BSG’s template and mapping it onto the Marvel Universe; there is nothing new under the sun, and it’s not like the whole Body Snatchers “aliens among us” concept hasn’t gotten tons of play over the decades in sci-fi. It’s still a good story; it’s just not the most brilliant idea.

Which brings me, ultimately, to my Unified Theory Of Marvel Vs. DC In The Early Aughts. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again, and it is thus: Marvel has weak ideas, but great execution; DC has great ideas, but weak execution. On paper, Secret Invasion looks like what it is–a ripoff of BSG. Just like on paper, Final Crisis looks bloody crazy insanely good–Grant Morrison, evil wins in the DCU, the rise of the Fifth World, and whatever else that mad Scotsman can cram into those issues.

In execution? Well, I still have high hopes for Final Crisis, but beyond that…the follow-through at DC is so inconsistent that I never know what to expect. Will we get One Year Later Nightwing, or 52 #52? Batgirl running around killing people for no good reason, or Batman in the cave at Nanda Parbat confronting his demons? You just never know.

With Marvel, I feel more confident I’m gonna get something for my money–a bit more bang for my buck. The payoff will be there. Which is the chief reason why I think Marvel’s kicking DC’s ass right now, and they’re already one point up in the Duel of the Summer Event Comics: They give the people not just what they want, but what they need. They pay shit off. Killing Steve Rogers, turning Iron Man into Iron Dick, Hank Pym’s a Skrull, the disappearing Nick Fury–they may not be the most popular decisions of all time, but they create interesting stories. Over at the Distinguished Competition, meanwhile, we’ve got Brad Meltzer writing the Justice League like he’s got their pictures pinned up over his bed with lipstick marks on their cheeks, and Geoff Johns dry humping Hal Jordan. It may be what the fans want, but it is often quite boring.

I’m getting snarky now so I’ll shut up. I’m not even sure where I was going with this. Oh yeah–Secret Invasion is pretty good shit. If you’re the kind of person who enjoys sampling the addictive and harmful crack rock that is Corporate Superhero Event Comics, take a hit of Secret Invasion. I’ll be there in the alley, sharing a needle of Crisis.