Secret Invasion: MEH.

by Teresa Jusino

Stephen Colbert should’ve won the presidential race in the Marvel Universe – because he never would’ve done something as insane as the current president did at the end of Secret Invasion!

Eight months, eight regular issues, five issues of Front Line, and countless tie-ins later, Brian Michael Bendis’ Secret Invasion is finally over. And surprise! Humanity won.

Or did it?

Secret Invasion begins with the Skrulls, everyone’s favorite shape-shifting aliens, plotting an invasion of Earth, an invasion that according to them is destined. They are certain of emerging victorious. Back on Earth, Tony Stark (Iron Man) discovers that the person he thought was the assassin Elektra was a Skrull. It seems the Skrulls have been infiltrating the superhero community up to the highest levels of S.H.I.E.L.D. for a good long while. As Skrulls continue to be revealed, and superheroes grow increasingly suspicious of each other, the Skrull armada invades, taking advantage of humanity at its weakest moment and promising that Earth will be better off once humans “embrace change” and realize that their planet is actually destined to belong to the Skrulls and would be greatly improved under their guidance. Alien beings tend to underestimate human tenacity, however, and all of humanity – heroes and villains, mutants and non-mutants – comes together to defeat the Skrull threat. Yay, us!

Yet, throughout the main eight issues of Secret Invasion I remained unenthusiastic, buying them more to get the story over with as I hoped for an elusive payoff than because I was actually enjoying it.

Whereas 2006-07′s successful Civil War event dealt with issues of patriotism and national identity, Secret Invasion tries to deal with fundamentalism and terrorism. It’s telling that, while we were ready in Civil War to deal with the idea that individuality in the face of the state is important, that the greatest form of patriotism is dissent, we are not yet ready to deal with what makes fundamentalists tick. We are not yet ready to have a “pro-fundamentalist” side of a debate. It’s certainly reflective of the general mood of the country – the blue-staters who aren’t really interested in why the red-staters believe what they believe, but only want them to stop; those US citizens who aren’t really interested in trying to understand what makes people in other countries want to blow things up, which might go a long way in preventing it, but only want them to stop – but it doesn’t make for productive debate, and it doesn’t make for effective storytelling.

This series had the potential to examine fundamentalism in a way that would have been interesting. It started to. The best issues of Secret Invasion were the ones that focused on the Skrulls; the process many of them endured to take the place of an existing human, the ethics of that process, and the motivations behind the invasion, religious and otherwise. Shape-shifting aliens, and those who cannot change shape being wary of them, are sci-fi/fantasy staples. In order for these stories to be interesting, they should not only tell the stories of the wary non-shape-shifters, but of the shape-shifting race itself. They should successfully make the shape-shifting race its own entity, and not just a plot device used simply to teach a greater lesson about tolerance or to make humanity look good. Whereas Civil War was on the pulse of what was going on in the country politically and presented a clear debate in which readers could choose a side, Secret Invasion is merely a one-sided showcase of how spunky humanity is. How you can’t keep us scrappy human beings down! It could’ve been relevant, and it fell short. That’s a shame, since Brian Michael Bendis is usually great at writing complex characters and making readers think. The entire series just felt like a means to an end – changing things up enough so that Norman Osborn (formerly the Green Goblin, now leader of the Thunderbolts, always at least slightly crazy and frequently off his meds) can now be the head of S.H.I.E.L.D. WHAT?!

The Front Line tie-ins of Marvel event titles have always been as good, if not better than the main event title, providing a different perspective on the goings-on in the story. In my opinion, Front Line is the only “necessary” tie-in of any Marvel event. Secret Invasion: Front Line, was more interesting than Secret Invasion, but not by much. For most of its five issues, Secret Invasion: Front Line’s success hung squarely on Ben Urichs’ strength as a character. While the plot mostly involved strangers we didn’t get to know very well or come to care about dying unceremoniously in each issue, it also allowed us to examine the relevance of the press through Urich. Issue #5 was the most successful of the series, as it focused exclusively on Urich, as well as provided interesting debate fodder. How should people in the Marvel Universe react to Norman Osborn’s sudden ascension to hero status? I almost wish Secret Invasion: Front Line’s writer, Brian Reed, could continue this title in this new world order. Rather, I almost wish we hadn’t had to sit through four issues of Front Line examining a Skrull invasion that didn’t really matter.

The only other tie-in in which I invested was the three-issue Runaways/Young Avengers tie-in, written by Chris Yost.  Surprisingly, this was the most successful title I read during this whole event, despite no one seeming to “get” the Runaways other than series creator, Brian K. Vaughan, and guest writer, Joss Whedon. This title worked first, because it was short.  Seriously, if a story is going to stretch out over eight months, it should be amazing. Secondly, it worked because it successfully balanced a Skrull storyline with the human fight for survival. Of course, this has a lot to do with the fact that both the Runaways and the Young Avengers have Skrulls (or at least a half-Skrull, in the case of Hulkling) on their teams. Here, we had Skrulls with which we could identify; young Skrulls who themselves had to balance their loyalty with their history and culture with their loyalty to their human friends. Also, the Runaways finally stepped up to the plate. Whereas they chose neutrality in Civil War, fighting only to save themselves, here Nico changes all that saying “No more running.  We’re in this.” Both the Runaways and the Young Avengers have grown up a little bit, and it makes for interesting reading. I also have to send a special shout-out to Takeshi Miyazawa for the wonderful artwork in this series, and to Michael Ryan, Rick Ketcham, and Christina Strain for fabulous covers that, when set side-by-side, create a really cool larger image.

On the whole, though, if you never read Secret Invasion, you’re not missing much. If anything, you should go back and read the Civil War tie-ins you missed.

TERESA JUSINO was born on the same day that Skylab fell. Coincidence? She doesn’t think so.  As a writer, her work has appeared in Elmont Life newspaper, and on the sadly defunct website, CentralBooking.com. She is currently at work on a collection of short stories. As a geek, Teresa loves Star Trek, Lost, comics, and anything Joss Whedon ever touched. She has a fangirl *squee-ing* crush on Brian K. Vaughan, which beat up her Robert Downey Jr as Iron Man crush in a fight proving once again that writing skill trumps gadget skill even when that gadget skill is attached to bulging biceps.  Teresa is also an aspiring fangbanger.  Visit her in The Red Room.

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