Secret Invasion #3 Review

SECRET INVASION #3
Written by Brian Michael Bendis
Art by Leinil Francis Yu

After a lackluster and generic fight in the Savage Land last issue (oh looky here, a t-rex showed up!), we're treated to a no holds barred look at the Skrull invasion in downtown New York as well as reactions from the remaining heroes around the country. If you're looking for action, this issue is very similar to the previous two issues in that it's got a lot of it, but none of it really matters all that much.

The issue actually started off with a trip to the Bermuda Triangle, where the downed SHIELD Helicarrier, which was recently seen above New York, sparking the question of how the hell it crashed there in the first place, is currently afloat in the middle of the ocean.

Maria Hill mirrors my sentiments when she makes note of the absurdity of the helicarrier falling "out of the sky every other Thursday" and the remaining SHIELD members begin doing a head count on the wounded and initiating repairs while Hill heads topside to see where they are and what's going on. There she finds none other than Jarvis, the intrepid butler, and current Skrull agent, asking for their unconditional surrender. There are no other Skrulls and he doesn't talk about Skrulls or clarify that he isn't really Jarvis, which makes me wonder if he's trying to frame the Avengers here or if there just wasn't enough time to show the rest of the scene.

After the rather slow start, we jump right into action with Captain Marvel's attack on Thunderbolt Mountain. It's a short fight and all we see is Venom flying out of the mountain and the rest of the team already defeated as Norman Osborn attempts to sit down and have a nice chat with Marvel.

In the last of the setup pages, we get the sitrep for anyone that missed the first two issues from the Avengers: The Initiative team. They tell us of the invasion in New York, Starknet going down and the heroes disappearance before Hank Pym, who is a Skrull, tells them they have to take all the untrained recruits and head to New York to try and stop them now.

Queue fight scenes. The Super Skrulls that were warped in at the end of last issue are tearing downtown New York apart and killing everyone in sight with only the Young Avengers team trying to stop them. Thankfully, the Initiative shows up in time, heralded by an awesome scene of Gauntlet punching a hole in the Giant Man Skrull's head.

We get one last interlude that features Spider-Woman, who is the Skrull Queen, attacking and, apparently, killing Echo in the Savage Land and then confronting Iron Man and congratulating him on his excellent service to the empire and telling him that he has served his Queen and their people admirably and will go down as the Skrull's greatest hero. She implies the Skrulls engineered Civil War and set up this Skrull Iron Man as the most powerful man on Earth to further their cause. Tony can only deny it over and over as the scene fades out.

From here, we get several pages of back and forth action that culminates with the Skrulls unleashing some kind of ray that incapacitates all of assembled heroes, locking them in place, as the Skrulls proceed to blow the Vision's head off and kill Proton, who I am unfamiliar with and assume is just Random Initiative Recruit #1083.

The issue ends with a Rob Liefeld inspired shot of Nick Fury and his new Howling Commandos crying havok and letting slip the dogs of war in a confusing scene with some weird special affects to simulate an earthquake in downtown New York, caused by special agent Daisy, and then the Skrull holding all the heroes in place spontaneously exploding, either caused by Daisy's micro-earthquake inside its body or Nick Fury's 10 foot tall gun blowing him apart. It was really difficult to tell what happened there, but it was another dramatic cliffhanger for this title.

Verdict - Must Read. Personally, I didn't care for it all that much and found the action rather stilted and all the danger and excitement felt manufactured. Nothing felt all that real. However, this entire event just isn't gelling with me and I can recognize that this has all the trappings of a great comic and should be at least treated as such. It was definitely better than the first two issues, in my opinion, and I think most will see this as a Must Read. However, if you share my opinion on Secret Invasion, this is probably a Check It at best.

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