Retro Review

With Marvel currently in the middle of their Skrulls-invade-Earth Secret Invasion cross-over event, the timing is perfect to go back and revisit DC’s 1989 alien invasion cross-over, appropriately titled Invasion!, and see how they handled super-heroes facing seemingly impossible odds defending the planet. DC also seems to think that this is the right time to bring the main limited series into the spotlight: they have finally released it as a trade paperback, amusingly with the new tagline, Secret No More. What rascals to trade on their competition’s big event! It is high time Invasion! was reprinted, as it is one of the better limited series connected to a cross-over event to come from either company.

Alien invasions are a common storyline in science-fiction, and the Earths of the Marvel and DC Universes get invaded on a regularity rivaled only by the Earth of the Doctor Who Universe. Despite the idea being nothing new, Invasion! is worth hunting down either in the back-issue bins or in the new trade. In just 3 issues, Keith Giffen and Bill Mantlo gave us a tightly plotted story of high stakes action, making some excellent and unexpected choices to keep the action fresh. For example, without spoiling too much: the alien alliance does not attack Washington or New York first, instead concentrating on areas that are weakly defended; and an unlikely and little-known hero makes an unexpected and crucial appearance. Bill Mantlo, on script, was in fine form: this is the witty and evocative Bill Mantlo of Marvel’s Rom and The Micronauts, not the apparently bored, phoning-it-in Bill Mantlo of Alpha Flight.

Issue 1, subtitled The Alien Alliance, details the formation of the invasion force, consisting of 9 alien races that were well-established in DC continuity, and the first strike. Led by the scheming Dominators and motivated by fear of the Earth’s capacity for producing super-humans that might threaten their worlds, this alliance plans to neutralize or annihilate our population, and there are no other worlds to come to our aid. Issue 2, Battleground Earth, has the main thrust of the war, with Earth’s super-human community rallying against the invading force. Issue 3… well, giving too many details would spoil the surprise, but since the subtitle is World Without Heroes, you can bet it is rough on our favorite super-heroes.

(art by Bart Sears and Joe Rubinstein, copyright DC Comics)

The story has consequences within the DC Universe, although none are as lasting as the advertising of the day would have you believe. The biggest changes were to The Doom Patrol, which Grant Morrison was just about to take over, so a shake-up was coming regardless, and to Justice League International, which got membership changes and a sister book, Justice League Europe. L.E.G.I.O.N. was also launched, and those two books both lasted for several years. Other characters and books saw minor changes to their supporting casts or to character’s powers, but otherwise, it was business as usual once the invasion was over.

As with many of the Big Two’s big event limited series, Invasion! does have the problem of not being self-contained: you can get the whole plot from just the 3-issue limited series, but there are whole chunks of the action happening off panel, to be summed up in a line of dialog or single-panel flashback. This does mean that some of the story seems to lack substance, particularly the start of the second issue. The first 5 pages are a rather dry summary of the events of all the cross-over issues for the first month. However, the major events of the story all happen in the pages of these books, so there isn’t too much of a feeling of missing something, just a lack of impact to some of the action.

The art in Invasion! is a mixed bag. Keith Giffen, ever the good story-teller, did the breakdowns, with Todd McFarlane on pencils for issue 1 and the first half of issue 2. Keith Giffen finishes pencils on issue 2, and Bart Sears and Keith Giffen do issue 3, and the three issues have four different inkers. I don’t know why Todd McFarlane left the series early, but given the poor quality of some of what he turned in, it’s a shame he was ever involved. Some of the scenes are good, especially those where you can still see Keith Giffen’s hand, but there are too many of his characteristic flattened faces, ugly female characters, and dense movement lines, and he cannot do the extreme close-ups of faces that Giffen’s breakdowns call for. Bart Sears does a far better job, but the best pages are the ones that Giffen does with Joe Rubinstein on inks in issue 2.

The 80-page single issues go for cover price or above, although you can get lucky and find cheaper copies. Issue 3 is the hardest to track down, but doesn’t seem to retail any higher than the previous two. The trade paperback is out now.

Invasion! #1-3, DC Comics. A for story, C for the mixed bag of art, and an extra B for being one of the few good cross-over events of the time, for a solid B overall. Look for it in back issue bins under DC, and on the trade paperback shelves.

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