Retro Review

That was the only thought I had while reading the final, anti-climactic issue of Marvel’s Secret Invasion limited series, the backbone to the sprawling cross-over event that’s taken up most of 2008. This issue should have been a fast-paced, dramatic climax to the story. Instead, it was flat and rather dry, and the blame must land squarely on the shoulders of the writer, Brian Michael Bendis, and the editor, Tom Brevoort. Both have delivered great work at other times and even on other issues of this title, but they faltered on this the crucial issue of the company’s event of the year.

Did neither of them think that having the action narrated as past events would weaken the impact of what we were reading? Every page of the climactic scenes of the story has caption boxes with dialog between two characters who are discussing the events as having happened some time ago. The first dialog caption, which is on a double-page spread of heroes, villains and Skrulls trapped in a vortex, reads “The battle in New York was fierce”, and right there, it distances us from what’s going on. It also breaks a cardinal rule of comic story-telling: don’t tell the readers in words what you are already showing them in images. 

Beyond distancing the reader from what is happening and being somewhat unnecessary, the captions with this dialog get in the way of the art in places, making it difficult to enjoy the action. 

The climax of the story itself is sadly predictable: who wins, who loses, who dies, and how some of those characters will probably be resurrected later is no surprise to any long-time comic reader. There are a couple of surprises in store, but since these are mainly to set up the next big cross-over event, they are not necessarily welcome. Too much time is spent setting Dark Reign up, and not enough time on giving Secret Invasion the action-packed and emotional ending it should have had. Overall, a very disappointing finish to a series that started out promisingly, and another lesson to me that I should just not bother with the big crossovers any more.

* blows the dust off the keyboard *

As I’m sure you’ve noticed, Retro Review has been rather quiet lately, as I’ve had to take some time off to put my house in order. I haven’t even been reading comics lately, if you can believe that. Well, not many, at any rate. I did finally manage to get around to reading the first volume of Alan Moore and Chris Sprouse’s Tom Strong, which was an interesting but ultimately unsatisfactory read, partially because it relies too heavily on nostalgia, not all of which holds up well, and partially because of expectation. It’s not at the level of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen or Top 10. I also read the first chapter of Bill Sienkiewicz’s brilliant Stray Toasters, which, while still as creepy as I remember, is a lot funnier than I expected.

However, that’s not to say I’ve not been reading: I’ve gotten sucked into a collection of Miranda July’s short stories (No one belongs here more than you), which are absolutely brilliant, more poetry than prose.

It’s been a slow period for comics, and a slow period for writing, and the next week looks to be much the same. So, Retro Review will remain on hiatus until Monday week, that’s the 15th of December, to give me a chance to get back into the swing of things, not to mention getting back home from a week-long trip. See you back here next week.

All the best,
Derek.