Brian Reed is a good comic writer. His Ms. Marvel is consistently solid, and his strength seems to be emotion-packed action. Or so I thought.
Frankly, I had been underwhelmed by the first two issues of Secret Invasion: Front Line. I enjoyed the concept, so I stuck with it. The next two issues were very good. They told the classic survival in the face of horror story in an impressive fashion. So I was quite pleasantly surprised to note that this issue had a different goal.
In short, it addressed the revulsion of a good man in finding out that a villain, Norman Osborne, will have control in the post-SI world. Everyone who cares about justice hates it when a "reformed villain" is given power. How many dictatorships in the world are run by such awful men?
Frankly, I am not happy that Bendis turned SI into a prelude for his next pseudo-crossover. It seems cheap. I was frankly hoping that Marvel would take some time to just re-establish its character lineup with some good storytelling. On the other hand, Reed has made me want to jump into Dark Reign, just to find out what all the awful things that might happen are. Bendis, good guy that he is (or appears to be), owes Brian Reed a bottle of Scotch (or at least a couple of rounds - things are tough these days).
Story: 5 - Excellent
Art: 5 - Excellent
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