BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!!!!!

I think I hate you now, Bendis.  I really think I do.  You give me a great first issue so my hopes will be up for the whole of the series.  Then, you peg it down more and more and f--king more until it's issue 5 until people even start THINKING about leaving the friggin' Savage Land.  You test my patience and tease awesomeness at every point, making me think next issue will be better, next issue will be better, next issue will be better.  Except it isn't.  Every issue lags, every issue seems like watching molasses run downhill.  And then you, once again, give just a taste of progression, a morsel of hope that things will turn around in the third act.  And what happens?  Nothing.  What pisses me off all the more is the fact that I dropped this book last month and picked it back up this issue because I was certain things would get better... only to be disappointed yet again.  I feel like some battered spouse and Bendis is some bald chunky Stanley Kowalski that keeps treating me like crap and then goes "Aw, baby, it'll be different now." And then, like a sap, I believe it.  No more. This book sucks and nothing will change that.

A few points of notice I'd like to bring up:

*What was the point of that Mar-Vell scene?  Seriously, what?

*For about all but the end of this book, Reed and the Avengers spending their time emoting on a ship.  That's all.  Tony gets pissed.  Spidey is doing his "I'm joking to signify I'm in over my head" thing.  Hawkeye's quietly smoldering.  Cage and Wolverine are being Cage and Wolverine.  Wasp is being Skrully.  And I don't care.  Oh, you're upset the Skrulls are invading?  Well, maybe you should have thought of that FOUR ISSUES AGO!!!!! Honestly, you want to yell at somebody?  Yell at yourselves for rollicking in the Savage Land for five issues.  You've dried up my sympathy for your righteous indignation about three issues ago.

*Wasp might be a Skrull... I really don't care.

*I honestly do not see how in the heck the Skrulls expect this plan to work.  "Greetings, Earthlings, we want to help you.  We will not harm you.  Sure, we've wrecked your fifth biggest city for no real good reason and tried to kill everybody on your planet who had a chance to stop us... but hey we mean you no harm." Er?

*Maybe I'm looking too much into this but did the Skrulls just turn into a giant joint allegory of the Iraq War?  Religious zealots looking to win at all costs on one side yet imperialists who invade under a banner of "enlightenment" by forcing their higher ways on the weaker state on the other.  Maybe it's the bitter "Patriot Act Am Bad!" taste from Civil War still in my mouth but I really appreciate it when writers opt not to do ham-fisted political symbolism in my company events.

*So, the heroes are sooooo shocked by the devastation of New York because it's never been so damaged before... except for World War Hulk... and the last Ultron attack... and the Planet X fiasco... and Civil War... and the Symbiote attack aaaaand...

*This story may very well have the most forcedly assembled "final battle" I have ever seen.  Thor touches down in Central Park, has a few words with Bucky, then literally slaps his hammer down and BOOM everybody everywhere involved in the battle even the villains who had yet to reveal themselves are lined up in battle formation while all the Skrulls are all in battle stances on the other side.  What.  The.  F--k.

*I saw that "He Loves You" revelation coming back in issue 1. 

*I'm guessing issue 7 shall be just a big fight with some big twist at the end to "change the status quo" and then the last issue is the aftermath like House of M, right?  Because the "something happens in issue one then practically nothing for four issues, then big fight" plot path here was done there, too.

*Did I miss the story where Taskmaster learned how to fly?

Either way, this issue cinches it for me in that this series is a failure.  I don't care what happens anymore.  I honest don't care what "No More Mutants" 11th hour twist Bendis has for us here.  You can't have one and a half good issues and then just fling random cliffhangers at the end of the others and expect me to care.  I don't want promise of good story anymore, I want the good story.  Seven and Eight might be fantastic but that doesn't clear this series from the fact that it was almost all fluff and filler.  I was hoping for this series to be good after Marvel's last few events falling short.  Alas, maybe Dark Reign will be better... but I won't get my hopes up.