SECRET INVASION #8 (OF 8)

Review by: Crippler

What did the
iFanboy
community think?

808
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Avg Rating: 3.3
 
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Size: pages
Price: 3.99

This review contains spoilers, click here to read

Story: 1 - Poor
Art: 4 - Very Good
 

Comments

  1. drakeroberts says:
    December 3, 2008 at 10:58 pm

    they dealt with the he loves u thing in incredible hercules, and before u complain that it should have been in the main book check it out

  2. Avatar photo rwpos says:
    December 3, 2008 at 11:08 pm

    @drakeroberts – I guess they did deal with that in Herc.  When I read that story it was so far ahead of the end of SI, and it wrapped up so neatly, that I was sure that it was a diversion or that a twist was coming.  But I suppose it was actually the real deal.  And I thought that it was a really fun story, well written with great art.

  3. Avatar photo TheNextChampion says:
    December 3, 2008 at 11:12 pm

    What was the main point of this series? I keep thinking this cause I dont think Marvel told us at all what were the thrilling points for this book. All they kept saying was ‘THE MARVEL U WILL NEVER BE THE SAME!’….When basically all but 2 things stays exactely the same from issue #1.

    Who the fuck cares about Janet dying? Seriously….I want a raise of hands in the main page of this comic to tell me who cared about Wasp dying. Norman Obsbourne as head of SHIELD is an intriguing idea. But did we really need a huge event to give us this starling revelation? Plus it doesnt help that the last two Thunderbolt issues pretty much spoiled that part of the story.

    Absolutely craptacular.

  4. Avatar photo Crippler says:
    December 4, 2008 at 6:06 am

    @ drakeroberts – From issues 1 through 8 the words "He loves you." were repeated ad nauseum by the Skrulls.  Now, I knew (from iFanboy) that this had been explained in the Incredible Herc, but, that doesn’t excuse not dealing with it in the main story at all.  Come on… Incredible Herc?  That’s where your reveal took place?  That’s lazy.  It means you didn’t know how to deal with it in the main story and that it was ultimately not very important… just like everything else in the series. 

     

  5. Avatar photo Marbles says:
    December 4, 2008 at 9:22 am

    Sorry Marvel, I’m out from now on. What a a waste of time (& money).

     

     

  6. Fractal514 says:
    December 4, 2008 at 9:26 am

    I disagree, I loved the book, and I’m righter because I know what the word Penultimate means and you don’t. 🙂

     

    BTW, He loves you meant, Skrull God Loves you.  Not Norman Osborn or Galactus or some big thing, and the reason they did’nt deal with it?  Cause it was pretty damn obvious from issue 1 that it was just the skrull god and not some plot twist and you don’t deal with things that are pretty damn obvious.

  7. Avatar photo daccampo says:
    December 4, 2008 at 4:19 pm

    Crippler — I posted this on another review, but: "He loves you" was NEVER meant to be a subplot. It was no different than having a Muslim terrorist shout something about Allah. I don’t quite get why people put so much emphasis on that in this book. Maybe it was a mistake on Bendis’ part to have the Skrulls use a cryptic chant. But it was never really meant to be part of the plot. Substitute in "May The Force Be With You" if you want. 😉

  8. Avatar photo VogonPoet30 says:
    December 4, 2008 at 7:47 pm

    I posted something similar in the comments of that review, but the larger discussion is obviously going on in this section:

     Repetition usually denotes importance in most works of fiction that I’ve read. If the surface-level, real world parallel was all that was intended then I’m afraid that makes Bendis pretty damn lazy.  

  9. Avatar photo daccampo says:
    December 4, 2008 at 7:52 pm

    Repetition may "usually" denote importance, but it doesn’t mean that the identity is the important thing. If you replace the phrase with Praise Be To Allah or something, everyone would understand that the repetition denoted the level of FANATACISM, not… "who is this Allah guy?"

  10. Avatar photo VogonPoet30 says:
    December 4, 2008 at 10:01 pm

    I really enjoy when alien cultures are fleshed out, and personally think it’s too simplistic to just make the Skrulls fanatacism manifest in exactly the same way it does on Earth.  A culture of galaxy-spanning shape shifters would have a pretty interesting take on religion if someone bothered to spell out what it would be like.

    Really, I’m not even totally disagreeing with you.  I just think, for me, the story would have worked better either by exploring this area more, or getting rid of it entirely.

  11. Avatar photo daccampo says:
    December 4, 2008 at 10:44 pm

    Yeah, I see where you’re coming from. There was something I read/heard once that’s always stuck with me: any time we talk about alien cultures in sci-fi, we’re really talking about OURSELVES. So anything from Klingons to Vulcans to Predators to whatever… is just an allegory for some aspect of humanity. It allows us to emphasize only one aspect, perhaps. As such, that’s how I kinda saw the skrull thing. They were fanatic terrorists. I guess I didn’t need more than that. Not for this story, which was a pretty simple popcorn flick. If it was a different type of story, then yeah, I’d probably want more, too.  As it was, I didn’t really see it as lazy — just fitting for the story he wanted to tell.

  12. Avatar photo VogonPoet30 says:
    December 4, 2008 at 11:33 pm

    You’re absolutely right about some people using alien cultures to subtextually talk about humanity.  There has been a lot of great stuff written with that approach in mind. 

    Part of my beef with this whole plot element is purely subjective.  Skrulls show up and start blowing shit up saying "He love you," and my first question is "Who is this ‘He?"  Obviously it’s either their god, or some kind of religious figure, but does their god have a name?  Is it a crazy cosmic being that could actually show up later in the story to seriously even the odds if it came down to a face to face confrontation with earth’s heroes?  You have to admit that there were a lot of ways that "He" COULD have been a major plot point.  So when the Skrull queen simply says that "He" is god, all I can think is "Duh."  When people like Reed Richards and Tony Stark can’t make the same leaps in logic that I can….anyway…I’m probably flogging a dead horse or covering ground that other people in other threads have done more thoroughly.

  13. Avatar photo Crippler says:
    December 5, 2008 at 7:11 pm

    @dacampo – I think you’ve made my point completely.  If a man runs into a marketplace, screams "Allah-Al Akbar!" and blows himself to pieces, then he is making a statement that carries meaning.  Why do you think terrorists operate like they do?  In theory, they are sending out a message through their actions.  Same applies here.  Except, we have no idea what the message means. 

    In a less controversial example, yes "May the Force be with you." is a good example.  Notice how the Rebels say it and the Imperials don’t?  The reason is because that statement carries a symbolic message. 

    The question was never ‘who is the Skrull God that loves you’ it was WHY does he love you and what does he plan on doing with that love and … in a world where gods walk the earth.. how come the Skrull god couldn’t beat the Norse god of Thunder?  He didn’t even show up!  Replace Skrull god with Dr. Doom.  How pissed would you have been if it had been an invasion of doombots and at the end Doom himself doesnt’ show up??? 

  14. Avatar photo daccampo says:
    December 9, 2008 at 2:01 pm

    @Crippler — so, by your example… Allah needs to show up at the end of any story with Muslim terrorists?

    "It carries a symbolic message" — yes, I totally agree. That’s my whole point. It doesn’t make it a PLOT. "He loves you" is a symbolic message. Who is the he? Spider-woman tells us," He is God." That’s it. That’s the whole explanation. 

    Bring it back to the Muslim terrorist. let’s say he says "Allah loves you." Another character says "who the heck is Allah?" The Terrorist says, "God!"  The reader doesn’t then expect God/Allah to descend down from Heaven and say , "Yup, that’s me! I’m with this guy!" Nope, you’d immediately understand that it was a fantatical religious difference between two cultures. You wouldn’t expect it to become part of the plot. You would understand that it’s a symbolic message and that’s it.

    I suppose the real danger here for Marvel is that Marvel doesn’t exist in the real world, so the idea that someone conquers a land in the name of a god doesn’t mean that we may not actually "see" said god. Marvel — and super-hero comics — have trained the reader that that MIGHT be a possibility, while it wouldn’t ever be a consideration if you were, say, watching an episode of 24.

  15. Avatar photo Crippler says:
    December 14, 2008 at 11:02 am

    @daccampo – No, I don’t think I said that anywhere.  The God doesn’t need to show up, but he DOES need to be explained.  Saying ‘god told me to do this’ is a hackneyed plot device.  You have to at least say ‘god told me to do this because…."  I mean, in a world where gods really do show up and have real goals and motivations, why is this one left so far offstage?  The reader should at least find out what the goal is.  That’s why we usually have villain-rants at some point.  The reader needs to know that stuff.

    Let me put it another way.  The motivation of the antagonists in this story seemed almost rooted in benevolence.  At least from their point of view, they were doing everyone a favour.  Why was this the case?  Even with a Norse god on their side, the heroes of the Marvel U generally reflect a certain (perhaps Judeo-Christian) worldview.  Here was a clearly opposed worldview which was the motivation behind the entire series… and was not explained at all.  Hence, lazy writing.      

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