Avengers: The Initiative #15

One-sentence summary: This series continues the Secret Invasion tie-in arc with a rather blah issue.

I've been a pretty big fan of the last few Initiatives. I thought they were fairly tightly scripted with a good mix of action and humor. Last issue did the same, while being, what I thought, a pretty good tie-in with Secret Invasion that might actually have some implications. This didn't surprise me, since I was pretty happy with their tie-in with World War Hulk, praise I gave exclusively to them.

That being said, this issue was a let-down for the same reason Secret Invasion as a whole is sort of bleh, and that's that nothing happened. Great, we get some background on a character for an issue. Woo. Awesome. Is it particularly amazing background? Not really, no. It's ok. It'd be ok if it had been a page or so of exposition in order to use it later in the issue/arc as material, but it's clearly just a one-shot with this character. Ugh. I'm so tired of everything having to do with Secret Invasion being mired for the past 2 or 3 months in the exact same 5 minutes.

That being said, who knows -- maybe they'll finally get to do something next issue.

Secret Invasion (Thus Far)

One-Sentence Summary: Marvel's summer epic is being done precisely as an event like this should be.

Alright, so if you really wanted to you could go back through my archives and read about my opinions you'd know that I wasn't a big fan of World War Hulk last summer. I thought there was essentially little to no story behind it, and the tie-ins were even worse in that regard (see World War Hulk: X-Men for the biggest waste of 3 issues ever).

That being said, it's just not the case for Secret Invasion. In a reverse of World War Hulk, I'm actually enjoying the series much more than the lead-up to it. Bendis has made not only a good story, but it's a story that's almost perfectly adapted to actually work with tie-ins. I'm sure that, to some degree, this was a very business-based decision, but the flow of the tie-ins is organic enough that I don't care.

If I were to bring a criticism to it, it's that the last few issues of several of my favorite comics have, as their tie-in, done flashbacks to show how the Skrulls set up team A to fall. This is interesting, and on an individual scale each of these issues has its own merits, but, as someone who wants to see how the heroes are dealing w/Secret Invasion outside of just that title, it is a touch frustrating.

Overall, this is such a stupendously better summer for comics than last year that they don't really compare. Secret Invasion is a good book, it will be a good trade, and, so far, I really haven't been too disappointed with the tie-ins. Marvel learned its lesson from World War Hulk -- let the guy writing everything leading up to it go ahead and write the event, too. For that, I'm thankful.