Weekly Comic Book Reviews 04/07/08

Secret Invasion #1
Writer: Brian Michael Bendis
Artist: Leinil Yu
Publisher: Marvel

So Secret Invasion is upon us. They hype has been heavy for the last few months, but Bendis has apparently been seeding his stories for years now with elements that lead up to this story. One of the big criticisms of Bendis' last crossover event was that it was slow and talky. It seems Bendis has learned from that, because this issue certainly isn't talky.

From beginning to end, this issue is just one event after another as the Skrulls finally launch their assualt, strategically taking out the bases of Shield, SWORD, the Avengers and the Fantastic Four as well as releasing who knows how many super-criminals. This is a big action movie in comicbook form.

It's really not possible to come to any conclusions about the plot yet, but the issue does at least draw you in to want to know what happens next. I should say a few words about Lenil Yu's art too. I like his style, but I've felt some of his work on New Avengers was overly rushed. Not so here. It's cleaner, the style fits the mood of the story perfectly and the storytelling is solid.

Countdown to Final Crisis #04
Writer: Sean McKeever
Artist: Jamal Igle
Publisher: DC

Countdown has come in for very heavy criticism over the course of the last year (much of it earned). The first half of this series meandered in a seemingly aimless manner that leaves me feeling it was padded to last the year. However in recent weeks the pace has picked up a lot and I can't complain about the action level. It still feels padded though.

This week read like a wrap-up issue up until the last few pages when they pulled a swerve on us. The problem is that the swerve really doesn't feel credible. Mary Marvel's temptation was one of the elements that has failed to convince me from the beginning and returning to it after it was apparently resolved just makes it even weaker.
Image via Wikipedia
Amazing Spider-Man #555
Writer: Zeb Wells
Artist: Chris Bachalo
Publisher: Marvel

Brand New Day continues on its merry way. I know there's been a lot of upset about recent events in relating to Spider-man, but I have to say I love the new status quo. I'm not familiar with Zeb Well's previous work and I'm not a fan of Chris Bachalo's current art style so I wasn't sure what to expect from this week's issue.

All in all it was an inoffensive and competent piece of work, but it didn't blow me away by any means. Bachalo seems to have reigned in some of his worst excesses for this issue at least and while I'm still not a fan of the style I was at least able to follow what was going on. Wells seems to have a grip on the characters, but the story never really developed into anything significant.

Young X-Men #1
Writer: Marc Guggenheim
Artist: Yanick Paquette
Publisher: Marvel

Young X-Men is the latest X-Men title to be spawned out of Messiah CompleX and it appears to be replacing New X-Men in the line up. However based on this first issue, I'm a little confused what niche it plans to fill.

The setup of Cyclops gathering a team (through a series of cliched set pieces) so they can go after the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants seems awfully close to the concept behind X-Force. It's all a bit pedestrian really and the only thing that gets my interest at all is the cliffhanger reveal of who those "evil mutants" really are.