Secret Invasion # 1
Written by Brian Michael Bendis
Art by Lenil Yu, Mark Morales, & Laura Martin
Published by Marvel Comics
For those of you reading this column, The Virgin Read, for the first time, I would like to make it clear on what this whole Virgin-Read-thing is. I am not (or WAS not, until about 4 months ago) a comic book reader. The CEO of Factual thought it would be interesting to see what a non-comic-book reader thinks about comic books. And in my case, particularly, what is the perspective of a female, 30-something, non-comic book reader on a comic she’s never read before. Is it easy or hard to understand? Does it appeal to this demographic or, um, offend it? What is the opinion of the art work? Etc., etc., etc. And thus, The Virgin Read was born.
If you’ve read regularly, you know that I am not a huge fan of Super Hero comic books. Originally, it was simply because they seemed too silly to take seriously – and this was my take before ever actually reading a Super Hero comic. Now that I’ve read a few, I can state as fact that they are at best, silly. I mean, that’s my opinion anyhow.
So, then we come to the usual question I pose in the column, “Why did I pick this comic, this week?’ Well, honestly, of all the other choices, I’ve already read and reviewed nearly all of them. It was down to Secret Invasion and American Splendor. The bosses found it amusing (for reasons unknown to me at the time, but now clear) that Secret Invasion was in my Final Two, and he said, “do that one.” So, ya know, I do what The Boss tells me to do.
And, well, I didn’t really realize that it was a Super Hero comic. And, shit, it isn’t just a Super Hero comic. Its, like, The Prom of Super Heroes. Its, like, when the casts of Happy Days and Laverne & Shirley would show up on each other’s show. I don’t know why that used to get me all giddy, but it did. Of course, I was eight years old. But, um, this didn’t really get me giddy.
See, I didn’t see Spidy on the cover, and I didn’t recognize Wolverine’s claws. I saw those spacey looking guys. And it said Invasion in the same font that “Body Snatchers” is written in Revenge of the Body Snatchers (I think).
I thought it was about space and...you know, stuff. And, I’d just finished a marathon of the entire third season of Battlestar Galactica on DVD. Dude, I was READY for this.
And yet, I wasn’t. No. No. This was too weird for me. First: it was, essentially, the whole Cylon thing from BSG. Except they are Skrulls. And then, it was, like every single comic book hero ever known to man thrown in. And nearly every other frame has the introduction of a new character or of new setting. It's like the l-o-n-g-e-s-t movie intro in the universe.
And then I got to the page where they are all there, walking out of a spaceship, thinking they are on Earth. They are all represented. And the lightbulb went off. “Oh, I get it. I get it! This is, like, for comic people, the equivalent of when the kids I teach go and see Elmo Live. Its like, ELMO! LIVE! And all the others are there too! Big Bird! And Sully! And Zoe! Singing! And Dancing! But ALL TOGETHER.
I mean, the thing is, I didn’t really get it. Not because the plot twists were over my head, or anything. It just would have been such an investment of time to keep track of (and investigate) who everyone was, and keep them all straight in order to understand or grasp the impact of this whole conglomeration of heroes. As an outsider reading this, I felt just like that: an outsider. Oh well. Back to the independent comics for me!
-Nina Miller, 2008
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