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What did you think of 'Secret Invasion'?
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Another of the big comic-book publishers' major events has come to a close. Or has it?
The last issue of Marvel's shockingly well-conceived "Secret Invasion" came out yesterday, and while it contained plenty of shocking developments, the whole thing now comes off as less than a story and more of a transitional vehicle to keep Marvel fans buying comics. Let me explain: Back in the 70s and 80s, and even the 90s, when Marvel and DC ran these big "event" series such as "Crisis on Infinite Earths" or "Secret Wars," they got you to read them buy showing some of the changes that the event was going to create. Then they got you to read the story ,which was self-contained, and had a beginning, middle and end. Sometimes, they were even well-written, or at least tried to be.
These days, the format has changed. The idea is to keep readers jumping from one event to the next - from "Civll War" to "Secret Invasion" to "Dark Reign," or from "Identity Crisis" to "Infinite Crisis" to "Final Crisis," and individual titles just follow along for the ride. The stories aren't always well-crafted tales as much as they are gimmicks to create buzz for the larger array of comics the publisher needs fans to buy.
"Secret Invasion" started off as a fascinating idea: What happens when shape-shifting aliens infiltrate the world of Marvel's super-heroes. It has been months in the making and started off as a sheer-genius concept. Now that it's over, we find that all we got at the end was a dead Wasp, a rebuke of Iron Man as the hero in command and a new cabal of dicey characters in charge of everything. Oh, yeah, and a bunch of new titles that fanboys have to buy in order to keep up. So "Secret Invasion" isn't so much a well-told tale as it is the center of a smooth running marketing program.
Do you think the big comic book events are as well written and plotted as they were in the past? Let me know.
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