Secret Invasion and how I'm tired of it.

Secret Invasion, like most Marvel crossovers, start off with a fairly nice and pleasant collection of tie-ins, making it quite manageable. And then all of a sudden.... BAM. What title isn't involved? So I'm gonna go over some of the highs and lows so far.

The main series has been rather good. Occasionally Lenil Yu's artwork suffers from what it usually suffers from (making some people look hideous and also crazy boobs). Also, due to all the different tie-ins that spout off every month, by the time the next ACTUAL Secret Invasion issue comes out, I've damn near forgotten what in the hell happened. 

In terms of the main tie-ins with Mighty and New Avengers, these started off rather good, and have now moved into the realm of being mediocre and repetitive. Really, I think alot of these could have been done with more than one in each issue. Additionally, Avengers: The Initiative has been well done as always, bringing in the Skrull Kill Krew. But hardly up to the snuff that Initiative has previously been.

Just this past week, Secret Invasion: Inhumans came out. Not only dealing Black Bolt's skrull reveal in Illuminati, but also the end of Silent War. What Pokaski (of Heroes fame) seems to have done is FORGET that most of the main Inhumans royal family were kind of hypnotized by Black Bolt's brother Maximus. Fantastic Four explains what happens with the Baxter Building, and returns Lyja... and there the excitement ends. Whatever, Baxter Building is back. Nothing to see here. As much as I like Gage, it doesn't seem like there is alot of promise in his Thunderbolts tie-in, even though it is well written. It more seems just like the same thing we saw in the main series. But, there's still more issues to go, so maybe that will change.

Secret Invasion: Thor I think further proves that Matt Fraction should be doing stuff with Thor regularly, like the one-shots that he has been doing already. I just think they should continue is all. Jason Aaron's Black Panther tie-in (or which we only have one issue so far) looks to be quite promising, to the point that I would suggest he be writing the series instead of Reggie Hudlin. Captain Britain & the MI:13? The awesome cannot be contained. Basically think of the brilliance that Cornell brought to the Wisdom mini, add in a well written Captain Britain and lots of really neat concepts involving those characters, and you have the beginnings of an amazing series. As always, Mike Carey writes the X-Men brilliantly in their tie-in mini, and it appears he will do a bit more focus on Nightcrawler for this. Probably the most surprising to me was the Secret Invasion: Front Line book. Personally, I have not been a fan of the Front Line books (or their usual writer, Paul Jenkins). But here, Brian Reed has given us a very interesting and well worked story of the involving the average people on the streets of New York during the first part of the Invasion.

Still alot of stuff to go, and I'll do one of these for Final Crisis once it gets done with its one month gap.

What to look for this week

So, now that I've written far too much about Batman, let's take a look at what else is coming out this week that you should be looking into.

Action Comics 868
Part... what, 3? of Geoff Johns introduction to the real Braniac, not just the robot/cyborg/whatever that has changed so many times in the past. If you haven't been reading Johns' run on Action Comics, just take a look at the past 2 issues in addition to this one. It's as good a starting place as any, though I do recommend going back and picking up the trades of his stuff with Richard Donner and his Legion story.

Astonishing X-Men 26
Really, I shouldn't have to try to convince you to pick this up. Warren Ellis. Simone Bianchi. X-Men. That should be enough. I don't really know what else to tell you, except that this has done an amazing job of establishing the X-Men in San Fransisco.

Captain Britain and the MI:13 4
So far this series has been amazing, and even though it has been tied into Secret Invasion, it is standing by itself amazingly well, hinging on lots of information familiar with the history of the Marvel UK characters, but being reader friendly as well. Also folks, everything in this series indicates that Wisdom is in canon. That's right, that means Shang-Chi fought a Welsh Dragon in a bar.

Firebreather 2
First issue? Superfun. I'm excited about this one, I just wish it didn't take so long to come out.

Green Lantern Corps 27
Damn this series is good. I'm really not that sure as to what the upcoming story is, but I've just been so impressed with Tomasi's work since taking over, that I'm confident whatever comes out will be great.

Last Defenders 6
The last issue of this mini, which will hopefully be continued *crosses fingers*. This series has been really fun, as the Defenders should be. And also filled with superhero fail, another characteristic of the Defenders, and appropriate for New Jersey's Initiative team.

Lone Ranger 12
What? Yeah, this book is good. Believe it. Buy it.

Punisher 60
This is the last issue of Ennis' run right? Let's all shed a tear for this amazing run on Punsiher.

Tiny Titans 7
See pretty much every previous post.

Transhuman 3
I am sad cause I missed the second issue of this. I have no idea what's going on. But the first issue was so fantastic, and everything else I've read by Hickman has fallen into that consistency, I'm hoping this will be good as well. Need to find that damn issue....

Walking Dead 51
But you're already reading this, right? Just a reminder.

Zorro 6
Last issue of the origin of Zorro (written by Matt Wagner). This is another one of those surprisingly good series that Dynamite has put out that I looked into on a whim.

Things to look out for: Final Crisis: Revelations, Gen13 21, Golly, Secret Invasion: Inhumans, Secret Invasion: Thor, Secret Invasion: X-Men.

Batman R.I.P.: What the hell is going on?

One of the issues coming out this week is none other than the 4th part of Batman: R.I.P. Now, this story has been a bit...confusing to say the least. Understandably too, there's a lot of things going on. I caught a bit of the preview for this upcoming issue on Newsarama, and so I decided to go back and read all of Morrison's run (though I skipped over the Resurrection of R'as al Ghul story). Along with the help of a few internet blogs & commentaries, I was able to discern this: Grant Morrison has been planning this story THE WHOLE TIME. You want to know how long? Go pull out your trades, first issues, or scans of the first issue of Morrison's run. Part one of "Batman & Son," issue 655, page 6 (if you're not counting ad pages). What's that graffiti on the wall? Shit dog, it's ZUR EN ARRH.

Now Grant Morrison has stated (somewhere) that all things in Batman comics are canon, as far as he's concerned. And so while all this stuff seems extremely bizarre, there's a good reason behind that (sorta): Morrison is pulling tricks from the Silver Age. Not just the Silver Age, but the Zur En Arrh story is. It's about a Batman from a different planet (called Zur En Arrh) that seeks Batman of Earth's aid. There's lots of bits like this throughout. I'm not terribly good at picking out symbolism in comics either, and lots of times people have to point to it for me (like with Watchmen). Things that have been pointed out to me regarding this (from other blogs)? When looking back through the issues you see numerous references to eyes, the combination of black and red, and occasionally red, yellow, and purple (the colours of the Batman of Zur En Arrh).

In terms of what's going in Batman RIP proper. We have The Club of Villains, all characters named in the Club of Heroes story, that have been brought together by the Black Hand. The Black Hand is kind of interesting, as it is both a person and an organization of gamblers (note the use of roulette tables fairly often since the beginning of 667). One of the interesting theories as to the identity of the Black Hand is Alfred, which may be one of Morrison's red herrings he has said to have laid throughout the stories. If you go back and read closely the stories with this in mind, it brings forth quite and interesting possibility. For those not following closely, the doctor with the Villains is Dr. Simon Hurt, from the isolation tests during "Robin Dies at Dawn," another silver age story. He also is the creator of the 3 Batmen.

What Batman is dealing with, before being knocked out and drugged, is that the events in the black casebook may very well be true, instead of being hallucinations from repeated exposure to various chemicals and weird isolation tests. Additionally, with the Club of Villains swooping in to take out Batman, we find him on the street, not knowing who he is. Enter Bat-Mite, who has been appearing periodically throughout Morrison's run, starting from when he had a heart attack. It may well be that Bat-Mite has been at Batman's side for a while when he was a child (as indicated from the scenes where Bat-Mite talks with a young Bruce Wayne). It seems that Bat-Mite wants to help get Batman back on his feet, and Honor Jackson helps out with this. Now, according to a drug dealer who may or may not be One-Eyed Lincoln (EYE!), Honor Jackson died the morning before this adventure of Bum-Bruce Wayne began. So, if that is true, the Honor Jackson is either a) a ghost, b) resurrected for these purposes by Bat-Mite (Honor Jackson does mention something about the rules on the world of Batfairies) or c) Bruce Wayne is crazy and is imaging BOTH. The other possibility is the dealer doesn't know what he's talking about.

Which brings us back to where we're at, with his experience with Honor Jackson and his drug dosing by Simon Hurt (who is wearing a costume worn by Thomas Wayne at some point in time, but I'm unaware of specifically when) bringing him to thinking he is the Batman of Zur En Arrh, and donning the appropriate costume, according to his memory of the adventure.

So things to look out for in the upcoming issues are:
-Any revelation as to what the thing on Bat-Mite's back is. No one sees to know.
-Things involving Alfred. He's been beaten up by the club, which seems to absolve him of being the Black Glove. But we'll see.
-Jezebel Jet's role in this. I feel like she's more involved with this that she appears.
-What the CoV has in mind to do with the Joker. He's been lifted as a piece, but not really placed just yet.
-Any references to eyes, black and red checkers, especially contrasted with purple, red, and yellow. In Morrison's prose story, these are shown as the contrasting colours of Gotham City.