Tales from the $3.99 Bin! - Secret Invasion

Well, it’s about that time of the year again. I’m stuck between what black thing I’ll be wearing Wednesday (got to get plans though), I’m looking at that pesky corn candy, and I’ll probably break out into the "Thriller" dance. I’ll also link that Tim Curry song from The Worst Witch again. That still makes me laugh. Instead of doing something monster-based, I think I’m going to go the sci-fi horror genre. These next two posts will talk about the 2008 Marvel crossover, Secret Invasion. Here, I’ll just be talk about the main series while the other post will be about the event itself.

I was pretty much into Secret Invasion when it first was hinted at in 2007. A lot of stuff had gone on in the Marvel Universe at that point, and I was psyched. I even had the money to keep up with it this time! I got all 8 issues of the crossover and a couple of New Avengers tie-ins. Since then, I really haven’t heard much about this one. Unlike Civil War, this event has kind of been looked over. Now that I’ve reread the main series, I can kind of see why. I’ll get to that later, though. For this and the next post, I decided to go all in on this one. I pulled out the books and perused Marvel Unlimited for all this stuff, so I’m ready!

Brian Michael Bendis wrote the main series. BMB was pretty much the Marvel architect at this point. It’s still weird to see him at DC. Anyway,  Avengers Disassembled, Secret War, and House of M were his babies. Leinil Francis Yu was the penciller. Before this, he was penciling along with Bendis on New Avengers. I also got to mention my favorite Superman origin, Superman: Birthright, since Yu was the artist. Man, even BMB had to get in on Superman. Mark Morales handled the inks and Laura Martin did the colors. So, what happens when the Skrulls’ “secret” invasion ain’t no secret no more?

Secret Invasion

Writer: Brian Michael Bendis

Pencils: Francis Leinil Francis Yu

Inks: Mark Morales

Colors: Laura Martin

Letters: Chris Eliopoulos

Editor: Tom Breevort

Trade Tales! - New Avengers: Sentry

Next up on the list is Marvel’s Golden Boy: The Sentry. It’s been said that he has the “power of 10 million suns” or something like that. His name is Robert Reynolds and he first appeared in The Sentry #1 from 2000. After that mini-series, he was brought back into the universe in New Avengers #1 from 2004.  I kind of talked about him in my look at the first New Avengers arc, “Breakout.” I also mentioned him briefly in the Blue Marvel post. Both characters have one thing in common: they were retconned heroes that were created in the 2000's. While Blue Marvel had something more relatable (bloody racism) with his disappearance, the Sentry’s story is a bit different and maybe convoluted. I’ll get to that today.

“Sentry” was the next storyline for the book. I had the issues but they’ve somehow disappeared from my collection. I don’t know if I got rid of them or just lost them, so I now have the trade of the storyline. The storyline went through New Avengers #7-#10. Brian Michael Bendis wrote the story. Steve McNiven took over the penciling duties for this arc from David Finch. McNiven is possibly best known for his work on the Marvel crossover, Civil War. That’s something I know I have to look at before the new movie comes out.

New Avengers: Sentry

Writer: Brian Michael Bendis

Pencils: Steve McNiven

Inks: Mark Morales and John Dell

Colors: Morry Hollowell and Laura Martin

Letters: Richard Starkings and Albert Deschesne

Graphic Novels - New Avengers: Breakout!

This installment of Graphic Novels is brought to you by Sexual Chocolat!!

Well, here it is (hmm…that sounds familiar…). This is the comic book that started the whole “walking to Outer Limits” thing. New Avengers is its name. I first heard about the book in a USA Today newspaper (in the Life section). Wow, Marvel has been doing that for longer than I thought (Example: THIS). Anyway, since I saw both Wolverine and Spider-Man on the cover, I knew I was going to get it. It was a somewhat cold day in November…or should I say December 2004 (what was I thinking), and I was supposed to be going to a party with a friend later that night, so I walked and walked and walked….and that street….ugh. After this incident, I found a better way to get to the store, but I still had to deal with Memorial Blvd. though. I know I got something else that day. I think it was either a Superman issue or the last issue to Identity Crisis (don’t know or care). So let’s get to the main creative team:

Brian Michael Bendis (aka BMB or BENDIS!) – BMB is probably the “Geoff Johns of Marvel” (yeah, I could not come up with another analogy). BMB is well known for his runs on Ultimate Spider-Man, Daredevil, Powers, and of course, just about every Avengers book that has come out in the last 6 years. He’s disassembled the Avengers as well as reassembled the Avengers over the years and has written just about every major crossover event book in recent years (House of M, Secret Invasion, and Siege). He’s a good writer (I do have most of his stuff of course).

David Finch – the penciller for the whole arc as well as the covers (which do look cool). He’s okay. He’s not bad, but he’s not one of my favorites. He's done a lot for Marvel, and now he's at DC.

SO with all of that out of the way, let’s get to the issues, shall we?