snap judgments

I liked it.

I know, I’m just as surprised as you are.  Spoilers do follow.

There it was, recon city staring the two teams of Avengers I just couldn’t get to like no matter how many likable characters they contained.  Here was Brian Bendis, someone I thought hd jumped the shark when it came to being automatically witty and well-paced.  And Lenil Yu!  His run on New Avengers had the rest of the store in tears and myself wondering what had happened to that dashing young man on deviant art who looked cool on my computer screen.  All of this was a collision course to wackiness as this year’s Must Read event.

I just might have to read it!

First off, if you’re intertnet savvy, you already know most of what happens in this issue.  Preview pages, spoiler alerts and speculation have been flyi for quite some time on what was supposed to happen here and none of it was really wrong.  The good news is that it was all well executed and quickly paced so all the things you did know weren’t displayed as OMG SURPRISE MOMENTS!   Sure, you knew that some people would be Skrulls, others would indeed NOT be Skrulls but it was played off as part of the story, no big to-do.

Again, your mileage may vary.

What really starts to get me itchy, however, is Bendis talking about how this was all part of the master plan.  Not that I doubt that, but it’s almost sounding like an excuse.  If he just came out, said ‘Hey, this story is going to knock your ever-lovin’ socks off!’ and went home, okay.  But referencing pages of stories that I didn’t like to begin with as some sort of treasure trove of genius makes me wonder… well, it makes me wonder if he reads this blog (short answer: no.).  I’ve been meh on Earth’s Mightiest Heroes under his helm nearly from the get-go as the New Avengers fought ninja after ninja and solved nothing after nothing as they ran up to event after event.  And here we are again, only this time I have some hope as to the event they’re running into, with or without them.  Civil War needed the Avengers, World War Hulk SHOULD HAVE HAD the Avengers and here, we’ll just have to see where it leads to.

Are all of the ’70s era heroes really back from some crazy Skrull prison while they’ve been replaced all this time (and if so, WHERE IS THE GODDAMNED BLACK BOLT??)?  Is it just a late ship with Skrulls still using the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe, Deluxe Edition?   And just how many goddamned sides is Spider-Woman gonna be on, anyways?

I am actually looking forward to these answers and more.  #1 has left me with a big heapin’ helpin’ of plot hooks that have sunk their tiny teeth into my flesh.

But all you need to know?  Something has landed in the Savage Land that contained, and I quote, the White Queen, Spider-Man, Luke Cage, Thor, Beast, Wonder Man, the Invisible Woman, Pheonix (of the Jean Grey variety), Hawkeye, Iron Man, Vision, the Scarlet Witch, Jewel, Mockingbird, Captain FREAKIN’ America, Ms. Marvel, and Wolverine.  Both Mighty and New Avengers are there to WTF.  The following people have set about some sort of Skrull sabotage that’s taking it to Tony Stark like he was a red-headed stepchild via a Alien Computer Virus infecting… well, what looks like all StarkTech: Dum Dum Dugan and Jarvis.  Tony’s having seizures because he’s Extremis now and probably having some sort of backlash to all of that.  Hank Pym is a Skrull and has shot Mr. Fantastic with something crazy and alien.

The doo-doo has officially hit the fan.

It’s kind of cool.