snap judgments no, really, there are some comics you really should read

All You Need to Know: Mighty Avengers #16

I think I understand.

So, Bendis needs to write this big Secret Invasion plot and work out a complex timeline for events to occur and hand them down the lines of editorial and otherwise, create this massive summer event.  He seems like a hands-on kind of guy, not one to sit on the sidelines and work with what he's given, he would prefer to call the shots.  Right?  Right.  So, with all of this work he's got to do, he's already incorporated his Avengers teams into this main plot, leaving the two books they're supposed to be in rather empty.  Well, they're monthlies too and Secret Invasion has to work at a slower pace than that.  The Avengers can't go off and have adventures like Millar's Fantastic Four can.  So what do you do with the books?

Well, you coast.

You have filler.  You pad them out until you're ready to fold them back into the main story that they've been telling since you started.  If you've been reading Secret Invasion so far, you know that we're taking the slow approach and letting the sinister gravity of the book sink in before you start running around too much.  The Avengers just have to wait.

Which is why this book doesn't have an Avenger in it.  It's the story of how the Skrulls got Elektra, which to be perfectly honest, doesn't matter in the slightest.  She did her plot purpose and there are more interesting things going on that I'd like to hear about.  Anything, at this point.  Can we get a D-Man back up?  A Squirrel Girl four-parter?

So, we start out by finding out that Skrullektra paid Electro to stage the big breakout that kicked off the New Avengers series and ordered a hit on 'some Savage Land guy'.  If you've been reading the book, you know that.  If you check on things via the internet, you know that.  If you can think back to when you read the issues back in 2004, you probably figured out that the criminal breakout was probably a ruse or something unimportant since they never really came back to it, only to hint in shadowy ways that there must be something more.  2004, people!  Four years ago and he's telling us now!

Right.  But before this transaction went down, Elektra was chillin' when a black suited version of herself tried to kick her ass.  They fight.  Elektra wins.  Elektra fights Skrull-Daredevil and Skrull-Wolverine.  Elektra wins.  Elektra gets blindsided by a different Skrull.  Elektra loses.  This different Skrull just so happens to be the Empress's main squeeze, so we get a Skrull-as-a-woman/Skrull-as-a-woman kiss.  The Empress laments having to send her dear warrior to die (meaning they set up the reveal?  Really?) in accordance witht the Prophecy.  Skrullektra then goes and un-unites the Hand and Hydra, takes over leadership and talks about honor and death and stuff.

So what do you need to know?  How much of this was told in interviews or articles in the PAST FOUR YEARS?  How much of this relates to the story as its being told now?  And why is next issue going back to Hank Pym again?  Didn't he get his issue already?

We are getting filler.  I honestly can't think of anything that should be noted out of this issue that we haven't already heard or assumed.  I can see why his attention is elsewhere, but I'm really hoping the next issue of Secret Invasion turns it up a notch.  Or at least gets the characters in that book some breathing room so they can return to their titles and show us how the heroes are fighting the Invasion first hand.

This is going to be one WEIRD trade paperback collection.