American Dream #1 ~ The only issue I got this week that doesn't have a Skrull in it - probably (you never know). American Dream is the Captain America figure in the MC2 continuity, which is basically one generation into the future of the 'regular' Marvel world (although of course it's a possible future, not the one the regular continuity is actually moving towards now). I read the Avengers Next miniseries a while back, which featured Dream in the lead role of MC2's Avengers (various successors to current heroes, including Spider-Girl), and found it enjoyable, but a bit lightweight - nothing I felt truly invested in. This first issue does better on that score, probably because it focuses just on Dream - without a whole team to deal with, the 22 pages are enough to show her kicking ass as a hero, and what she's like when she's just herself sans costume, and how she feels about both sides of her life, and kick off the antagonist for this miniseries. It's brighter, simpler storytelling than what Marvel's regular titles are doing at the moment - not that the writing is less accomplished (so far as it goes - it's not Brubaker or Matt Fraction), just that it's telling a story in primary colours, likely aimed at a slightly younger audience. As I said I didn't really connect with the earlier Avengers miniseries, but the focus on American Dream is enough to keep me interested, so I'll be buying the rest of this miniseries to see how she deals with her duties, her 'civilian' life (not that she has much of one, which is what's troubling her) and the various villains out to beat the heck out of her.
Secret Invasion #2 ~ Okay, for starters, this shouldn't have been US$3.99 - there's only 22 pages of story, that equals $2.99, no matter what pointless advertising material Marvel pads out the issue with. Granted the fact that comic prices recently went down here (thanks to the continued tanking of the US dollar) took the edge of it, but still, Marvel greedily putting its hand into people's pockets like this won't exactly not drive readers to check out bittorrent or similar. Selah.
Anyway, pricing aside, this was a good issue. Not great, but good. With only 22 pages there's only so much you can do, and with so many plot threads put into play in issue #1, it's inevitable that some of them get put in holding patterns - better that than to try to pack everything into limited page space, and not really address anything properly. The main action of this issue is down in the Savage Lands, with the Avengers and the, er, Avengers facing off, and getting into a big ol' fight, as superheroes are wont to do whenever they meet unexpectedly. I'm not sure we really needed three two-page splashes in this issue, but they're at least used well, and the fight has its share of action, with fun dialogue keeping the entertainment level up (Spidey and Spidey make a good double act, quip-wise). More interesting is the aftermath of the fight, which serves both to clean up a bit of the mess the sudden introduction of all those old Avengers makes (of course they're Skrulls, but maybe not all of them), and to rather touchingly pick up the Hawkeye/Mockingbird relationship. It's been a while, but the writing is good, emotional without being sappy, and you really feel for these two. Yu's art continues to be bearable with the inks ameliorating the effect of his sharp-angles-r-us style, but I do have to say that I'm glad to move onto other titles where women are attractive more than half the time, regardless of how good the story is. The issue finishes with a neat cliffhanger, though since it involves the Young Avengers, and they (along with the Runaways) are slated to have their own Secret Invasion miniseries (which I won't be buying), I don't imagine that this cliffhanger is really going to have a great impact on the story as a whole.
Mighty Avengers #13 ~ Since the Mighty Avengers themselves are being followed by Secret Invasion, it looks like Bendis is using this title - for the moment, at least - to follow Nick Fury, bringing to light everything he's been up to behind the scenes. Having shown him get into the Skrull-fighting game last issue, this one deals with him assembling a team of heroes he knows he can trust - people who aren't on anyone else's radars, but who have powers, and who might be able to turn the tide if they go to bat in the right place at the right time. The 'creation' of these new rookie heroes is handled quite deftly - no-one (that I can tell) is created whole-cloth, each character has some link to existing continuity, and seeing how they each turn up is an interesting exercise. It's too early to tell how they'll function now that they've been brought to light, but this was an entertaining issue, and Bendis hasn't really dropped the ball yet, so the future looks good. Maleev's sketchy, real-but-gritty art continues to suit the personality-driven Nick Fury arc, but I do wonder whether it may seem a bit disjointed when this storyline merges in with the main Secret Invasion plot, drawn in bolder, cleaner lines.
Lorna: The Black Castle ~ This is the third part of a trilogy - I've never seen it before, but I picked it up on a whim anyway and quite enjoyed it. Lorna, who an early flashback sequence reveals to be a kind of space-age Tarzanette - marooned on a hostile world at a young age, with just her wits and a laser blaster - is on a mission with her lover Shop and a weird little alien called Grono to destroy the third of three 'probes', which if left unchecked are somehow going to destroy the universe, or something. The specifics aren't really important - the story is basically a high-octane road movie, with Lorna and co. battling various obstacles on their way to their goal, including sea monsters, alien societies, and a mutant villain who Lorna defeated long ago and who's far from happy about it. It's a European comic, by Alfonso Azpiri, and it shows its continental origin - quite a few lines of dialogue would have benefitted from the attention of someone more fluent in English, though it's by no means indecipherable, just erratic here and there. Also, nudity and sex abounds - bless those Europeans - with Lorna spending almost the entire volume at least topless, and spending every spare moment in bed with boy-toy Shop. The art (which looks watercolour so far as I can tell) is lavish and imaginative throughout, with a dizzying variety of locales and creatures - it's like Star Wars, but quirky and offbeat, very unusual and intriguing to someone (like me) more accustomed to the American brand of sci-fi.
New Avengers #40 ~ I didn't pick this up when it first came out (last week, I think), since I don't read New Avengers normally - not enough heroines. But then I heard that it was very much a Secret Invasion companion piece, rather than part of some ongoing New Avengers story, and that's entirely true. This one is all about the Skrulls, and how their society and leaders came to be in the place where they are now, making the decisions they're making now. There's one very big reveal (or maybe misdirection, you never know) pertinent to Secret Invasion and the Avengers cast, but for the most part it's an intriguing background piece, to put extra layers and depth into the Skrulls, and to understand why they are the way they are. Of special note is the material showcasing Veranke, who seems to be the Skrull leader at present - that has to be relevant to SI down the track, and it's well-written backstory.
