Secret Invasion #5 (OF 8)

To be fair i have not been picking up this title. There is a reason for that though, and in this issue, which i read a bit of in the store, is the reason why i haven't picked it up.

When you have a problem like "a bunch of shape shifting spies are hiding among us"there is always something like a deus ex machina involved in the solution, and now we finally have it from the inventor of all the deus ex machina devices in the Marvel U, Reed Richards. Wither it's a World Eatting God like being, a muliti dimentional invasion or space invaders, Reed can build what the story needs to get the heroes out of trouble and back to the status Quo.

So he escaped and built a gun which tells you who the skrulls are. There are such cooler things that could have been done, people with close relationships noticing quirks and what not with each other and outing them, Clever traps to get skrulls to reveal themselves, left over skrulls who are still causing trouble after things return to normal. Marvel fans are not going to get any of that now though, from here on in it's a bunch of punching and heroes fighting aliens, with a death, a return and a reveal. If any writer does try any of those things fans now have to ask "why not just use the reveal gun?"  and a writer will have a hard time coming up with a good reason why not to.

This story doesn't feel like it has any sense of perminance to it, like it will be a blip in a couple of years and forgotten in 10. Sure the skrulls are invading but that doesn't mean that they are going to win, it isn't going to change anything. the aftermath will last six months in a spin off book and then the Marvel U will more on to the next earth shattering thingy.

what's bendis going to do? Kill Hawkeye? because he already tried that and it didn't work.

What makes me sad about this books is as a concept i know he can do better, I have read better than this from him. I am sure it has a great amount of wit in the diologe and is well layed out, yet i know he is able to give us more than what has been offered here.