356. Secret Invasion #1 to 8 ... Marvel ...

And now for something totally different, we are going to review the entire series of a limited series instead of issue by issue ... so over the past decade, both Marvel and DC have decided on 1 big major yearly event that has implications (almost) line wide and at the end of each series, the so-called universe will have a new setting to play on ... until next year's big event. In the cast of Marvel, sometimes if the event is not so all encompassing, then there will be several like one for the mutant books, one for the cosmic books and one for the remainder of the Marvel U ...

But this series encompasses all the titles!

It continues from where Civil War left off and ends by giving us Dark Reign ...

What's it about? Basically Marvel awesome scribe, Bendis decides that years ago, after the nonsense with the Skrull war and intervention by earthlings, they wanted to get even and established a long term plan that studied how to come and invade earth without being detected by magic, science and telepathy ... all the while having other conflicts in space ... this came to a head as their empire fell apart and so they decided to officially adopt earth as their new home

What made this a pain for the heroes and serve as the tension point?

Who do you trust?

When word came out at first, each hero began to question friends around them especially since the first confirmed Skrull was when Elektra was killed and before then, Elektra was everywhere including SHIELD, Avengers, and even DD's world ... with that happening, what else can be wrong?

And then when the Skrulls unveiled their hand, the entire world was taken completely unawares! From even non super powered beings and family, the Skrulls have put plans in motion. And they provided for contingencies like Stark tech, Maria Hill, Shield and even Sword!

So it's a long scramble as the disparate parties try to run away, find a breathing space, recuperate and hopefully find a way to turn around the invasion

It's a decent read BUT ... the biggest letdown for me are 2 things:

1. The end is one slugfest between heroes of earth and skrulls with powers? I mean, that's it? You are an alien race, advanced, years in the planning and your intention is to slug it out with earth's heroes and decided to do it in USA where the most heroes are?

2. Yu's artwork - sorry but it is too scratchy for my taste

Don't believe me? Look at back issue prices online. Of all the past decade's worth of crossovers, this is by far the cheapest to buy still

Ratings: 6/10 (would have been 7 if not for Yu)