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)

336. Power Man/ Iron Fist #109 ... Marvel ...

There was a time in the 80s when the Power Man/ Iron Fist series was failing in terms of sales and Marvel made these cute house ads with one version having Fist whispering to us readers to try their mag and the other has Cage telling us to buy

Anyway, so what did they do to ramp up the sales? Well instead of giving us guest star after guest star, for some weird reason, the writers and editors didn't. They did give us stories with a bit of continuity every now and then sort of letting you buy the next couple of issues but that's it and I have to wonder why Spidey didn't drop by or the X-Men? Hehehe!

For me, I started this series with 108 and found myself actually enjoying the straightforward storytelling that stresses more on the human angle and this issue is no different. Here we have Power Man hanging out at the community church as apparently a kid was in there with a gun. Sad story is that the kid is no druggie or thieve. And he ... well ... you have to read the story okay?

While at the office, Iron Fist is approached by a beautiful, sad woman to find her husband as apparently he is ex-forces who has gone off the deep end in trying to bring justice to what he perceived as a world lacking and who he kills along the way including innocents do not bother him

Naturally thanks to TV coverage, Fist's search and Luke's stake out ends up intertwined and in the same place (cool storytelling) ... and the ending is more sad and tragic rather than a simple fist fight

Ratings: 8/10

241. Cage #2 ... Marvel ...

O-kay ... for our special Christmas review (done on 31st Jan 2015 actually) ... we decided to do a special ... something that can be hugely popular and yet faded away so fast ... and in Marvel comics, there are quite a number of such titles. A few that comes to mind include:

1. Immortal Iron Fist - hot hot hot when it was launched with David Aja but less than 24 issues before it fizzled out
2. Moon Knight - similarly sizzling when it was launched with David Finch (hey 2 Davids!) but again ran out of steam after only a dozen issues

Now as to Cage .. well this was an oddball choice as it came out in 1992 during the comic boom. At that time, Cage was the old Power Man with the Afro hair, yellow shirt, chain belt type and then when that series finally ended ... this popped up ... and everyone was surprised because now Luke has dropped his 70s look ... and become someone from the then current R&B crop

Naturally the series launched super-hot with back issues going up the rates but after less than 6 months, you knew it would not survive much longer regardless of guest stars or villains galore!

As for issue 2, we quite like it and have read it a few times over the years. Firstly, the artwork on the cover and interior is nothing to shout at but adequate. So is the colouring. However, what is good is Cage now no longer Heroes for Hire but still needing to make ends meet and trying to live it down. So he does all sorts including body guard

What is another cool point is that while the main character is black or African American, in one of the rare times, the writer manages to balance the tone of the book. Here we have him protecting someone who enjoys going overboard about the solidarity of his black brothers and what-not and naturally stirring the ire of white supremacists which in this case is also anti-mutants i.e. those weird robot like chaps with strange smiley faces which turns out to have real people within

As a more relevant guest star, we have Dakota North, a regular white woman who supposedly dresses fashionably and yet is a PI. Go figure!

A bit of a fight, a bit of tension and some good dialogue ensue with the final pages a lead up to issue 3's next action packed adventure

Overall, nothing to run out and find but if you do, have a flip through

Ratings: 6/10