Secret Invasion: New Avengers #43 Review

The Secret Invasion tie-in issues started out strong but have really lost a lot of momentum recently. The past couple of tie-in issues on Mighty Avengers have been surprisingly poor reads. Hopefully, Bendis can reverse that trend and deliver another quality Secret Invasion tie-in issue with New Avengers #43. Evidently, this issue is going to deal with the 1970’s heroes in the Savage Land. Let’s do this review.

Creative Team
Writer: Brain Michael Bendis
Pencils: Billy Tan
Inks: Danny Miki

Art Rating: 7 Night Girls out of 10
Story Rating: 2 Night Girls out of 10
Overall Rating: 4.5 Night Girls out of 10

Synopsis: We begin with the 1970’s Captain America (who we all know is a Skrull) squaring off against Ka-Zar, Shanna and Spider-Man. The 1970’s Cap calls our heroes Skrulls and says that he does not have time to talk. That he has to get back to the United States. The 1970’s Captain America then begins to brawl with our heroes. The 1970’s Captain America proceeds to kick ass on Ka-Zar, Shanna and Spider-Man.

During the brawl, the 1970’s Captain America gets shot full of what are either tranquilizer darts or poison darts by the Savage Land natives who are with Ka-Zar. The 1970’s Captain America drops to the ground and starts foaming at the mouth and transforms into his Skrull form. (Wow, this “shocking” reveal surprised absolutely no one.)

The Skrull Captain America keeps mumbling that he is an Avenger. That he is human. That he is Captain America. Spider-Man acts like a total spaz as if he has never seen a Skrull before. Ka-Zar then pricks Spider-Man with one of the tranquilizer darts just to make sure Spider-Man is not a Skrull. Spider-Man stays in his human form which reassures Ka-Zar and Shanna that he is not a Skrull. (Oh, this routine never gets old.)

We shift back to several months ago on the Skrull World Satriani. (Like the guitarist Joe Satriani?) We see a Skrull soldier who lost his entire family on Phalanx Six volunteering to become Captain America and undertake the suicide mission to the Savage Land.

We then go through the same transformation that we have seen now about a hundred times. The Skrull soldier turns into Captain America and gains Steve’s personality. The Skrull scientist then messes with the Skrull Captain America’s mind to make him believe that when the Marvel heroes attacked the Skrull Empire a while back that they were captured. Then they were tortured. The Skrull scientist then plants the fake memories of the 1970’s heroes making a grand escape from the Skrulls Empire.

We see Captain America and the rest of the 1970’s heroes “escaping” on the prison transport ship and taking out the Skrull guards. The 1970’s heroes then plot a course for Earth. As they break through the Earth’s atmosphere, Luke Cage asks if they can drop him off in Harlem. Unfortunately, the ship is careening out of control and they end up crash landing it in the Savage Land.

We zip back to the present with the Skrull Captain America still foaming at the mouth and lying on the ground. Ka-Zar asks the Skrull Captain America “Who are you and why are you here? (Um, yeah, those are pretty easy questions to answer. He is a Skrull and he is here to take over the Earth. There. Mystery solved.) Skrull Captain America just repeats over and over that he is a human. To wit Shanna replies by spearing Skrull Captain America and killing him.

Suddenly, our heroes here machine gunfire coming from the citadel. Ka-Zar, Shanna and Spider-Man then head toward the direction of the gunfire. End of issue.

Comments
The Good: New Avengers #43 was such a disappointing read. I am not too sure how I am going to satisfy The Revolution’s Rule of Positivity with this issue. Let’s see…well, Bendis does provide for enough action in the first half of this issue to keep New Avengers #43 from being terminally boring. And that is about all I can say nice about the writing in this issue.

Billy Tan and Danny Miki deliver a solid looking issue. I love Tan’s pencils; however, I am not that huge a fan of Miki’s inks. Still, New Avengers #43 was a quality looking issue. Tan did a fantastic job capturing the intense nature of the 1970’s Captain America. Tan’s Captain America practically radiated anger and hate.

The Bad: New Avengers #43 was a slow, boring and dull read. This issue was completely pointless. New Avengers #43 was nothing more than pure filler. The pacing was poor as the story plods along with no sense of urgency at all. This slow and uneventful issue only serves to further drag out the Savage Land plotline which has already come across mind numbingly slow.

Seriously, the occurrence in the Savage Land has been drawn out way too long. Bendis has stretched this plotline over the past four months ever since Secret Invasion #1. Yet, it appears that only about 15 minutes has elapsed. On top of being slow and unnecessarily drawn out, the Savage Land plotline also appears to lack any purpose or depth other than for Bendis to kill off the 1970’s heroes one by one and “stun” us as they all turn out to be Skrulls. I have lost just about any and all interest in the Savage Land plotline from Secret Invasion.

New Avengers #43 furthers my supreme disappointment in how Bendis has utilized the 1970’s heroes in Secret Invasion. The 1970’s heroes were a cool plot device that had so much potential. Unfortunately, Bendis has completely wasted their potential and taken the most uncreative route with these characters. They are nothing more than unimportant cannon fodder. Bendis could have used these characters to create some much needed depth and creativity to Secret Invasion’s rather shallow and unoriginal story.

New Avengers #43 failed to advance any of the Secret Invasion plotlines. We learn nothing new at all in this issue. Well, we do “learn” that the 1970’s Cap was a Skrull, but we already knew that. We have known since the first issue of Secret Invasion that these 1970’s heroes were nothing more than Skrull cannon fodder. Therefore, the terribly predictable Skrull reveal in this issue lacked any impact or excitement.

After the predictable Skrull reveal, the reader if forced to endure the same boring and well worn scene of watching the ceremony and procedure that Skrulls go through in order to assume their human forms. This was interesting the first time I read this. However, since this is about the tenth time I have read it, I simply ended up skimming over the five pages or so that dealt with this well worn material.

Bendis offers up some rather dull dialogue. It feels like Bendis totally phoned in this issue and put forth absolutely no effort into the dialogue or the character work in issue. The reader gets treated to the same boring and tired dialogue that we have been forced feed over the past six months. We get the same worn out “You are a Skrull! No, you are a Skrull!” scene between Spider-Man and Shanna.

We also get the same boring monologue from the Skrull Queen about the Skrulls’ mission and how they are going to achieve their objective. It is an incredibly simple concept and does not bear being repeated in every single Secret Invasion tie-in issue that I read.

Overall: New Avengers #43 is nothing more than filler designed to further stretch out Secret Invasion’s shallow story. Do not bother wasting your hard earned money on New Avengers #43. This Secret Invasion tie-in issue will not enhance your enjoyment of the story taking place on Secret Invasion itself. I do not think that even fans of Secret Invasion will find this issue anything particularly interesting. And I definitely do not think that Avengers fans will find this issue appealing, either. This issue really has nothing to do with the Avengers at all. Of course, that could be said for every issue of New Avengers for quite some time now.

It has been alarming the rather precipitous drop in quality that Bendis’ Secret Invasion tie-in issues have taken over the course of the past three tie-in issues. Unfortunately, Bendis has evidently resorted to simply tossing out filler issue after filler issue in an effort to fluff up his Secret Invasion storyline and stretch it out for as long as possible.

At any rate, I would only bother getting New Avengers #43 if you are absolutely addicted to Secret Invasion and want to consume every single tie-in issue no matter how substantive or not they might be.