Ummm… wow. Bendis has really polished up his “event” writing since House of M, taking more than a leaf out of Mark “Civil War” Millar’s book – instead of an issue of slow building setup, we’re instantly thrown into the action. Skrulls all over the place. The sense of shit hitting the fan is almost palpable, and the utter creepiness of having the skrulls saying “He Loves You” before they blow themselves up is great. Bendis has modified the skrulls – originally a cold war communist metaphor, they now serve as the Marvel Universe’s answer to religious fanaticism.

Perhaps the best thing about this issue is that it makes me want to go back and read some of those comics that we know are contributing to the Skrull arc. Secret War, Avengers Disassembled, New Avengers and Civil War – they all contain references, apparently, and now that we know at least one fairly major character who’s a skrull, it’s time to go back and see just what the clues were. The best twists put everything that came before it in a new light. If we know that Hank Pym’s a skrull, suddenly certain comics take on new meaning when read again.

In just a few scenes, Bendis manages to show the entire Marvel Universe being turned on its head incredibly effectively, including scenes of Marvel Boy, the Thunderbolts and SWORD reacting the the Skrull’s first move. Yu’s pencils throughout the book are amazing – much tighter than his recent Avengers issues, and having him draw so many heroes is a real treat. Let’s hope that he gets it out on time though – I can only Marvel have learnt their lesson with that…

The big cliffhanger moment is a tough one to wrap my head around. A bunch of 70s heroes returning to earth is an interesting visual idea – seeing the Marvel heroes fighting their past selves – but it remains to be seen who’s a skrull and who’s not, and now we have twice the chance of having to guess. Who’s the real Luke Cage? Why are the skrulls that just arrived so out of date? It’s an odd moment, but by no means as terrifying as some of the other stuff in the issue – the sight of the Skrull armada is pretty harrowing, and seeing the Baxter building get sucked into the negative zone is a definite double-take moment. As the start of a crossover, it’s ticking all the boxes, and while it’s hard to quantify, I feel like it’s off to a better start than Civil War.

Hello everyone. Just thought I’d pop out to say that as of today, I am officially part of the new reviews team at the relaunched CBR. Don’t worry, though, Comics Daily will continue in its present form, there’ll just be more of my reviews to go around. I will be ensuring that I don’t duplicate content, though, so if you want to see everything I’ve got, you have to read both sites! Obviously, I’m very excited to be part of CBR’s relaunch, but the fun won’t stop here either.

Coming shortly: the Comics Daily review of Secret Invasion!