For those of you who, like me, have been getting slightly upset that Secret Invasion has been stretching out mere moments into entire issues, well, good news – stuff actually happens in this one. Important stuff. Look away if you don’t like spoilers, because I AM going to discuss what happens, as well as what doesn’t happen.

Now, some of you might remember the awesome cliffhanger from the end of #4 that suggested some excellent things were about to happen that would give the heroes something to rally around. Well, unfortunately, Bendis has been taking lessons from the ”Season 3 of Lost” screenwriters, because that cliffhanger goes utterly unresolved, and indeed, entirely unmentioned. Instead, a number of other plots are highlighted, but at least they do get a measure of substantial movement.

The issue opens with a bizarre choice, deciding to resolve the Captain Marvel/Norman Osborn conversation that readers of Thunderbolts will have been looking forward to. Presumably we’re about to see another side of it over in the next Thunderbolts issue. Even so, with that out of the way, we check in on Agent Brand, who uses her Joss-Whedon created badass-ness to make herself seem actually good at her job. In fact, Maria Hill also gets a moment to prove she’s not ridiculously under-qualified in Fury’s old job, but the Shield Helicarrier pays the price. (Seriously. SERIOUSLY, AGAIN? Must I link to this once more!?)

The general theme of this issue, in fact, is that after being knocked for a loop, humanity can re-assert itself. While the outcome of Civil War has shown that a return to the status quo isn’t a foregone conclusion (and the idea of a skrull-occupied Earth certainly isn’t beyond the current editorial slant) for the first time this series the heroes aren’t on their back heel, and it actually feels like they might be able to put up a fight, even if hopes of victory could yet be premature.

Of everything in the issue, Mockingbird’s fate amused me most. It’s hard to know whether this was planned or if fan reaction changed the course of the story, but as someone who felt that Mockingbird’s resurrection was very hard to take at face value given the methods used to determine her identity, it’s nice to see things finally laid out once and for all. Not content with killing Hawkeye, it seems that Bendis can’t help putting him through the wringer a little more. It’ll be little consolation for Clint, though, that we can now stop worrying about who in the Savage Land is a Skrull or not, because it’s finally laid out for us.

In addition to putting the heroes back on the offensive, this issue has also also allowed the reader some certainty in what they’re seeing for the first time in a while. Bendis was so effective in establishing the Skrull duplicity that nothing we saw could actually be verified, and it’s been a real problem over the last few issues. It still feels like there’s a long way to go in terms of plot, but at least the fights started in the first issue have come to some resolution, and the final (or at least, second…) act can get started.