It seems fairly likely now that, much like Civil War before it, Secret Invasion is going to end with the “unexpected” outcome - in this case, the Skrulls winning. This is being set up explicitly in this issue as the Marvel public react positively to the Skrull’s message that they’re “here to help” - unfortunately, their claims that they’ve not actually hurt anyone except super-heroes are downright bizarre to anyone who’s read, er, any issue of the crossover to date. It’s hard to imagine the public would believe that any more than the readers do. This misstep, unfortunately placed near the start of the issue, immediately undermines all credibility the story had, because it’s just such a puzzling move that you’re ripped right out of the story.

At least the action has finally moved out of the Savage Land as the heroes make it to New York for what one assumes will be the final battle. Despite some impressively huge action spreads from Yu at the close of the issue, it’s all feeling a little anti-climatic. There’s the suggestion that yet more characters might actually be Skrulls, and even thoughReed has the ability to revert Skrull infiltrators now, we haven’t yet seen confirmation that everyone with the heroes has been tested. Elsewhere, the entry of Cap and Thor onto the battlefield, hyped in Issue #4 as a big moment, serves almost no point when the time rolls around - they both appear from nowhere, exchange a few words, and then fade into the background of the giant, multi-character spread.

It’s clear that as an event, Secret Invasion is really hanging onto its readers, but the core miniseries is, despite its popularity, little more than a slow, over-crowded mess. Yu’s art, so crisp and defined in the early issues, is even starting to suffer as he’s required to pack more and more characters into each panel. It’s a valiant effort, but he’s fighting a losing battle against the requirements of the script.

While there’s a certain satisfaction to be gained from the scenes where all the non-Skrull heroes are actually working with one another, without any mention of registration, this issue of Secret Invasion yet again fails to deliver the big reveals that its predecessor, Civil War, had in every issue. While Millar seemed to throw an unexpected curveball in every issue, Bendis simply delivers the plot beats. They’re nice moments, but unlike Civil War, there’s nothing here that’ll have people talking until the next issue. We’re all just waiting for it to be over.

New Avengers, as a series, has become both incredibly rewarding and rather frustrating of late. During the whole Secret Invasion crossover, it’s been the main place to find answers to the myriad questions of how the Skrull invasion was achieved. As a result, we have issues like this - a brilliant issue of Fantastic Four, in which a few of the “Illuminati” make guest appearances, while the wider cast of New Avengers goes utterly unacknowledged. It’s enough to make you angry.

Except that it doesn’t. By resolving the burning questions behind what can only be described as the slowest-paced crossover ever written - and doing so in a satisfying, single-issue chunk, New Avengers benefits massively from Secret Invasion. The idea of two separate Avengers titles has been all but abandoned during this period, but of the two, New Avengers is just about delivering the better stories.

In this issue, we find ourselves reading about a clone of Reed Richards, and it’s revealed how the Skrulls managed to improve their ability to hide. Even though we know we’re reading about a bio-duplicate, readers will really understand Reed Richard’s turmoil as if it was the real one. Clones with all the memories of the original are fairly dubious pseudo-science at the best of times, but it fits with the Skrull capabilities already established in Secret Invasion, and it brilliantly uses the Skrull’s inherent sneakiness to achieve their aims - they’re not smart enough to invent the technology they need, but they’re more than crafty enough to trick someone else into doing it for them.

Tan’s artwork falls somewhere between Marvel’s current realist house-style and Yu’s scratchier, looser look, with a little Jim Lee mixed in. A run on X-Men obviously rubbed off on Tan, because he draws a great Professor Xavier, though in general only Reed’s interrogation scenes work as well as one suspects he’s capable of.

Once again, Bendis delivers another must-read piece of the Secret Invasion puzzle, and delivers a great Fantastic Four story that makes the most of the chance to push Reed in directions that the real one can’t go. Just try not to think about what the series title on the cover is and you’ll get along with it nicely.

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.

It’s becoming a cliche to complain about event pacing, but seriously, this is getting a bit trying even for a practical Marvel Zombie like me. While almost every page of this series looks positively frenetic, there appears to be almost nothing going on in terms of actually moving the plot along. Instead, we spend every issue jumping from scene to scene witnessing the next miniscule moment in an invasion that’s supposed to be taking mere hours but has been told over a course of months. It’s decompression at its absolute worst.

Sure, there are nice moments spotted throughout the issue - finally seeing what the Skrulls have done with Reed Richards is one, Wolverine’s brief appearance is another - but overall, moments are all we’re seeing. It’s hard to get invested in the fights, and the characters themselves remain in complete disarray, so we’re not even sure who to root for. The two major scenes from the last issue were Nick Fury arriving with his new recruits, and the Skrull Spider-Woman confronting Iron Man with “the truth” about his nature. Both of these scenes continue in issue #4, but neither plot thread contains the weight and importance that their prominence suggested.

That said, the tease for the next issue does promises the entry of two familiar faces into the fray, neither of whom have yet been seen in Secret Invasion, and either of whom could turn the tide of Skrull attack on their own. While I’m aware I could just be about to get disappointed all over again, it does give me hope that there’s going to be a significant development at some point in the next issue. The problem is, at just beyond the halfway point and with no definitive win from the Skrulls yet (only attacks where they’re on the upper hand) it’s maybe too early for a definitive win for the heroes - if, indeed, the series is even heading there.

It’s something of a worry that all the big answers to the questions we’ve had about Skrulls are appearing in New Avengers while Secret Invasion instead ends up reduced to a very slow, chaotic fight scene. An expensive one, at that. Yu’s art is fantastic on every page, but the nature of the warskrulls means that it’s almost hard to get a grip on who you’re actually looking at. In a way, this effectively replicates the uncertainty of the battle as experienced by the humans fighting it - but that doesn’t mean it’s entertaining to read.

I had high hopes for Secret Invasion after following the plot in Avengers for some years now, but so far the main miniseries has been largely disappointing. It’s lucky that the tie-ins are filling in plot gaps and moving at breakneck page, because the miniseries feels almost like filler in its own pages. Halfway through, there’s still time for it to start moving at a faster pace and come to a satisfying conclusion - but no guarantee of that. 

A blockbuster epic approached as a short story collection might sound a contradiction in terms, but is a concept very suited to Brian Bendis’s slow-burn writing style. With the casts of both Avengers titles still tied up in the Savage Land, the Secret Invasion’s mastermind continues his trip through the Marvel Universe’s recent past, showing how Hank Pym was seduced by his Skrull replacement. In seeking refuge from the failure of his marriage with an impressionable student, Giant Man’s conduct may be somewhat reprehensible, but the issue doesn’t feel like a straightforward morality tale. A montage sequence makes clear that the relationship is more than just a one-night stand, and early anxiety from Pym that his new girlfriend will sell her story makes it clear that he’s taken a leap of faith. Given the limited number of pages available, the writer sensibly doesn’t attempt to establish much of a cover story for the alien student. Even without the Invasion logo on the cover, her nature would obvious, and it’s a sign of the author’s experience he doesn’t seek to waste the reader’s time by attempting to inject suspense.

The focus on Pym is an understandable decision. His absence from the regular cast of either Avengers title means that he benefits from a certain amount of re-establishment, so that the secrets his impostor can give her fellow Skrulls are obvious. However, this almost first-person approach creates problems during the second half of the story. Given how closely we’ve identified with Pym, the switch in perspective to that of his Skrull suitor is jarring. Bendis clearly isn’t ready to spill the beans on the fates of those replaced during the invasion, but the face that the Skrull doesn’t even check whether her target is still alive feels rather forced. The un-named agent’s voluntary sex change also seems artificial, given how every impostor revealed to date has been of the same gender as his or her victim, but it’s an understandable way of simplifying the story.

Although a nice enough character piece, the issue is constrained by having to fit with the Secret Invasion formula without imparting much new information. We’ve seen the skrulls’ body snatching techniques before in the pages of The New Avengers, and the way the aliens managed to disable Starktech’s systems is hardly the most pressing issue in the crossover. At times, it’s a charming little story, but the moments when the issue’s cynical conception shows through make it difficult to wholeheartedly enjoy.

We’ve said it before on this site a few times, but it does bear repeating that the Ultimate universe is in an awfully strange place at the moment. The catastrophe of the supposed flagship title, Ultimates, has of course had its bones picked over ad nauseam in the now-months-long wait between the third and fourth issues (that itself seeming to signify some pretty large-scale rewrites, you’d think). But elsewhere, there’s an increasing sense of pointlessness to the whole thing. Ultimate X-Men has just come out of an interminably dull Robert Kirkman run which seemed to forget it was even part of the shared universe, while Ultimate Fantastic Four hasn’t done anything of note since Warren Ellis’ run. Even Ultimate Spider-Man, the one shining light of the entire imprint, seems less concerned with building long-term story setups than it is with telling some cracking standalone stories – ones which you feel Bendis could do just as easily in a continuity-free, All Star kind of environment.

All this means that it’s hard to see what purpose a series like Ultimate Origins serves – it almost feels like an attempt to quickly tie up the various loose ends that have been planted over the years and which should have ended up meaning rather more, before Ultimatum comes along and puts the whole thing out of its misery (although again, with the Ultimates 3 delays, it’s hard to know what the hell’s going to happen with Jeph Loeb’s promised earth-shattering crossover – and it’s hard to care). What’s strange also is, after very little in the way of buildup, the series has suddenly been promoted quite heavily – the whole enterprise reeks of hasty afterthought, really.

Still, that said, it’s a chance for Bendis to start joining the dots, and in a way it is satisfying to begin to see some payoffs for things that you suspect he and Millar were planning all along. More than anyone else, it’s his universe, and if he wants to play around with it and give a firm “origin” for every instance of superpowers contained within, then so be it. It’s hard to deny that it’s quite a fun little read – the best moments coming in WW2 flashback, with the unfortunate demise of the first “Captain America” (a neat idea in and of itself), not to mention the bizarre team-up of Nick Fury, James Howlett and Wilson Fisk.

Art comes from Butch Guice, of whom I’ve been a fan since the days he was called Jackson Guice and drawing Action Comics. Here, as with his recent fill-in work on Captain America, his pencils are perhaps a little overly drenched in those thick inks and dark colours that have become something of a Marvel trademark of late, and so his usual level of character expression, and his elegant flowing lines, aren’t allowed to be quite so evident. Nevertheless, it’s decent, clear art that tells the story effectively, and the opening sequence with Spidey and the Hulk is particularly strong.

One instance of dodgy chronology aside (the first Hulk “incident” was only six months ago? Really? So two-and-a-half volumes of Ultimates and almost a hundred issues of Ult Spidey have happened since then?), this does bear the hallmarks of a masterplan coming to fruition – in fact, it feels like the opening salvo in a universe-shattering crossover, rather than one simply designed to give us some background. Is it too late to hand Ultimatum over to Bendis instead, do you think? Surely if anyone’s entitled to tear the place down, it’s him – Loeb’s already done enough of that with Ultimates, after all.