Post by goldenfist on Aug 28, 2008 9:45:58 GMT -5
Ign.com reviews Secret Invasion: Amazing Spider-Man #1.
Perhaps the best thing I can say about Secret Invasion is that I haven't read a tie-in I didn't enjoy on some level. The event offers almost as much wide potential for tie-ins as Civil War did, and Marvel's writers are doing a better job of actually turning in decent work with this event. Unfortunately, the cycle had to break sooner or later. Secret Invasion: Amazing Spider-Man is the first tie-in I've actively disliked. Not only does it feel forced and unnecessary, its title character is completely absent. Talk about your false advertising.
Think of SI: Spider-Man as a creative exercise. How well can the Brand New Day formula succeed without Spidey? If the very thought of that makes you cringe, well, you're probably not alone. The Spidey Brain Trust have made some inroads into ingratiating the supporting cast to me, but not enough that I want to read about their solo adventures. The single biggest mistake this book makes is in casting Jackpot in the lead role. Despite her supposed billing as a major piece of the BND puzzle, Jackpot has appeared in maybe five comics since Swing Shift. I just don't care about her. How can I be expected to when I still don't know anything about her? Of course, I'm feigning ignorance and pretending we all don't know who really hides under that mask. The point is that she makes for a terrifically underwhelming heroine.
The core concept of this mini-series is that, with Spidey trapped in the Savage Land, Jackpot is all that remains to defend New York from an invading army of Super-Skrulls. Never you mind that numerous other books have shown this to not be the case. Therein lie s the problem. This book feels useless because we've already witnessed the battle for New York on a far more epic scale. I held out hope that Brian Reed might salvage the proceedings through sheer force of will, but his script never rises above general BND mediocrity. The same unnecessarily lighthearted tone and inane editor's captions rear their ugly heads once more. Not terrible, but not exactly worth spending money on either.
I don't want to sound like a total BND-hater. Amazing Spider-Man has improved pretty significantly since those rough early months. However, that improvement only causes lackluster efforts like this to stand out even more. Secret Invasion: Amazing Spider-Man simply offers too little, too late to this frustrated Spidey fan.
Review Score: 5.6 Mediocre
Perhaps the best thing I can say about Secret Invasion is that I haven't read a tie-in I didn't enjoy on some level. The event offers almost as much wide potential for tie-ins as Civil War did, and Marvel's writers are doing a better job of actually turning in decent work with this event. Unfortunately, the cycle had to break sooner or later. Secret Invasion: Amazing Spider-Man is the first tie-in I've actively disliked. Not only does it feel forced and unnecessary, its title character is completely absent. Talk about your false advertising.
Think of SI: Spider-Man as a creative exercise. How well can the Brand New Day formula succeed without Spidey? If the very thought of that makes you cringe, well, you're probably not alone. The Spidey Brain Trust have made some inroads into ingratiating the supporting cast to me, but not enough that I want to read about their solo adventures. The single biggest mistake this book makes is in casting Jackpot in the lead role. Despite her supposed billing as a major piece of the BND puzzle, Jackpot has appeared in maybe five comics since Swing Shift. I just don't care about her. How can I be expected to when I still don't know anything about her? Of course, I'm feigning ignorance and pretending we all don't know who really hides under that mask. The point is that she makes for a terrifically underwhelming heroine.
The core concept of this mini-series is that, with Spidey trapped in the Savage Land, Jackpot is all that remains to defend New York from an invading army of Super-Skrulls. Never you mind that numerous other books have shown this to not be the case. Therein lie s the problem. This book feels useless because we've already witnessed the battle for New York on a far more epic scale. I held out hope that Brian Reed might salvage the proceedings through sheer force of will, but his script never rises above general BND mediocrity. The same unnecessarily lighthearted tone and inane editor's captions rear their ugly heads once more. Not terrible, but not exactly worth spending money on either.
I don't want to sound like a total BND-hater. Amazing Spider-Man has improved pretty significantly since those rough early months. However, that improvement only causes lackluster efforts like this to stand out even more. Secret Invasion: Amazing Spider-Man simply offers too little, too late to this frustrated Spidey fan.
Review Score: 5.6 Mediocre