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Um, did I miss something?  The promos for Mighty Avengers #20 promised two things: a Thor guest appearance and a surprise ending that no one would see coming.   Thor appeared, that’s true.  It was a good guest shot, too.  He showed up at The Wasp’s funeral and gave a nice eulogy of sorts.  Then he hauled Hank Pym off for a private time of mourning, away from the media circus that her funeral had become.

The surprise?  Honestly, I don’t know what it was.  This isn’t like the surprise at the end of Batman 680 which wasn’t very surprising, but at least I knew that revelation that Jezebel Jett was really the Black Glove was the surprise.  Here?  I honestly don’t know.  That Hank Pym was angry with Tony Stark?  That he chastised him at the funeral?  Hawkeye yelling at Norman Osborn?  Osborn smiling a little?  This has to be the biggest oversell I can ever remember in comics promotion.

Ranting aside, it wasn’t a bad issue.  Not at all.  But you can’t promise something that big and deliver absolutely nothing without disappointing some fans.  Fans with blogs; I’m just saying.

I wasn’t sure what to make of this mini-series after the first issue.  Thor is the best ongoing book on the stands right now.  Secret Invasion rocks so hard it hurts.  Put the two together and you get… Beta Ray Bill? 

Issue two featured not a single panel of Thor.  BRB and the other Asgardians face down a horde of specially-designed ‘god killer’ Srulls.  Then, things heat up with the arrival of a super-skrull with the powers of four female super-villains and the ability to wield Stormbreaker, Bill’s version of Mjolnir.  The Skrulls somehow cut his mighty war-axe into two weapons for the Skrull-creature to use in battle.

Things are really getting good, with the nameless Skrull-chick whumping BRB and a good number of Asgardians, when she inexplicably decides to go kill a human baby in nearby Broxton, which doesn’t really go along with the whole “He loves you.  We’re only hurting super heroes, not regular people” schtick the Skrull have going on. 

The final panel, a beaten and defeated BRB reaching for the hammer, only to be told to stand down by Don Blake, was sublime.  I can hardly wait for the next issue. 

As the summer mega-crossover events wind down, let’s take a moment to try to predict how things may shake out.

Final Crisis:

Lois will be fine.  He life-threatening injury will be healed (by the menstruum, natch) with no lingering effects.

Darkseid will be defeated & all of machinations will be undone with no lingering effects.

The Legion of Three Worlds event will end with a dead Superboy.

Superman Beyond will be a standalone story that will have no impact on anything.

Barry Allen will re-die in a heroic act of self-sacrifice. 

Secret Invasion:

The heroes will lose.  Earth will be occupied by the Skrull.  (OK, I’m going out on a limb here, but what fun are predictions if you don’t take a chance?)

Nobody significant will die.

Nick Fury’s new team will get their own book, which will suck & be cancelled within two years.

Kate whats-her-name will give up the Hawkeye mantle and Clint Barton will return to his roots.  (No, I don’t really believe that will happen.  Just wishful thinking.)

Secret Invasion continues to move forward by going backward.  And yet it works so well.  This issue takes us back to the Skrull Empire, shortly after the events of Illuminati.  The story covers the Skrulls’ attempts to make themselves indectable to magic, technology, and mind reading.  This issue answers the question of how the Skrulls were able to fool everyone.  Sort of.  We don’t know what they did exactly, but we know how they figured it out.

Well-written, good artwork - I’ve only been reading Mighty Avengers since the start of Secret Invasion, but I have been consistently impressed by this book.  Secret Invasion isn’t really an 8 part story, nor do you need to read every tie-in title that Marvel shoves at you to properly enjoy it.  In reality, this is a story in 24 parts split between SI, MA, and New Avengers.   

I love Brian Michael Bendis’ writing.  If I ever have triplets, I may name them Brian, Michael, and Bendis.  (The third one kind of gets shafted on that deal.)  But today I’m going to pick apart one sniggly detail that has been bugging me since I read SI #5.

In Secret Invasion #3, Skrullingbird is able to tell Hawkeye a deeply personal secret that only he and the real Mockingbird would now.  Mock & Hawk were married in the 1980s, but it would probably be only 3 or 4 years ago in elastic comic book time, I would think. 

In New Avengers #44, we see the Skrulls playing with a Reed Richards clone and using a faux-Franklin Richards to get what they want from him.  It is common knowledge, even in the Skrull Empire, that the Reed & Sue have children.  Franklin is 8  or 10 years old now in comic age. 

So why, tell me, why would the InvisiSkrull Woman not know that Reed has children in Secret Invasion #5? 

Anybody? 

With most writers and in most comics, I would simply think that this was sloppy writing.  But this is Bendis, and this is Secret Invasion and I’m coming to expect great things from both.   

This comic just continues to impress me. After a relatively slow issue last month, this issue ratchets up the pace. Mr. Fantastic is back in action. The rocket ship Skrulls are revealed. Clint Baton, my favorite Marvel character who isn’t the son of Odin, takes an emotional hit so hard that it just leaps from the pages straight to your heart.

About the only negative in the whole book is the continued use of thinly disguised expletives, as in “@#%#$@”. Of course, it is better than using the actual words, but they are so clearly laid out in context that your brain can’t help but fill in the appropriate curse.

But this book is so well written that I can let that go. Bendis has done amazing things with characters I normally could not care less about like Nick Fury, Maria Hill, and Agent Brand. Secret Invasion has been head and shoulders above DC’s Final Crisis, and issue five shows no signs of changing that.