SuperSearnold - Comic Book Reviews

Greetings from your friendly neighborhood Searnold [Shár- Nŭhld]. Welcome to my comic book review blog – where you’ll always get recommendations on what to read but you’ll never get any spoilers.

Today continues Secret Invasion Week with Secret Invasion – X-Men. X-Scribe Mike Carey is at the helm with art by Cary Nord.

Let me start with a few words about the art (unusual for me, I know.) I think art is a matter of taste – so don’t take this too seriously – but I am not a big fan of Nord’s art style. It feels somehow vague. You get impressions of people more than you get a picture of a person. Though in this particular issue that worked well because everything is taking place under the cover of good ol’ San Francisco fog. Also – there was a look on the face of one of the Skrulls when he realized that they were up against the X-Men: priceless.

On to the writing: I say kudos. (I haven’t given anything a bad review this week. I seem to be enjoying Secret Invasion and all of it’s tie-ins. I’ll see if I can’t find an issue I didn’t like for tomorrow.) First of all, I like the fact that this issue gives us a clear timeline for the invasion – AFTER the X-Men have settled in San Francisco. We also get some great Skrull characterization in this issue. There’s a line that captures their attitude quite well, “Make these people understand this isn’t their world… it’s ours.” The Skrulls believe religiously that Earth belongs to them, and Carey does a good job of developing that attitude in this issue.

On the other hand, there is zero X-Men characterization going on. If you don’t know who the X-Men are, I say stay away from this issue. Cyclops drops a lot of names (which is fun for those of us who know who he’s talking about) but probably confusing to those who are less familiar with the large cast of X-Characters. Mostly, this issue is just the X-Men kicking some serious Skrull ass – and that’s fun to see.

Also of note: Carey has always been good with foreign languages – Nightcrawler frequently speaks in German, Gambit frequently speaks in French, etc. In this issue, Carey does a good job with Skrulls speaking Skrull without us missing a beat. In fact, you even learn how to say a few choice words in Skrull: Skirreth Rud! That in mind, I think Carey went a bit overboard with Nightcrawler’s German as I was not always able to pick up on what he was trying to communicate.

That’s it for Secret Invasion – X-Men. Thanks for reading. See you next time.
-Searnold.

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