***MAJOR SPOILER ALERT***
I've been waiting for this book for a long time. I started reading the New Avengers in trade paperback a couple of years back. If you read between the lines in 'Breakout', you'd know that something was going on - but you wouldn't know exactly what. Lots of questions asked - but no answers forthcoming.
Fast forward a couple of years to the New Avengers: Illuminati mini-series - and we get some gaps in Marvel history filled. Iron Man, Mr Fantastic, Namor, Professor X, Black Bolt and Doctor Strange manage to @$£& off the Skrulls big time by traveling to their homeworld and warning them off ever trying to invade Earth.
The Skrull Empire (as any evil alien empire would do) thank them for their time and effort, and then promptly capture the heroes, prod, analyze and inspect them from head to toe. Iron Man and the rest of the Illuminati obviously escape - but only just - leaving behind the data gleamed from the skrulls tests on our heroes...
Skipping forward a little further to New Avengers 31 - at the culmination of a huge battle between the outlawed heroes and The Hand (think Japanese ninja mafia and you're halfway there) - Elektra is killed.
Or rather - the skrull who was posing as Elektra is killed.
Since then, skrulls have been popping up everywhere in the Marvel universe - all leading towards this mini-series...
So have Bendis, Yu, Morales and Martin created an awe inspiring start to a potentially catastrophic mini-series, or simply had a mediocre bash at the first book at an over-hyped crossover?
Well - thank @£$% - they've made something brilliant.
If you've been reading Marvel like I have for the past year or so - you'll have been wondering what's going on for quite some time. Civil War made sense - but just didn't feel quite right, Captain Marvel's reappearance to look after the off world prison was all too convenient, and (even though I personally don't think it's part of this storyline) - Captain America is dead for heaven's sakes!
This first book has some fantastic artwork, some amazing sequences involving SHEILD, and an ending that will keep you wondering about possibilities right up until the moment the next book comes out...
Thoroughly recommended.
Pete's Score: 4 out of 5
(a great start to what will hopefully be a fantastic crossover for Marvel fans)
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