Do We Really Have To Do This?

From the solicit for issue #1 of the forthcoming Skrullapalooza:

“Suppose a close friend, someone you loved, someone you fought alongside turned out not to be the person you thought they were. Suppose that person that you thought you knew was in reality someone who wanted to destroy everything about you, everything about your life, everything that you cared for, and everything you had fought for in your life..."

Yeah, that was called Millennium. They were Manhunters. And DC did it 21 years ago.

Whatever you might think of the completely unoriginal premise of the series (SPOILER ALERT: Just like the Millennium series two decades ago, no one significant will turn out to have been a Skrull, and those who are revealed to be Skrulls will make ABSOLUTELY zero sense given what we've seen these characters do/think over the past few years), I dread the execution.

It's not bad enough that Bendis doesn't give a flying fig for anyone else's continuity, so he'll screw the pooch as badly as he's already done with Spider-Man in New Avengers.

What makes it worse is that Bendis really has no conception of how to write a tension-filled, paranoia based story. We've seen that in his Avengers mags, with 75 straight issues of wise-cracks based on variations of "you're a Skrull" "I'm not a Skrull" "you seem Skrully to me." That might work in small doses (maybe), but it's been the only card in his deck so far.

And it completely destroys any credibility and tension the set-up has when you're doing a constant Borscht Belt comedy routine instead of actually investigating or exploring ideas.

Am I being too harsh? Well, let's look at this preview panel from a couple of pages Newsarama posted today.

Let's enumerate the problems:

A) Again with the comedy. Yup, in Bendis' universe, even eminent scientists constantly crack wise like Spider-Man. Given the constanting repeating of each others' statements and the incesscent "comic" Skrull paranoia, it's a wonder these guys had time to invent Pym particles, unstable molocules, and advanced armor.

B) Kontinuity Kop: Why is Reed acting like this is "new," when Tony Stark already SHOWED HIM this exact same Skrull body and TOLD HIM it was completely undetectable in New Avengers: Illuminati #5? (If you want to argue that it's not the same Reed and one of them is/was a Skrull, I'll reply that you're just covering for the fact that Bendis can't even keep his own continuity straight...and then I'd answer that Tony would know that Reed should already know, and so should have immediately known Reed was a Skrull. Don't mess with Kontinuity Kop, dammit) If Bendis can't even keep his own little hobby horse's continuity alligned, why are they letting him play with the rest of the Marvel Universe?

C) Bad art alert: who, exactly, is saying "or it's a trick" and "maybe Wolverine's a Skrull?" You can't tell from the balloon, which trails off to nowhere. It had better be Pym saying it, because it's completely out of character for Reed to say something like that (unless he's a Skrull...aaargghh). But if it is supposed to be Pym, Yu managed to draw the panel in such a way that there's no possibility to give the character a dialogue balloon. I'll qualify my opinion by admitting that I'm no fan of Yu's work, but I find this typical...stilted layouts in panels, indecipherable expressions on faces, and a general inability to convey what's actually going on. Not to mention an unhealthy fascination with female victims' boobs.

And that's just 1 panel!! Oh, goody, I'm so looking forward to 8 issues of this...

Remember, kids, show your contempt for this by ALWAYS referring to Secret Invasion as Skrullapalooza. You'll feel better, I promise!