Skrull Kill Interest


I forget when it was announced that Marvel were having a big Avengers-led crossover centred on infiltration of the Marvel Universe by the Skrulls, but the first evidence was revealed in New Avengers 31, in June last year. That issue ended with Elektra revealed to be a Skrull.

Oh how dramatic, a woman who once climbed her way back from the dead has been impersonated by an alien shape changer, and may be dead again. In the following six months its been revealed that the mute and never very interesting Black Bolt of the Inhumans was a fake, as was a teen member of the Initiative we'd never previously met. Be still my Vietnam/Gulf War/Afghanistan-injured heart.

The shocks come thick and fast, I tell you.

Meanwhile, in the real world, Marvel writers, artists and editors have been giving interview after interview about the upcoming Secret Invasion event, which will involve the now usual mini series, tie-ins and bookends. Read the comics press, look online, listen to a podcast . . . it's wall-to-wall Secret Invasion - and the event doesn't officially get going until three months from now, April.

I can forgive the parallels with DC's frankly rubbish Millennium series of the Eighties, when heroes suddenly found out that their parents, loved ones, dogs, were robotic alien spies; hey, there's nothing new under the sun, it's all in the approach, right? And it's quite fun to try and work out who is a deep cover alien - I believe crossover architect Bendis when he says he's been planning this for years. That means there will be clues around. As he told Comico.com: "If you've been dead and are now alive. If you've had an ill-defined power being used in ways that seem like many different writers are writing them differently .... If you have a moustache ... you might have Skrulliness"

http://www.comicon.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=36;t=006877

Great, but can't we get on with it? Hurrah for Bendis' long-term planning that allows for clues and teases but couldn't Marvel have slowed down the publicity machine a tad? Every week there's a new piece of Secret Invasion hype and it's already starting to feel like I've read the thing. Twice.

And it's getting worse - Comic Book Resources announced this week that: 'Inspired by their research into humanity's history of psychological warfare, the Skrulls have assembled an EARTH'S MOST WANTED poker deck of 54 playing cards, each featuring some of the biggest threats to their invasion of Earth. Over the next 14 weeks, with the help of Marvel staffers like editor Tom Brevoort and "Secret Invasion" scribe Brian Michael Bendis, CBR News will reveal each card and what makes these characters such threats to the Skrulls' master plan.'

http://www.comicbookresources.com/news/newsitem.cgi?id=12691

The first two articles ran to 1300 and 1000 words - and there are another 12 weeks of this to go. Seriously, how much time are Marvel staff devoting to interviews and articles? Didn't Marvel once have a dedicated PR department would would put out the announcements, leaving the creatives to actually get the books out? The longer this goes on, the less interested I'm booking - I am sick to the back teeth of hearing about this story, how about we actually get to read it and judge for ourselves how good it is?



Couldn't Marvel just give us a break? Skrully buggers.

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