COMIC CONNECTIONS: Secret Invasion - Epic Action or Spy Thriller?

Episode 51 - Secret Invasion - Epic Action or Spy Thriller?

This week we are catching up on some of the comics that share a name (or at least some story beats) with the new Secret Invasion Disney+ show starring Samuel L. Jackson.

This Week In Comics

Marvel Announces Tony Stark and Emma Frost's Wedding

• https://comicbook.com/comics/news/iron-man-tony-stark-emma-frost-wedding-marvel-x-men/
• Official Release: https://www.marvel.com/articles/comics/tony-stark-emma-history-relationship
• X-Men #10 goes on sale on September 6th. The Invincible Iron Man #10 goes on sale on September 27th.

New on Marvel Unlimited this Week

• https://www.marvel.com/comics/calendar/week/2023-06-25
• Women of Marvel #1 and Avengers: Rage of Ultron #1
• 15 books in total – Photon, She-Hulk, Carnage, Punisher, Wasp among those characters with newly released books this week.

Recommendation: Secret Invasion #1-5 (2022/2023)

• Available in Marvel Unlimited

This Week's Stack

• Fantastic Four #2 (1961) 
• Secret Invasion #1-8 (2008) 
• Secret Invasion #1-5 (2022) 

Creator Profile: Leinil Francis Yu

2 Minute Recap and Discussion Topics

THE CLASSICS - Fantastic Four #2, Avengers #89-97 

• Skrulls seem bumbling early, but not later
• Kree are also awful.  Thomas saw the war as an allegory of what happened to small islands fought over by Japan and the US in WWII. 
• Not nearly as one-sided as it is shown in the movies, where the Kree are extremely powerful and the Skrulls are a defeated refugee population
• Story kicked off the Vision/Scarlet Witch romance, opened up a lot of the Marvel “cosmic” universe, and has been a key building block for Marvel.
• Art is fantastic, with the Neal Adams (#93-96) being among some of my favorite comics ever.

Secret Invasion #1-8 (2008)

** You can use code SECRETMU at Marvel.com/redeem to get the first 2 books of this series within Marvel Unlimited. Offer expires 9/1/2023 before 11:59 pm ET. 

• There are so many characters, and so many storylines that are picked up and dropped 
• First 7 books told a logical story without noticeable interruptions. Book 8 was “after the fact” with narration. What happened between books 7 and 8 and where did it happen? Did we missing anything important?
•  I didn’t know who some of the characters used were/are? 
• Unanswered Questions

Modern Appearances - Meet the Skrulls #1-5 (2019), Secret Invasion #1-5 (2022) 

• Meet the Skrulls is very much like “The Americans” TV show.  Or Invincible maybe.  A classic cold-war spy story just moved to interplanetary scale. 
• Main protagonist is Alice Walker, the middle child.   
• Rumors are that Emilia Clark’s “G’iah” is based on the mom Gloria / G’iah  
• 2nd Secret Invasion is really a Maria Hill story.  Fury spends a lot of it kidnapped, and Stark is nearly as much trouble as he is help. 
• Skrulls are more sympathetic, in that there are two sides.  Some are working with Stark, and not trying to invade. 

Key Concepts for the TV Show

• At there core, Skrull stories are nightmare fuel straight out of McCarthy.  They are about who can be trusted and who is “real” and they are based in a fear of outsiders.  Skrull stories are always in danger of being apologies for Great Replacement racial and ethnic conspiracy theories.
• The two Secret Invasions take very different strategies for telling a similar story.  Which did you like, the sprawling action epic or the more personal spy thriller? 

Final Thoughts

What's Next - Miles Morales & The Spider-Verse

• Ultimate Fallout Vol 1 #4
• Ultimate Comics Spider-Man Vol 1 5 #1-12

Signoff 

Questions or comments

We'd love to hear from you!  Email us at questions@comicsovertime.com or find us on Twitter @comicsoftime.

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Music Intro and Outro created by Lesfm.