After a couple of slow weeks as far as new releases are concerned, comic book fans were treated with an assortment of new titles to look forward to this past week. Mostly coming out of the Marvel camp, this week’s releases included Secret Invasion, Ms. Marvel and the highly anticipated new series by Alex Ross which sees the Avengers cross-over with the Invaders. Also released was Detective Comics #844 which, to me, was the biggest DC release of the week. Ready for some reviews on full-auto? Let’s roll!

Secret Invasion #2 (Marvel)
When we last saw our heroes, they were face to mess with, what many fans out there believed to be, a mess of humans and Skrull imitations. Issue 2 of Secret Invasion is mostly a filler issue that’s used to show a massive battle between the Skrulls, both the ones posing as the heroes and the ones currently invading New York, as well as the heroes and citizens. Francis Yu’s art is pretty impressive and helps Bendis’ writing really come to life. Not quite as much going on in this issue as there was in the first issue which makes this issue a little bit disappointing. Still, it’s a solid read that will be essential to fully understand the Skull invasion.
- 8.3/10

Avengers / Invaders #1 (Marvel)
It’s interesting to finally see a limited series that actually ties into the real Marvel Universe. All too often it seems like anything released by Marvel, that isn’t an ongoing series, doesn’t mesh well with the big events in the Marvel U. With the Avengers / Invaders cross-over, Civil War has taken place. Cap is dead and the Daily Bugle has actually turned into the DB. Tons of action and an interesting story make this one of the better cross-overs to come out of Marvel in a while. Will it be able to carry this trend through 12 issues? We’ll have to wait and see.
- 7.4/10

Thunderbolts: Reason In Madness (Marvel)
Interestingly enough, this is one of those comics that just doesn’t seem to flow with the current Marvel U. The events that take place in the comic don’t run in cannon with the events of the regular T-bolts comic. Also, the characters seem like different versions of themselves and don’t appear to be in any way the characters from Warren Ellis’ current title. Christos Gage is a decent writer, I just don’t think his team of Thunderbolts is very likable with their awkward dialogue and bizarre interaction with one another. This particular issue’s only real saving grace is that Ben Oliver’s artwork is reasonably nice to look at and Marko Djurdjevic rocks the issue with a killer cover. Aside from that, this issue ranks right alongside the other one-shots: Barely tolerable and hardly anything to get excited about.
- 6.1/10

Mighty Avengers #13 (Marvel)
Much like New Avengers #40, you would never know which Avengers title this was unless it was unless someone told you ahead of time. Like I said in my review of NA#40, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Nick Fury continues his one-man war against the Skrulls by enlisting the help of some of the family members of past Marvel heroes who have either died or disappeared. Bendis keeps everything flowing nicely in cannon with his Secret Invasion and gives us a nice look at what’s in store of the Skrull invaders as far as Nick Fury is concerned. Alex Maleev’s art is pretty but just doesn’t fit as nicely with the title as some of the previous Mighty Avengers artists have. Then again, is this even an issue of Mighty Avengers?
- 7.9/10

Amazing Spider-Man #558 (Marvel)
This issue may have started off a little slow but turned out to be a lot of fun to read. With appearances by not only Freak but Menace as well, Bob Gale manages to bring a little more life to the Brand New Day by taking somewhat of a look back at what we’ve seen so far since the relaunch this past January. Barry Kitson’s artwork is a nice change from Chris Bachalo’s work last month and really fits much better with, not only Gale’s writing but, the current younger, fresher feel of the title as a whole. Next week, we see the debut of another BND villain named Screwball brought to us by the team of Dan Slott and Marcos Martin.
- 8.1/10

Young X-Men #2 (Marvel)
Much like the first issue of this new series, Young X-Men #2 moves at a slower pace than most other comics. The team is tossed into training and forced to work together to defeat the enemy which, like most things about the comic, isn’t a pretty sight. The characters are still boring and the dialog is still awkward and doesn’t work. Cyclops is still a loser and the only really solid thing about this comic is Yanick Paquette’s artwork coupled with the wicked cover by the Dodsons. If it wasn’t for that, I wouldn’t have bothered giving this series disappointing series another shot.
- 5.2/10

Invincible Iron Man #1 (Marvel)
Riding on the momentum of the recently released Iron Man movie comes Matt Fraction and Salvador Larocca’s new Invincible Iron Man comic book. There’s not much new coming out of this one aside from another title to tell similar stories as the other Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. title. Tony’s still the same old Tony, Extremis and all, but with Larocca great artwork and Fraction’s solid story, this title already seems like it’s a step or two ahead of what I was reading in the original Iron Man title. I was hoping for something a little more “old school” when it came to the character of Stark but he’s almost a mirror image of the one in D.O.S. which is a little disappointing. Overall it’s a fairly strong first issue but I’m not entirely sure how long this will sit on my pull-list. It’s worth a least one more issue just to see where Fraction takes it but after that, it might start to lose steam.
- 7.7/10

Batman Detective Comics #844 (DC)
This isn’t the first time I’ve said this and I’m sure that I’ll be saying again. Detective Comics IS Batman. It’s the definitive Batman comic book for fans that are looking for the classic detective style of storytelling that was found in the older comics as well as the critically acclaimed animated series. This issue features another appearance by Scarface and Zatana which cleans up the loose ends of last issue’s cliffhanger ending and keeps the idea in the readers minds of a possible future romantic relationship between Z and Bats. With Catwoman on her way into the comic within a couple issues, I’m thinking that a love triangle is on the horizon and should make some interesting reading. Paul Dini, as always, writes Batman in a fantastic way and Dustin Nguyen’s art, which wasn’t overly appealing to me a couple issues ago, has really grown on me and seems to really fit sucurely with not only Dini’s writing but the character of Batman. Overall, it’s another great issue that’s sure to be enjoyed by any Batman fan.
- 9.0/10

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Rapid Fire Reviews are written and posted every Friday and feature reviews of some of the biggest titles in comics…in as few words as possible! All the review, none of the filler!