I have enjoyed a Black Panther comic for the first time possibly since my mild positive response to T’Challa and Storm’s wedding back during “Civil War”. Yeah, it was that long ago. I’ll get to wax on that, plus you know, the whole big “Secret Invasion” update, while I wait eagerly for the next issue of Final Crisis or Final Crisis: Rogues’ Revenge.Ms. Marvel #29-First off, I want to say that Greg Horn this book’s cover knocked one out of the park. It says all you need to know about the issue, Carol’s a hot chick at war and ready to kick some *ss.And does she. Which, I do have mixed emotions about. For all the threat that the new Super-Skrulls are supposed to represent, Carol has spent all of last issue, and this issue, pretty much having her way with the Skrull invasion force’s elite. The Giant Man Skrull from last issue is on top of her, and manages to destroy a building with several people still inside, and what does she do? Impale him on a tower antenna and zap him full of energy to fry him in response. BAM. Like that, one of the Super-Skrulls (one of whom managed to hold his own alone against the Illuminati) is dead. Same way she left the Hulk Skrull in space last issue. Why’s that bad? While it makes Carol look THAT tough, it makes the Skrulls seem that much weaker, and the rest of the Marvel Universe that’s struggled against them weaker. Then again, the last issue of New Avengers had Elektra take out three of the Super-Skrulls alone, single-handed, before a fourth got the best of her. So don’t ask me about how one kept the Illuminati in check.From the throngs of fleeing people, Agent Sum finds Carol and is suspicious over her again, since she targeted civilians last issue with a “stun” effect to find the Skrulls among them. Carol just chalks it up to “Extenuating circumstances,” and points out that Agent Sum just doubted her not too long ago, and it didn’t pan out so well. Before they can continue their little debate, more of the Skrulls attack. As Carol fights we get a stronger sense that her warrior instincts are in control. She thinks about how she can’t wait to toss their bodies in a pile and “have one hell of a bonfire.” HARD. CORE.Carol flies to Stark Tower to try and find shelter for the humans, only to find it’s still inaccessible due to the virus uploaded into it. Flying back, she persuades Sum and a group of humans to ride out of the city in a bus that she’ll fly to safety, and they can take shelter in the Raft. Believing communications could be restored at that SHIELD base since it’s on it’s own line, Sum agrees just as a swarm of Skrulls targets them. Sum speeds away in the bus, while Carol flies head on into the wave. As Sum drives away a small group of Skrulls stand in his way. A new weakness for the invading Skrulls is revealed: a fast moving bus. No less than five skrulls are tossed aside, while one is splurtched under the bus. (Again… these are the same Super-Skrulls that managed to hold steady against the defenses of Professor X, Dr. Strange, Namor, Iron Man, and Reed Richards in an ambush. Now they’re stopped by a moving New York City bus…)Cut back to Carol, mid battle. She’s got a plan to take out a lot of the Skrulls in one fell swoop. The Skrull who she battled on the Mini-Carrier had the power of Nitro, and she presumes that it’s likely another Skrull has it in this fight, among their horde, as well. In the madness she spots one with the same “glowy eyes” and she swoops over to him to beats him until he’s mad, goading him into trying to blow her up at short range. Carol notes all she can hear is the explosion with screaming Skrulls as their bodies are torn apart from the blast. She suckered him into taking out most of his platoon. What a Skrull dumbass.Back on the bus, whose wheels go round and round, one of the citizens saved by Carol and Sum tries insinuating some paranoid claims, and is ready to mutiny right off the bat (how Skrullspicious). Sum asserts himself over him, just as the bus lifts off the ground. Carol, carrying the bus above her, flies it off Manhattan to the Raft. Once there she walks inside and smells death. Bodies hang upside down, still dripping with blood, and line the hallway. Carol finds a live SHIELD agent who tells her, “the other Skrulls were scared of it! THEY WERE SCARED OF IT!”What’s “It”? I don’t know, but some threats were locked up in the Raft and broke out at the start of the Invasion. Lord only knows what was in there and started a killing spree like this on all the people inside. But we’ll find out next month!Another good issue for a book I, at one time, thought would never get out of its infancy. But letting Carol kick some *ss against actual bad guys does help.Secret Invasion: Fantastic Four #3 of 3This is a series that really could have been wrapped up in two, had they wanted it to end that fast. Johnny Storm, Ben Grimm, and the Richards children the Fantasticar out of the rubble of the Baxter Building that’s been left in the Negative Zone and make their way towards the 42 Prison. Along the way, they’re waylaid by some gargoyle-like beasties of the Negative Zone who try and take the kids off for an easy meal, and while Johnny saves Val, it’s Lyja, his Skrull wife, who shows up again to save Franklin. Our heroes get to the 42 Prison, whose security is so tight, so formidable… that Ben Grimm single-handedly clobbers his way through to the cell of someone with the brainpower who might be able to activate a portal back to Earth.Johnny meanwhile, gets time to talk to Lyja, who lets him know that her people didn’t give her much choice but to join their attack on Earth, and had she left it up to them, both he, Ben, and the children would have been executed, not just left for dead in the Negative Zone. She convinced them that her idea to neutralize them by just banishing them there without a way home (other than the blatantly obvious one that the two knuckleheaded FF members figured out with two children) was a good one. She cares about Johnny, but Veranke and the empire will never let her have him. Anyway, Ben heads to the cell of the Tinkerer, and offers to let him out if he can get him, Johnny, and the kids at home. And at first, the Tinkerer refuses, having been thrown in the Negative Zone Prison after SHRA without due process, being arrested in front of his grandchildren while he took them out for ice cream. But, when he’s asked by Franklin and Val, the old coot’s reminded of his own grandkids and he caves, and jury rigs the gate so they can get home. Of course, home is still part of New York City, and on fire when they get there. And Reed and Sue are still captives of the Skrull. So there’s that.Black Panther #39Alright, as I said, this is the first time I’ve enjoyed an issue of Black Panther in some time. For the most part, I’ve thought Reginald Hudlin’s run has had moments of great promise, but has not lived up to expectations after his title character got married to one of the highest-profile heroines in comics, as well as one of the perennial X-Men, Storm. And I asked myself, time and again, if fans don’t like the stories, and sales keep dropping lower than other titles that have already been cancelled for low sales… why is Marvel keeping him on as writer?The answer came before ComicCon, when it was announced that Reginald Hudlin was using his connections as the President of the cable channel Black Entertainment Television to produce a Black Panther cartoon on the network. And then I realized what was going on. One hand washes the other.Hudlin would write the book he wanted, get his feel for the character, and then get to retell all the stories of T’Challa that were good for BET. In the meantime, having him on the book, reducing sales was for Marvel, letting things get worse before they get better. They’re gambling that whatever people have stopped picking up the book, they’ll be replaced by viewers of BET who get curious about the most capable African superhero in the Marvel Universe and go out seeking the book after viewing him on the network. In fact, they’re betting it will give T’Challa enough exposure that he’ll be bigger than he ever was.And from a business standpoint, they’re right. It will accomplish that. But it’s meant that there’s been a lot of lackluster stories the past few years, after so many great ones from Christopher Priest, who wrote international drama like nobody else with the Panther. I just hope that nobody is fooled into thinking that Hudlin’s writing on Black Panther was so good it brought people to the book in droves… it isn’t. It’s done the opposite. It’s just going to be the stories other men wrote, retold on the network that do that. Credit where it’s deserved, after all. Just my $0.02.But anyway, to the issue at hand… Jason Aaron (who coincidentally just wrote the best Wolverine arc I’d read since at least “Enemy of the State”, but perhaps since Warren Ellis gave me “Not Dead Yet”) got writing chores on Black Panther for Secret Invasion, and as I said in my intro, had me enjoy this book for the first time in a long time.Last issue, Wakanda found out about the Skrulls, by finding but one of them after it was killed. Their own little Skrullektra. And as the Skrull fleet sends one ship of theirs to take Wakanda, they get to roll up on it to see six of their operatives with their heads on pikes out front of the palace on their long range cameras. The interesting thing is, the story is being told from the perspective of the Skrull commander, who I like to think of as the Skrull Danny Glover. See, he’s due up for retirement soon, not unlike Danny Glover in the Lethal Weapon movies. Anyway, he thinks little of his mission in the overall importance of the Skrulls’ plan, since it’s just a tiny African nation, and they figure it will be taken in a matter of hours, if not minutes. He and his crew would be wrong. Because as their ship approaches the nation, the Wakandans hack into their ship’s computers and render all its weapons, as well as their troops’ weapons and armor powerless. The Skrulls do manage to do the same to Wakanda. Thus…This fight just became a melee.And while the Skrulls realize if they take out the figurehead of Wakanda, the nation is defeated… T’Challa has his entire army march out dressed as him. Including the women, and his wife, Storm. Despite being outnumbered 3 to 1, the Wakandans hold the line. The commanders knows to ask for reinforcements to take out the nation would mean his death warrant… and he’s counting on two things: One, that the last operatives inside Wakanda who weren’t discovered can turn the tide or two: the Super-Skrull who’s got the powers of Strong Guy, Wolverine, Bullseye, and some random pyrokinetic can get the job done.We’ll see how it pans out though, right?So what did we learn this week? Well, we learned that even the Skrulls have the “near retirement protagonist” cliche. We found out that while the Tinkerer is in prison, he’d show a guy made of orange rock where the back door is. The back door home, anyway. We also learned that the Raft certainly is not a “Life Raft”. We discovered that the Negative Zone is a lousy place to have a convertible in. And finally, we learned that all you have to write well to stay on Black Panther was the Kid & Play movies, if you have the right connections. That’s all for this week, see you next time in the WORST… BLOG… EVER.
