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Invaders #1 Preview @ Popcultureshock

I'm Rick Jones, bitch

12:46 / 07.08.04

http://www.popcultureshock.com/reviews.php?id=3145

Quite a remarkable page 13, with USAgent going apeshit. The guy's a nutter, and this doesn't seem to pull many punches.

uncle retrospective

13:37 / 07.08.04

Are you retarded? That's one of the dumbest things I've wasted my time on. The story is... shit. The art is... shit.
Look around on the previews and see if you can find X-force no.1. Dear God, the gene pool needs some cleaning.

18:40 / 07.08.04

As a Mazikhandarian-American, I'm offended by the implication that we are all terrorist insectoids....SKRIIIK! SKRIIIK! And further more...

20:25 / 07.08.04

wow. it's Marvel's version of JSA gone fascist splatterpunk military porn. that's... different.

22:45 / 07.08.04

Huh. So are they handing out free copies of that horseshit at the republican convention or what? "Take THAT, terrorist scum! GRAHHHHHHHHH!!" Man, reading 26 pages of that was three minutes of my life I'll never get back....

10:39 / 08.08.04

"The names on this shield are those of American lives lost to terrorist garbage like you?"

"I took the mantle of Union Jack to represent the common man. The common Englishman."

and

"Anything with 'fist' in it can't be be all bad"?

Really, is this a piss-take?

Haus of Mystery

11:17 / 08.08.04

Good old Marvel. Bringing the long missing 'fascist' element back to supercomics. Who the fuck is the writer?

I'm Rick Jones, bitch

12:37 / 08.08.04

The point is that they're neo-cons - USAgent is a psychotic maniac, and it looks like the rest of the team more or less agree with him. The idea of a republican nutcase beating insectoid terrorists to death with a spiked sheild inscribed with the names of 9/11 victims strikes me as inspired, for some reason.

If this goes in the direction of Judge Dredd by implicitly condeming the lead characters I think it could really be something. I get the impression that's the direction they're going in, but perhaps that's just my left-wing reading of it.

14:48 / 08.08.04

Yeah, I thought it was worthy of the shite pile. But most books are. I think I enjoyed maybe one or two books that Mile High put up for free.

15:01 / 08.08.04

I dunno - it seems to start out that way, and if it was actually written as neocon superheroes versus Arab terrorist scum then it would have some satirical weight - but typically Marvel wuss out and reveal that the villains aren't modern terrorists - they're basically Nazi Insect Robots, who've infiltrated positions of power in a 'they live' style campaign of hatred, and now the function of the Invaders is to find and destroy the Nazi Insect Robots. That's like an idea for a very dull television series, and pisses away the rest of the work done establishing the team as deeply unlikable authoritarian bastards because LOOK! the villains are Nazi Insect Robots, and you can do anything you want to them. Hurrah!

It's a shame as well, because you could do a lot with the idea - I mean, they're called The Invaders, for god's sake, and they have Namor the Ego on their team as a good guy...plus the deeply scary-looking blazing skull...but all that's just wasted in the end. oh well.

Nice to see Knights of Pendragon being referenced in the discussion between Union Jack and his bird, though.

And yes, I do just like saying 'Nazi Insect Robots'. Who doesn't?

15:19 / 08.08.04

I got the same impression reading it that Radiator did. I thought the writer was making a point of how extremely right-wing and questionable the characters are. It appears that this Thin Man character's "reprogrammed" the formerly pacifist Blazing Skull to love to fight fight fight. Also USAgent's "I'm Captain Freaking America" line, holding a gun and a spiked shield covered in blood (insectoid or otherwise) pretty well points out that this may not be the guy you want acting as the symbol of your nation. Or at least that was my interpretation of it.

I thought the spiked shield was a nice touch, actually. Since the whole point of Captain America is that his primary weapon is a defensive one, it's sufficiently unsettling to see USAgent deck it out in spikes and a 9/11 "never forget" paint job. (By putting those names on a shield, he could be seen to be "hiding behind" the names as justification for hostilities, but I'm sure I'm reading way too much into that.) And I thought Union Jack's relationship with his school friend's newly-youthful mum was a fun look at the oddities possible with superhero dating. This book could get a lot of mileage with how strange a relationship that is.

That said, I'm not sure ULTRACONSERVATIVE AVENGERS #1 is worth three bucks, but it was all right for free.

19:09 / 08.08.04

It also occurred to me that, by virtue of its over-the-topness, the book might be some sort of parody, or...something. But even if it is, it's not an especially well-executed one. (The Milligan/Allred X-Force/Statix was actually funny, for one thing.) I think if the book IS a satire, it really needs to boldly announce itself as such within an issue; I mean, if Chuck Dixon were credited as the writer, I don't think anyone would presume the book was meant to be taken as a joke.

Um...I didn't hate the art, though.

20:42 / 08.08.04

I thought the art was gorgeous, super elegant an shit, not very commercial for the fanboys mind WHERES THE DETAIL!!,

Are they chasing the fox watching fuckwit dollar, or are they just taking the piss, which im not sure is wwisse as its a huge market

I'm Rick Jones, bitch

11:23 / 10.08.04

Someone kicks off at having a naked female on the team. that's been long overdue, I think. This is pop-culture as trolling, much in the same way Starship Troopers was.

The Natural Way

11:59 / 10.08.04

But the writing sucks. The intro sucks. Who cares if it's *political* when it's written in baby-speak?

22:19 / 10.08.04

Maybe this is Marvels attempt at comics for kids.

07:59 / 11.08.04

We start by questioning whether Skull-Face (or whateverhisnameis) is a goody or a baddy.

Interesting and deep!

This is great stuff!!!!!!!!!

21:36 / 25.08.04

I've just read the first page of this.

"JIM HAMMOND. ONCE THE ORIGINAL HUMAN TORCH."

Yeah? Who's the original Human Torch now, then?

Solitaire Rose as Tom Servo

22:08 / 25.08.04

I finished the issue, had nary a clue about most of the characters and quietly dropped it from my pull list. Too bad, since the original Invaders was Roy Thomas at his most Roy Thomas.