Secret Invasion #5 - The Heroes Fight Back

Up until this point, the Secret Invasion has been pretty one-sided. The element of surprise appears to have ended though, and as we top the halfway mark in the miniseries, the heroes begin to show some backbone.

Secret Invasion #5 is a gem. I have to confess I had no idea who Abigail Brand was before this all started, but seeing her in action alone against an entire Skrull-infested ship trying to rescue Reed Richards is awesome. She tears into them, blows them all out an airlock, and still manages to save Reed without messing up her hair.

Getting Reed back to Earth doesn't solve all the problems, but it does allow Reed time to create a weapon that instantly transforms all Skrulls back to their little green versions. He'd mentioned in the first issue how he knew what they had done with Elektra, and now he's using that to undo their changes.

Of course, this doesn't bode well for the Savage Land folks. But it's very nice to have several things settled rather quickly. For one, Tony Stark is not a Skrull. The weapon that changes all the rest of them doesn't affect Tony at all, therefore he's human. I mentioned I didn't think Marvel would go that route, and apparently they haven't.

The rest of the heroes that came back on the spaceship are confirmed to be Skrulls though. This means heartbreak for Clint Barton/Ronin/Hawkeye, as the woman he thought was Mockingbird turns out to be a Skrull. And that doesn't sit well with him at all. Clint grabs one of Black Widow's guns and starts shooting, killing the Mockingbird Skrull first off before going after the rest. He's leaning dangerously toward the Ultimate version of Hawkeye in this, and I'm glad to see it. He could be a much better character than they've given him credit for. By the way, my earlier post about the Invasion gave Mockingbird a high probability of being a Skrull. Again, it's easy to figure out because Marvel's not doing the logical thing in much of this.

Oh, and does anyone else notice that Spider-Man is in a full body suit? He could have changed and it never showed up. Probably not, but it was a cool thought.

After this brief fight in the Savage Land that sees three heroes get to kill their wives (Clint shoots Bobbi, Reed Richards strangles Sue, and Luke Cage lets a tiger eat Jessica Jones), we get this big final shot of Clint saying the Skrulls all going to die before it's over. Coming from a highly ticked-off super-marksman, I can believe it might just be true.

So now our heroes are heading back from the Savage Land for New York City to try and turn the tide of this war.

This issue had a lot of great moments in it. This is great storytelling from Marvel, and I'm looking forward to seeing how quickly things are going to change from this point on. Remember: with one shot from Reed's gun, every Skrull in the area is instantly changed back. This is going to give us some incredible splash pages over the next few issues of this miniseries.

By the way, in Secret Invasion: Inhumans we get our first glimpse at one of the captured heroes. Black Bolt is alive, and it's up to the Inhumans to get their leader back!

See you Monday for a look at some recent awesome plot twist moments in comics!