Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Much Better In A Collected Edition, March 22, 2006
SECRET WAR was a mediocre comic book. It's a great hardcover, though.
Let me explain. SECRET WAR by Bendis and Dell'Otto was originally supposed to be a quarterly series. It ended up being effectively a biennial. With gaps that large, it was tough to follow the dark and somewhat complex story. Read in one sitting and with oversized pages to showcase Dell'Otto's painted art, however . . . It's a lot of fun.
The story concerns super-spy Nick Fury discovering that a foreign power has been supplying supervillains with weapons in what amounts to state sponsored terrorism. Prevented from intervening by the government, Fury organizes a covert action which involves Wolverine, Captain America, Spider-Man and other top Marvel heroes taking the fight to the foreign capital. Flash-forward to a year later, when the heroes are attacked by powerful supervillains and one, Luke Cage, is seriously injured. The story of the fight for survival is intercut with flashbacks to the covert action, with the true nature of the "Secret War" revealed late in the game.
Also included is a series of in-character profiles of various superheroes "by" Nick Fury. They're a hoot, albeit fairly superfluous.
The dialogue is trademark Bendis (not for all tastes) and the pacing still leaves something to be desired, but there's a lot of action, a lot of intrigue, and Dell'Otto is an amazing new talent where Marvel is concerned.
Overall, I'd recommend it.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Not quite as good as it's namesake, June 23, 2006
I'm not a great fan of Bendis, but I do think he's a good idea man. The premise behind this series is compelling, the execution could be better. But the good parts first:
The artwork is perfectly suited to this story, gritty and blurry without being sloppy, it's an excellent moon setting. The moral ambiguity that the tale centers around was implict as soon as you open the trade and see the graphics. The storyline is a good look at some of the darker corners superhumans might find themselves in if they did exist, a nice realistic depiction over the idealized that overall comics are associated with. And this is an important trade that leads up to events going on now (Civil War). This use of superheroes starts the questions that really start getting asked in Civil War.
But on the negative side, the story really seemed to drag to me, when I read it. The action is nearly nonexistant, and mostly in dimly remembered flashbacks. You don't really see the actual war, just its fallout. The series starts out with a bang, in media res, but after that it goes downhill. The few issues it ran for would have been improved if the actual conflict took place in an ongoing narrative, in the middle of the story would have been fine, but it should have happened. This series was either not long enough, and should have had the story of the actual war, or way too long, as revelations are boringly dragged out. The all text "transcripts" of shield agents, as mentioned before, are way too frequently and lengthy to be interesting, and the "shield files" or whatever at the end of the series is reprinted filler.
It's a shame that they design "covert ops" costumes for the heros involved and we barely get a glance at them as well. This series did not live up to its potential
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10 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
excellent art, excellent plot, although it feels like a rip-off., June 18, 2006
Secret War is an important book in the current direction of Marvel continuity. It ties in threads from the New Avengers and does some foreshadowing in the current Civil War crossover happening in the Marvel Universe.
The art is breathtaking. Although not to Ross' level, it is still beautiful. The storyline of Nick Fury gathering a few costumed heroes for a top secret black ops in Latveria as retaliation for the Latverian head of state's funding of technology-themed criminals, is both fresh and relevant.
However, my main gripe about this could've been excellent hardcover collection is a lot of scenes and revelations occur during the "transcripts" of the interrogations. Sure, having "transcripts" and computer files of the protagonists there as a storytelling device is OK but I sure hoped Bendis or his editors kept it to a minimum. It feels like SECRET WAR was running way, way behind on schedule and D'Otto couldn't keep up with the art so they had to include those "transcripts" so SECRET WARS meet the deadline. Those aforementioned scripts and bio take up around 1/4 of the book. I buy comic books to look at pretty pictures while enjoying a great story. If I wanted a story told in words, I will buy a pocketbook.
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