All New Invaders #10 - A Review

When we last left The Invaders, our heroes were in dire straits. On a mission to rescue The Human Torch's sidekick, Toro, the group found themselves surrounded by the minions of a German terrorist and an army of Deathloks. Thankfully, The Invaders have a secret weapon of their own - the daughter of an old enemy, who has just discovered her heritage as an Inhuman!


There is a lot of material to cover in this issue of Invaders but James Robinson tackles the exposition with his usual aplomb.  More, he continues to offer a unique insight into each character and handles them in unexpected ways.  The highlights of the issue include a flashback where Namor testifies at the Nuremberg Trials and Captain America addressing the Deathloks, not as zombies, but as soldiers.  We're also given an interesting new character concept in the form of the new Iron Cross.


Steve Pugh does his usual stellar job on the artwork.  The story flows naturally from panel to panel during the conversational scenes but we're still treated to a number of spacious, poster-worthy panels.  No big splash pages, alas, but every page of this book looks amazing in spite of the smaller spaces that Pugh works within.

All New Invaders #9 - A Review

If Invaders #9 has a weak point, it's that there is very little that actually happens in this issue.  Oh, there are battles aplenty in the background but these are not the focus of the story.  The main purpose of this book is to bring Captain America into the fight and to allow our villain to explain just what the heck a Deathlok is and how he has acquired a collection made up of "all of them".


That being said, this issue accomplishes both of those goals with style.  In a time and place when most authors are content to let blurbs on the credits page tell readers the story so far, James Robinson still follows the old Stan Lee edict that every comic should be written as if it were someone's first.  Robinson seamlessly fits this exposition into the narrative through The Winter Soldier giving Captain America a SitRep on what is going on and the villain of the piece - who loves hearing himself talk - explaining how he assembled his army of extra-dimensional cyborgs.


Steve Pugh matches Robinson's quality script with his amazing artwork.  While the combat sequences of this issue are somewhat limited in scope, Pugh still manages to depict them with amazing detail given the relatively minute focus in each panel.  Action fans may be disappointed but fans of great artwork won't be, even if this issue features a slightly higher amount of talking head scenes than usual.