These issues have, subsequently, been collected in a TPB.

Invasion

(1988 - three issues, DC Comics)

Plot, breakdowns: Keith Giffen. Script: Bill Mantlo. Art: Todd McFarlane, Keith Giffen, Bart Sears.

One of DC Comics' many multi-title crossover epics, Invasion was a mini-series comprised of three massive, 80 page issues (no adds), totalling a giddy 240 pages! The problem with such crossover sagas is that because they spin-off into various on going comics like Superman, Wonder Woman, etc., there's the danger that you won't really get a satisfying story just reading the mini-series. One of the first such crossovers, The Crisis on Infinite Earths, wasn't bad in that regard, but Legends I found extremely frustrating as it read at times like pages were missing from the story.

Still, I'd read good reviews of Invasion, and since each issue was 80 pages, I figured that left a lot of room to tell a story in its own pages, regardless of what might be happening in other titles.

The premise concerns evil alien races -- most familiar to regular DC readers -- who unite in order to conquer earth. The instigators of the invasion, the Dominators, are curious about earth's preponderance of super heroes, and want to learn why it is that so many humans manifest meta-human abilities.

The first issue (The Alien Alliance) is the build up, seeing this alliance form and the invasion begin (at which point it spins-off into various other titles).

The second issue (Battleground Earth) is the slam bam conclusion, as earth's various heroes manage to trounce the aliens. It seems to be the end -- but this is, after all, a three issue series.

The third issue (World Without Heroes) has the aliens, in a final strike before leaving, hitting earth with a gene bomb aimed at meta-humans that threatens to kill many of earth's heroes.

I enjoyed the first issue. Keith Giffen is credited with story and lay outs, which was the same position he had on such subsequent, disappointing mini-series as Aquaman (1989) and Green Lantern: Emerald Dawn. Bill Mantlo, who can run hot and cold, did the actual writing, while Todd McFarlane, the fan favourite artist who I've never much appreciated, did the pencilling (with various inkers). With my pre-exiting feelings about those three, I had my doubts, but this was a rare case where their combined talents seemed to amount to something greater than the sum. I liked the writing and the art. Perhaps because McFarlane spent most of the story drawing aliens, his suspect grasp of human anatomy was less obvious, and his pencils over Giffen's layouts resulted in some truly intimidating shots of the alien armada. While Mantlo's writing was crisp and clever at times.

Despite the focus being on the aliens, there are threads involving characters like space hero Adam Strange, who is captured by the Alliance, but plots how to use that to earth's advantage. There's a nice sense of a build up, creating an ominous mood, and, with 80 pages to work with, there's a sense of a real epic brewing.

Unfortunately, with the second issue, the nature of the crossover manifests itself, as we skip a lot of stuff that occurred in other comics between the publication of issues #1 and #2 (though handily recapped at the beginning of #2). Still, we've got another 80 pages of uninterrupted story for us to get back in the mood of the thing. But here Giffen's plotting, that had been so bland on those subsequent mini-series, once again manifests itself. To be fair, it's not just Giffen's fault...most crossovers tend to be weak on story. So busy just trying to work in cameos by as many super heroes as they can, they're often just a lot of big fight scenes where the heroes are depicted with a certain anonymity -- one hero's dialogue could've been uttered by any other. And Giffen, whose ethics I questioned in his Aquaman mini-series (which was just a rehash of Invasion, except on a smaller scale) shows similar tendencies here, such as having the heroes negotiate a temporary cease fire -- then getting the upper hand by leading a sneak attack on the aliens while the cease fire is still in effect!

Plot threads that had been intriguing -- such as the Adam Strange sub-plot, or a sequence with the Spectre -- don't really go anywhere. Still, it's not a terrible read, but a disappointment after the first issue won me over. Other than a sub-plot involving one of the alien races, the Daxamites, re-thinking their allegiances, I can't recall much about this issue at all! McFarlane draws the first half, and now that he's drawing people regularly, his shortcomings are more obvious; Giffen drawns the second half capably.

The third issue is oddly self-contained, not just from crossovers into other titles (except for some odd stuff with Superman), but even from the first two issues (if you can only find #1 & #2 together, or #3 by itself, you could still read them without needing the other). But though there are lots of characters running about, with a particular emphasis put on non-super characters that had been occupying DC's titles at the time (Amanda Waller, the tough talking co-ordinator of The Suicide Squad, or Maxwell Lord, who oversaw Justice League International), there's still precious little that amounts to genuine characterization, or human drama. Super heroes not affected by the gene-bomb, such as a couple of Green Lanterns, J'onn J'onzz, and others, eventually head off into space to try and steal a cure from the retreated Dominators, but even this adventure-plot is kind of bland and rudimentary in its execution. Still, this last issue is drawn by Bart Sears and is arguably the best illustrated of the bunch.

Invasion is undermined a little by its basic conceit -- a crossover story involving all of DC's heroes. Instead of getting plot twists and characterization, we get a lot of panels crammed with costumed heroes and big, linear fight scenes. It would be better with such sagas to focus on a few characters who can serve as consistent leads throughout (or throughout an issue, at least), even if others are reduced to cameos.

Like many crossovers, the series was used as a launching pad for new titles. This is always awkward. In a story that is having enough trouble finding room for existing characters, the heroes must be further short changed in order to showcase new ones. This is particularly ironic, when read years later, since most of those hot new properties never went anywhere (spin offs like Blasters mustered a single special before slipping into obscurity, while L.E.G.I.O.N. went for about five years -- not bad, though in an industry where successful titles run for decades, that's not that impressive either).

Also like many crossovers, a few (minor) existing characters are killed off -- something I always find annoying. If you're going to kill off a character, don't do it just because DC is cleaning house, or needs a sacrificial lamb to make its marketing ploy mini-series seem more epochal than it is.

Ultimately, Invasion starts out promising, and if all you want is a chance to see lots of DC heroes -- circa the late 1980s -- in action and cameos, it's O.K. But if you were hoping for a 240 page epic of adventure, intrigue, intelligent plotting and thoughtful characterization -- look elsewhere.

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