Secret Invasion (2008) / YMMV

Archive Binge: Reading only main comics will leave you utterly lost as to how the hell Norman Osborn becomes a Villain with Good Publicity. You need to read Deadpool and Thunderbolts to understand that.
Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: In the penultimate page of issue 7, Danielle breaks the fourth wall by looking at the reader and instructing them to direct their attention to Jarvis' face as it morphs into a Skrull's. Up to this point, there were no hints whatsoever of Danielle being aware she was in a comic book, or even that she had more advanced mental faculties than an average baby. When she is next seen in New Avengers, she is once again portrayed as a normal infant.
Complete Monster (Civil War (2006): Young Avengers & Runaways (also includes Secret Invasion (2008): Who Do You Trust's "Master of the Cube")): The unnamed warden of the "Cube" is a government-licensed Torture Technician who admits, since a child, he's always had an obsession with playing private, sadistic games. Now able to exert his childhood fantasies over a classified superhuman prison facility, the warden subjects many hundreds of prisoners to paranoia agents and torture for his own glorification. When some of the Young Avengers and the Runaways fall into his hands, the warden is positively gleeful that their unique physiology means he'll be able to effectively torture them for days. The warden's prize accomplishment is what he does to Noh-Varr; after cutting him off from the Kree hivemind, the warden "stomped around in his head" until Noh-Varr becomes a conditioned killer, still somewhat aware of what the warden is forcing him to do.
Fridge Brilliance: The whole story becomes a lot more forgivable if you picked up on Bendis' continual dialogue that the Skrulls have absolutely no honor, and that for all their troubles (and a grand plan whose first step relied solely on the abilities of a Spider-Man B-list villain)—they still underestimated Earth's Mightiest Heroes (as it turns out, on a vast scale), and weren't as clever as they thought they were (or else completely out clevered) at the end of all things. Reed Richards even lampshades their lack of creativity at one point: for all their power and effort, they still hid behind shapeshifting and he was still able to figure them out. Basically, it's either a greatly expanded version of Fantastic Four #2—a comic which came out before there was even an Avengers comic book—or an equally expanded version of the Kree-Skrull War (incidentally, a story which Bendis remains highly fond of).
Heartwarming Moments: Ms. Marvel's hugging Spider-Woman and assuring her that the heroes who are looking at her with suspicion are just merely confused.
Memetic Mutation: "Secret Invasion"? More like "Damn Obvious Assault!"^note
Moral Event Horizon: The killing of Wasp is enough to rile every single hero into targeting Veranke's head... then Osborn's the one who gets the kill shot.
Paranoia Fuel: Anyone can be a Skrull. At least that's how the hype wanted this to look.
Tear Jerker:
- Poor Pym, after being freed. This even continues in the subsequent issues of Mighty Avengers.
Pym: [to Tony] YOU KILLED JANET!! YOU KILLED CAP!! HOW COULD YOU!!?
- Clint tests the newly returned Bobbi with October 12th. The next few panels reveal that she was pregnant at one point, but lost the baby. It gets even worse when it turns out that she's a Skrull.
Bobbi: We really wanted that kid. And October 12th... That... would have been a nice day.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Crusader. His story arc of moving from Skrull spy to Becoming the Mask and deciding that he actually liked Earth was well received and readers were interested in him. His death, which was not only sudden but at the hands of the comparatively boring C-Lister 3D Man was one of the major let-downs of the event.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot
- More like Wasted Perfectly Good Motivation. In What If?: Secret Invasion, we never see any of the characters who already had been or would have been replaced by the Skrulls, nor anyone close to them, and they're never mentioned by either side of the conflict. You'd think that if something good had happened to them, the Skrulls would be using it for PR, and if something bad had happened to them, the resistance would be using it to undermine the Skrulls' public image, but nope. Nothing.
- Much of the build-up was around the concept that the Skrulls this time around would be much less direct and more discrete, sowing instability and chaos into Earth's ranks. While a little of it does happen, the story itself is a fairly standard Easily Thwarted Alien Invasion.
Unintentionally Unsympathetic. Hawkeye gets some of this for literally murdering the non-threatening Mockingskrull in a fit of rage. She may be an Expendable Clone, and even an alien, and under the circumstances it's somewhat understandable that he is upset, but she's still a person — And moreover, literally a perfect copy of his wife, who wishes him nothing but good. Surely there were other possible solutions, if she was even a problem or threat in the first case.
- This same could be said about most of the heroes; Skrulls are being killed left and right, often by characters who otherwise take Thou Shalt Not Kill very seriously. Evil aliens or not, they're still living, intelligent beings.
The Woobie: If you think Spider-Woman has been a woobie since her earlier runs, watch as the epilogue of this arc dials her woobie-ness up to eleven (look on the main page). Also, as much as Pym is often the Butt-Monkey, the epilogue is where his misery just can't be taken for comedy, as just after he's freed from his imprisonment, he had to face the bitter truth of Wasp's death, and everything that took place while he was captive (House of M, Civil War, the death of Captain America, World War Hulk, and the specifics of Secret Invasion itself).

YMMV / Secret Invasion (2008)

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