Avengers: The Initiative, Vol. 3: Secret Invasion

Avengers: The Initiative (Collected Editions)

by Dan Slott

"We Have Met the Enemy and He Is Us!" During the Infiltration, a Skrull at the heart of Camp Hammond said these words: "It won't be long until we have a Skrull in every state!" Now that Skrull stands revealed and the fate of The Initiative, the United States, and Planet Earth hang in the balance! Plus: Former Avenger, Delroy Garret, assumes the mantle and arsenal of Earth's greatest Skrull-Hunter, THE 3-D MAN. He's here to chew bubblegum and kick some Skrull-@$$. And he's all out of bubblegum. Collects Avengers: The Initiative #14-19.

Genres: Comics, Marvel, Graphic Novels, Fiction, Superheroes, Graphic Novels Comics, Science Fiction

144 pages, Paperback

First published February 25, 2009

About the author

Dan Slott is an American comic book writer, the current writer on Marvel Comics' The Amazing Spider-Man, and is best known for his work on books such as Arkham Asylum: Living Hell, She-Hulk, Silver Surfer, The Superior Spider-Man, and Ren & Stimpy.

Reviews

[Chad · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some pretty solid Secret Invasion crossovers. Focuses mainly on 3D Man who is the only person who can see through the skrull's disguises. Worth reading just for the return of the Skrull Kill Crew.

[Chris Greensmith · Rating 3 out of 5]

"After Stamford, Connecticut was destroyed during a televised fight between the New Warriors and a group of dangerous villains,a Federal superhuman registration act was passed. All individuals possessing paranormal abilities must now register with the government. tony Stark a.k.a. Iron Man, has been appointed Director of S.H.I.E.L.D., the international peacekeeping force. He has set in motion The Initiative, a plan for training and policing super heroes in this brave new world, intended to position a local super hero team in each of America's fifty states."
Various styles and artists throughout this TPB and all pretty good... 2 1/2🌟
I loved The Initiative comics and followed it from the beginning pretty much, there are a lot of forgetting characters but I liked the concept, and it ties in some old obscure characters also. A sad, tragic, mysterious ending...3 🌟
Relevance to SI, 4 🌟 So overall for this TPB 3 🌟

[Brad · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very, very densely packed Secret Invasion crossover that shows about half of the teams in the 50 States Initiative, brings back the Skrull Kill Krew TPB in a mostly-sensible way, and has some pathos and 3D Man. Since it's a tie-in book, there isn't quite as much gravity to the story as there could be, but it's still fun and there's a secondary Earth-ending Skrull plot that the Initiative members fend off. The fill-in artists are far too inspired by Steve McNiven, and their work is shiny and detailed, cold and confusing. While 3D Man is a fairly unmemorable hero, Ant-Man, Crusader, the Kill Krew, and some of the old Initiative members do leave an impression. (Komodo's powers seem to be reduced to growing back limbs, though.)

[Shannon Appelcline · Rating 3 out of 5]

Secret Invasion (#14-19). Following the graduation of the original Initiative cadets, we've lost our core cast, other than a few guest star appearances that amount to where-are-they-now. That dramatically weakens this volume of The Initiative, which is no longer full of the characterization and subplots that we previously enjoyed. Slott tries to make it up by giving major focuses to two characters previously in the background: 3-D Man and The Crusader. And their stories are interesting, particularly the latter, but it's not enough. The biggest problem with this volume, though, is the constant long-winded fighting against skrulls, which gets old quickly [3+/5].

[D.M. Dutcher · Rating 1 out of 5]

Eh. Skrulls apparently have taken over the identities of many heroes and are using it to...do something I guess. I couldn't really get what. Meanwhile, forgotten hero 3-D man is the only one who can detect them, and joins up with a group of morons who try and see skrulls by barbecuing their heads and eating them.

The only redeeming moment in the book is the skrull who throws his lot in with the heroes, but his end is not satisying. Other than that its typically horrid modern marvel; just pass on this and pick up the old Rom: Spaceknight books, which despite being a toy comic, handle similar "secret invasion" themes with a little more class.

[Jordan Lahn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow. A pretty dark chapter for a lot of the characters in this book. Lots of sacrifices, lots of harsh character moments, and like the main Secret Invasion series it ends feeling like less than a victory. Very well done.

[Erik · Rating 5 out of 5]

Who can you trust ?

[Adam Stone · Rating 2 out of 5]

An initially promising chapter in the Secret Invasion, this collection mostly focuses on 3-D Man and ... ummm ... wow, I never caught the name of the other main character. That can't be a good sign, right? Crusader?

The Initiative was a post-Civil War book that threw 50 new teams together and tried to follow cool characters from several of them. It was too crowded with ideas and characters, and apart from a few interesting issues, it was mostly just a book to test out new characters as it waited to be canceled.

Here, we got two interesting characters to focus on (even if I couldn't be bothered to learn one of their names), and an ending that could have been really impactful is nerfed by bad pacing and general sloppiness. The Good Skrull storyline, in particular, had a lot of promise before it sort of faded into the background for a while. And 3-D Man's ability to see Skrulls being briefly messed with was also encouraging but ultimately ruined. Even the timely return of Skrull Kill Krew went from oooooh to ewwwww pretty quickly.

Dan Slott and Christos Gage have written a ton of books between them. I'm never excited to see their names on a title. Neither of them are bad, per se, but their passions and my interests rarely intersect.

This is a totally skippable book.

[Ryk Stanton · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was reading New Avengers for some reason and got up to the Secret Invasion storyline and said, “Hey, I have the Mavel Unlimited app, why don’t I just read the entire Secret Invasion storyline? I’d be really interested because I know that the MCU is going to come out with a movie pretty soon.” Great idea, right?

Ugh, that thing is 99 issues long and just starts to d r a g in the middle as Marvel tried to cash in by incorporating as many titles as possible. But I was committed, and I read every single issue. Was it worth it? Absolutely not. Am I glad I read it? I’m not sad, but I wish that Marvel had done a better job writing with concise storytelling. Or that I had not made the decision to read the whole blamed thing.

But, you know, in for a penny, and for a pound. And it’s red and I will never have to read it again and I can enjoy the movie when it comes out. So I’m just going to copy and paste this review in every single trade paperback that contains the secret invasion, storyline and call it a day.

if anyone reads this review, I recommend you just read the essential story itself without all of the side issues.

[Andrew Garvey · Rating 2 out of 5]

One of the weakest Secret Invasion tie-in collections, it largely fails due to an impossibly large, all too forgettable cast of characters (do we really need to see so many of the Initiative teams for this story?) and wildly uneven writing. Few of the main characters are all that interesting and some - like the exceptionally pervy new Ant-Man - seem to have been written by a 13 year old. It's frustrating because 3D Man and Crusader are well-written, complex characters with a strong, significant and intertwined story. The story is never dull (there's far too much going on for that) but the the uneven writing and sometimes cluttered artwork are a problem. At least the final issue is a good one, ending the volume on a high note.

[Jimbo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kind of loved the Secret Invasion storyline in all the books and crossovers.. This one was cool because of the initiatives across the states. Seeing all the characters and the Skrull Kill Krew, 3-D Man again--it was fun.

I was sorry that 3-D Man killed off one of the Initiaves, A skrull even though he fought to save earth--his home. I kind of would have liked that he was like Skrull John from Captain Britain and MI13--a friends and although he died too, at least his fellow Brits believed in him as their comrade and friend.

Good book

[Jdetrick · Rating 2 out of 5]

The revelations of this book make some of my earlier critiques invalid, but it doesn't make this book much better. Its a little scattered, as crossovers often are, and its saddled with some really bad art in certain issues.

[Kris Shaw · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was pretty enjoyable. Dan Slott is a solid writer and has a pretty good grasp on the Marvel Universe. It's a shame that it took this many issues for this series to find its footing. I am dropping the title as I really dislike the whole Initiative angle and am no longer an Avengers completist.

[B · Rating 3 out of 5]

That ending. Ouch.

[Arthur · Rating 3 out of 5]

definitely better than the last

[Vee · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not as intricate character development as the earlier parts of the series.

[J · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a mess. Really hard to follow at times and the art was so busy the action was blurred as well. Every issue is a Secret Invasion tie-in so that explains a lot.

[Daniel Sepúlveda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Puntaje: 3.5 Estrellas.

Estuvo bien. No fue la gran cosa. Creo que no me impresionó tanto porque no conozco a los personajes que hacen parte de esta serie.

[Mateusz Nowowiejski · Rating 2 out of 5]

2,5 - 09.2026

[Terry Murphy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I respect what Slott was trying to do with this arc: create a multi-strand story that jumps across the country and tells many tiny tales.

Here is the reason I can't score it in any higher: the characters are all interchangeable and...well, bland.

Nothing bad about this, and as the story continues, it gets grimmer and grimmer, which was gladly appreciated. All in all, a decent story, if not a little vanilla.

[Matt · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've been interesting in rereading Secret Invasion. Because of that, I picked up this volume of Avengers: The Initiative when I saw it at a used book store. I was actually kind of excited about reading it because I saw that Dan Slott is the writer, and I've heard that he has done some great things with Spider-Man in recent years. Unfortunately, I was too out of the loop to enjoy this book.

There was a lot working against me.

1. I have never read any of this particular series before.
2. I knew very few of the main characters.
3. This volume was published in 2009, which means the original comics came out in 2008, and I am unfamiliar with what was going on at that time (other than the obvious alien invasion).
4. I did not connect with the main protagonist (3-D Man) at all. Even after reading this whole volume, I am unsure of what his power set is, or why he is valuable enough to lead an Avengers team of his own.

With that being said, there were two things that interested me most about this volume.

1. Ant-Man. This is a different Ant-Man than the typical Hank Pym. I know this for sure because Hank Pym was in this volume as Yellow jacket. I will be doing some research on this version of the hero because his inner monologue was very funny.

2. Mutant Zero. Who is she? Why is her identity being kept a secret (not only from the other characters, but also to the readers)? There is a hint that she could be Jean Grey, but I'm sure I would have heard by now if this was true since this book was first released in 2008.

It was kind of interesting to learn more about the additional Skrull plans for the invasion, but I don't believe much of these specific battles appeared in the main "Secret Invasion" storyline, so they couldn't have been that important.

Even though I had a lot to say about this book, it did not leave me wanting to read more of this title.

[Rocky Sunico · Rating 4 out of 5]

And here we are - the part of The Initiative that finally covers the actual Secret Invasion event. The art wasn't my favorite, but they had a lot of great layers to this story including the new 3-D Man's ability to see Skrulls with the original 3-D Man's goggles and one of the Initiative heroes being a Skrull sleeper agent who had gone native and was now opting to fight for Earth.

This crazy volume takes the fight to as many Initiative bases across the country as possible as our heroes try to weed out the Skrull infiltrators integrated into each of the official teams. And we get some snippets of the Skrull's war efforts, but it does feel like a bit of a narrative mess on that front. The fighting was more important, but even on that front, we didn't get as detailed battles as the other books did and instead they focused on keeping up the action and the now expanded Skrull Kill Krew making their way across the country as well.

I did enjoy how this book remained distinctly Initiative in tone while still supporting the larger crossover event in its own way. There were just so many things going on at the same time that it was a little tricky keeping up with everything. Even things like the Shadow Initiative team quickly got taken off the board and never managed to find a way back into the story. These things happen.

[Ben Lund · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've been rating most of the tie-ins to the main Avengers Secret Invasion storyline as pretty low in the ratings because the activities doesn't feel like it has any bearing on the action happening in the main storyline, case in point, the deadpool one off takes place in a baseball diamond somewhere, and opens and ends with exactly one mention of what's happening elsewhere, same with Spider Man, hercules, Front line and so on. Really the only reason to read the whole thing is to be a completionist.
Anyway, with that gripe out of the way, this one is actually important, while still outside of the main storyline, it involves a pretty important part of the universe, and the development of the characters (as much as possible over 4 issues) is pretty impressive, and it emphasizes how a small group of people can make a big difference with enough effort. Still not amazing, but enough to rise above the pack.

[Mitchell Friedman · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had been wondering how the Marvel Universe handled what they inflicted on themselves with the Civil War. I should have been thinking of The Cat in the Hat Comes Back. Apparently they handled it by having the Secret Invasion of Skrulls. And what's weird is I read some of that in the past and didn't realize it connected. This book was actually pretty good until it split into multiple separate battles on the same page just with list of characters. Exciting but reasonably sensical. With good enough art.

[Mela · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a pretty good tie in, in fact, it might be one of the better ones, and certainly one of the most relevant. Personally, I don't feel very connected to any of the major characters (or course, the one I did grow to love dies...) and at points its got a little over complicated with too many characters running around - which went over well in the Secret Invasion tpb because those characters are all ones we've known for a long time, it's easy not to confuse them. But most of the Initiative are pretty new characters and thus it's pretty easy to get mixed up. But on the whole, it was still a good read, and I don't feel like I wasted any time reading this view of the invasion.

[Ernest · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have mixed feelings about this volume. As a part of Secret Invasion, the stories were interesting and the broader impact of the Secret Invasion was more fully fleshed out, especially given the main Secret Invasion story which was lacking in depth. As a continuation of The Initiative, I was a little disappointed in the number of characters and who was chosen. This wasn’t a bad volume, but I don’t know whether there could have been better stories with stronger characters.

[Kris · Rating 4 out of 5]

I finally realized what bugs me about The Initiative: there are just so many characters! Between the recruits and the superheroes on staff and the members of the teams in the 50 states, it's hard to keep track of everyone.
I've actually enjoyed what I've read of the Secret Invasion event (which so far has been the main storyline and these Initiative issues). It's been fun trying to figure out who the Skrulls are on each team.

[Angela · Rating 3 out of 5]

The invasion properly starts. 3D man can see skrulls and goes on a mission to take out every skrull initiative member. It introduced the skrull kill crew, who are an interesting group of characters. The tour of the different initiative groups is intriguing, and makes me want to know more about the different teams. A good read.

[Sylvester · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the part of the event where a number of groups of superheroes try to survive the attack of the skrulls. It was no bad but there were simply too many stories to be covered with too many superheroes.

[Sharon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Individual issues on marvel unlimited