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painterz's review against another edition
1.0
Christ almighty, what a heap of shite.
I mean leaving aside the hamfistedness of the whole premise, adn the fumbling of the opportunity to say something interesting about fascism. The entire story is basically a fetch-quest. And the resolution depends on not one, not two, not three, but four (maybe more?) super powerful characters conveniently waking up from comas to do their little bit to move the story on.
Awful. Just fucking awful. Marvel, please stop with these event storylines.
I mean leaving aside the hamfistedness of the whole premise, adn the fumbling of the opportunity to say something interesting about fascism. The entire story is basically a fetch-quest. And the resolution depends on not one, not two, not three, but four (maybe more?) super powerful characters conveniently waking up from comas to do their little bit to move the story on.
Awful. Just fucking awful. Marvel, please stop with these event storylines.
litavalentine's review against another edition
1.0
full of milquetoast political takes while trying to be inspiring and anti-fascist. utter character assassination of almost everybody who took hydra!steve's side. absolutely insulting and a huge waste of time.
birdmanseven's review against another edition
3.0
There’s a malevolent force taking over the US from within. Coincidentally that is also the plot of this book.
It’s hard to feel the impact of a story like this when you know the inevitable resolution. Still, it used the characters well and told a pretty unique story.
It’s hard to feel the impact of a story like this when you know the inevitable resolution. Still, it used the characters well and told a pretty unique story.
edcorcoran's review against another edition
1.0
All the narrative problems of Civil War II but with an even stupider idea at its core.
esdiecinueve's review against another edition
2.0
I am just so pissed off with Cap being Hydra. I have no grand speech about morality or something like that, it just seems to me that it was a mistake to take an icon and corrupt it with a few pannels.
shegeekdawn's review against another edition
3.0
The storyline follows Captain America’s allegiance to HYDRA, his reign as supreme global ruler, the “heroes” who sided with him and those who opposed his rule and fought back. Overall, Secret Empire is an enjoyable, well-planned story and 90% is a relatively decent plot, with good writing and some great art. But it’s that final 10% that is the problem. There is a lot of buildup and conflict to get readers to a resolution that falls flat.
So why does the end of Secret Empire not work? It’s a cop out. There were a few directions that things could have gone to give a satisfying end to the story. But the writers decided that a literal clean slate/reset/reboot/turn-it-off-and-on-again was the best way to go.
This book isn’t for a casual comics fan. It helps to know the characters, as well as what was going on with crossovers when this 10-issue series was published. It was a big event for Marvel and changed some things in the comics universe going forward. However, for Marvel fans this is worth reading, if only for the sake of filling in some blanks.
So why does the end of Secret Empire not work? It’s a cop out. There were a few directions that things could have gone to give a satisfying end to the story. But the writers decided that a literal clean slate/reset/reboot/turn-it-off-and-on-again was the best way to go.
This book isn’t for a casual comics fan. It helps to know the characters, as well as what was going on with crossovers when this 10-issue series was published. It was a big event for Marvel and changed some things in the comics universe going forward. However, for Marvel fans this is worth reading, if only for the sake of filling in some blanks.
mr_houses's review against another edition
2.0
Otra macrosaga de estas de Marvel en la que he caído sin querer a partir de los retapados (¿se traduce así trade paperback?) del Capitán América. Al parecer gracias a un Cubo cósmico que lo volvió de nuevo joven, ahora la realidad ha cambiado y el Capi ha sido siempre miembro de Hydra.
Buen dibujo, una idea decente (aunque ya les vale con el cubo cósmico) y luego la habitual descomposición en sub tramas que te "incita" a seguir los crosovers (esto no se como traducirlo) o tie-ins (aiuda RAE) para volverse a juntar en la ciudad americana de vuestra elección (creo que Washington) y darse de tortas hasta que en el climax y cuando todo parece perdido todo quede igual menos algun pringo que cambia de uniforme y algún personaje que muere brevemente para que su manto lo recoja alguien más joven y, preferiblemente, menos anglosajon y luego puedan hacer lo de resucitar, coexistir y pelearse etc.. No pongo ni espoiler porque ya son tantos eventos que el mecanismo es conocido. Lo he leído aguusto pero hasta que no hagan algo menos foemulaico me niego a pasar de dos estrellas. Copio y pego la reseña en los otros tomos porque si ellos no se esfuerzan pues yo tampoco.
Buen dibujo, una idea decente (aunque ya les vale con el cubo cósmico) y luego la habitual descomposición en sub tramas que te "incita" a seguir los crosovers (esto no se como traducirlo) o tie-ins (aiuda RAE) para volverse a juntar en la ciudad americana de vuestra elección (creo que Washington) y darse de tortas hasta que en el climax y cuando todo parece perdido todo quede igual menos algun pringo que cambia de uniforme y algún personaje que muere brevemente para que su manto lo recoja alguien más joven y, preferiblemente, menos anglosajon y luego puedan hacer lo de resucitar, coexistir y pelearse etc.. No pongo ni espoiler porque ya son tantos eventos que el mecanismo es conocido. Lo he leído aguusto pero hasta que no hagan algo menos foemulaico me niego a pasar de dos estrellas. Copio y pego la reseña en los otros tomos porque si ellos no se esfuerzan pues yo tampoco.
czamorad's review against another edition
4.0
I am torn I am torn when it comes down to big events and crossovers. Most times they become so massive, that getting to know everything that happens becomes a chore. Plots get stretched too much and that the books revolving around the main story resolve so little.
But still, the idea of having many characters involved, interacting and playing their own specific role is impossible to pass. It’s big, everyone’s there, you just have to know.
The key is finding a balance between the overwhelming big story and those involved in it, sometimes it plays out beautifully, some other times you get a bit lost… Focus is important. Spotlighting only a few characters helps the readers to follow the main plot. This was done, but only to a point. Some plotlines moved into their own spin-offs, and there, as a reader, I got lost.
This particular event gave me a bit of both. At first, it moved so slowly, revolving around too many plots, too many places and too many people. Frankly, I hardly figured out what were they up to. And just add this overwhelming sense of bleakness and I almost dropped the whole thing… But by the end of the event, things did pick up. The heroism was back and it became inspiring once again.
I have to give a huge kudos to those involved in the planning of the story, because there were tons of characters and sub-plots that needed to be handled. And I also have to give another kudos to the readers who survived this. I just can’t picture who would read the event plus all the crossovers at the same time. I guess there must be a special type of human being to do that, heh.
I think this crossover went a bit overboard, but at least it was coherent to a point (there are plenty of examples of Marvel crossovers going sour).
Finally, the art was distracting at best. McNiven was the star. Everything else felt too sketchy, or too noir, or too “adult” for a super-hero comic book. I didn’t like most of its tone, especially when it involved the Black Widow and the kids under her care (what kind of art was that?).
My final review is positive, but I have to admit that it was exhausting. I would never read the many spin-offs, at least not along with the main story. I did enjoy the Secret Warriors part, but I did read those issues before moving into the main Secret Empire series. Maybe going through them separately could make them more enjoyable than reading the whole thing under a strict chronology.
Something that I would never do again is to read an event as it gets published. Things get too spread out through the weeks and months. Enjoying a story that way is almost impossible for me.
But still, the idea of having many characters involved, interacting and playing their own specific role is impossible to pass. It’s big, everyone’s there, you just have to know.
The key is finding a balance between the overwhelming big story and those involved in it, sometimes it plays out beautifully, some other times you get a bit lost… Focus is important. Spotlighting only a few characters helps the readers to follow the main plot. This was done, but only to a point. Some plotlines moved into their own spin-offs, and there, as a reader, I got lost.
This particular event gave me a bit of both. At first, it moved so slowly, revolving around too many plots, too many places and too many people. Frankly, I hardly figured out what were they up to. And just add this overwhelming sense of bleakness and I almost dropped the whole thing… But by the end of the event, things did pick up. The heroism was back and it became inspiring once again.
I have to give a huge kudos to those involved in the planning of the story, because there were tons of characters and sub-plots that needed to be handled. And I also have to give another kudos to the readers who survived this. I just can’t picture who would read the event plus all the crossovers at the same time. I guess there must be a special type of human being to do that, heh.
I think this crossover went a bit overboard, but at least it was coherent to a point (there are plenty of examples of Marvel crossovers going sour).
Finally, the art was distracting at best. McNiven was the star. Everything else felt too sketchy, or too noir, or too “adult” for a super-hero comic book. I didn’t like most of its tone, especially when it involved the Black Widow and the kids under her care (what kind of art was that?).
My final review is positive, but I have to admit that it was exhausting. I would never read the many spin-offs, at least not along with the main story. I did enjoy the Secret Warriors part, but I did read those issues before moving into the main Secret Empire series. Maybe going through them separately could make them more enjoyable than reading the whole thing under a strict chronology.
Something that I would never do again is to read an event as it gets published. Things get too spread out through the weeks and months. Enjoying a story that way is almost impossible for me.
ty_jarrus's review against another edition
2.0
An interesting event that was mired in controversy. To be fair, some of that controversy was earned. The story has such a cynical tone with only small bits of hope sprinkled in- bits that I read superhero comics for.
While intriguing, I kept asking myself, “How is this character or the Marvel Universe supposed to move past this?” And that’s why I don’t blame other creators for ignoring and not touching on events surrounding Secret Empire after the fact.
While intriguing, I kept asking myself, “How is this character or the Marvel Universe supposed to move past this?” And that’s why I don’t blame other creators for ignoring and not touching on events surrounding Secret Empire after the fact.