kgbarreto's review
1.0
Comics for the Bush Era. Basically Bendis' endorsement of America's foreign policy during the War on Terror, with a laughable preoccupation on the good guys being red-blooded Americans and the foreign Others being the bad guys (with B-list American villains as nothing but pawns on this game). You can expect the occasional Islamophobia and even an interrogation scene where the interrogation subject is being subjected to torture by S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, and there's nothing wrong with that! It has the same politics as Millar's The Ultimates, but it's less fun and readable. Some characters come and go and are not properly explored; plot threads are abandoned without further explanation and development, and the final product doesn't do the concept any justice. This could be a good conspiracy thriller, but ends up being something much, much less.
zxillaisreading's review
adventurous
dark
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.5
samgalanor's review
4.0
Nick Fury finds evidence of a great threat against humanity, a team of super villains equipped with high technology. He informs the president about it and wants permission to eliminate the leader of the country Latveria, who finances them. But the president turns him down, they’ll solve this problem the political way. Fury doesn’t accept this order and goes on a private, secret war against Latveria . He gathers Superheroes like Captain America, Spider-Man, Dare Devil, Wolverine and some more, and flies with them incognito to Latveria . But the heroes do not know that this is an inoffical, not authorised mission.
Nick Fury seems often like the most powerful person in stories and films which include S.H.I.E.L.D. But here we get a great look of how helpless he really feels about his job. He kinda became the monster he tries to fight, at the moment he took the law into one’s own hands. Secret War is more a story about Fury than of all the others. They stay in their characteristic role and don’t develop like Fury. The story idea reminds me a little of Watchmen, who is the one who decides which is the right way to save people, or not. And what kind of decisions are made.
The decision to start the Secret War ends in (spoiler). A incredible big amount of super heroes has to fight against an army of super villains at the outskirts of New York. The end of this epic fight is also a remarkable change for Fury’s life, after he confessed that the mission wasn’t authorised.
The art by Dell’Otto is simply astonishing and amazing. It’s almost like an artbook, so much details and realism. Sometime little face pannels are redundant, but it really doesn’t matter, since they are so beautiful made.
Secret War has everything I would like to see in a MARVEL film, character development of the great puppet master Nick Fury, a deep moral conflict and of course a bunch of super hero action.
Nick Fury seems often like the most powerful person in stories and films which include S.H.I.E.L.D. But here we get a great look of how helpless he really feels about his job. He kinda became the monster he tries to fight, at the moment he took the law into one’s own hands. Secret War is more a story about Fury than of all the others. They stay in their characteristic role and don’t develop like Fury. The story idea reminds me a little of Watchmen, who is the one who decides which is the right way to save people, or not. And what kind of decisions are made.
The decision to start the Secret War ends in (spoiler). A incredible big amount of super heroes has to fight against an army of super villains at the outskirts of New York. The end of this epic fight is also a remarkable change for Fury’s life, after he confessed that the mission wasn’t authorised.
The art by Dell’Otto is simply astonishing and amazing. It’s almost like an artbook, so much details and realism. Sometime little face pannels are redundant, but it really doesn’t matter, since they are so beautiful made.
Secret War has everything I would like to see in a MARVEL film, character development of the great puppet master Nick Fury, a deep moral conflict and of course a bunch of super hero action.
svarshi's review
4.0
Really liked it! Kind of confusing at points (as I did not read prior comics in this timeline), but I enjoyed it!
didyousaybooks's review
4.0
I didn't know Secret War was the intro title of Daisy Johnson. Yeah \o/ it was a good surprise!
nigel's review
2.0
Build up that leads to an anti climax
The build-up leads to an anti climax for me. The story itself is short and kind of meh, and the book is lengthened due to inclusion of superfluous profiles which I don't care for.
The build-up leads to an anti climax for me. The story itself is short and kind of meh, and the book is lengthened due to inclusion of superfluous profiles which I don't care for.
coffeeandink's review
3.0
This felt like it should be much more impressive than it ultimately is. The art is GORGEOUS -- I really like the painted look, although sometimes the leather outfits looked like they were just coats of glossy paint over people's bare skin. Still, it's striking and atmospheric and the artist uses models who don't look exactly like the kind of Aryan Marvel default for many characters, and you can actually tell people apart even when they have the same hair color or facial hair.
This is impressive in showing Nick Fury as being even sketchier than Civil War Tony Stark, which I guess is Bendis' point, although it feels sort of anticlimactic because we don't get a lot about either the Secret War or its aftermath -- Luke Cage is still in the hospital, we don't get a huge amount about the betrayal Fury's ad hoc team feels (I guess Captain America and Logan are supposed to stand in for everyone? I am more interested in how people react long-term to the betrayal and the unreliability of their own memories, though, so this wasn't satisfying enough).
Half the book is ancilliary material by someone else about Fury's backup plans and rejected team members -- appendix stuff, not main content. Some interesting ideas, but Fury sounds far too sentimental.
This does add some interesting undertones to Cap's intrasigence during Civil War, but that entire plotline is so fucked-up and poorly executed I am never sure whether anything that looks sensible really is or is just a coincidence.
This is impressive in showing Nick Fury as being even sketchier than Civil War Tony Stark, which I guess is Bendis' point, although it feels sort of anticlimactic because we don't get a lot about either the Secret War or its aftermath -- Luke Cage is still in the hospital, we don't get a huge amount about the betrayal Fury's ad hoc team feels (I guess Captain America and Logan are supposed to stand in for everyone? I am more interested in how people react long-term to the betrayal and the unreliability of their own memories, though, so this wasn't satisfying enough).
Half the book is ancilliary material by someone else about Fury's backup plans and rejected team members -- appendix stuff, not main content. Some interesting ideas, but Fury sounds far too sentimental.
This does add some interesting undertones to Cap's intrasigence during Civil War, but that entire plotline is so fucked-up and poorly executed I am never sure whether anything that looks sensible really is or is just a coincidence.