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Writer: Brian Michael Bendis
Pencils: Olivier Coipel
Inks: Mark Morales
Colors: Laura Martin
Covers: Olivier Coipel, Mark Morales & Laura Martin (Standard Edition); Gabrielle Dell’Otto; Joe Quesada, Danny Miki & Richard Isanove (Variant Covers)
[rating:4/5]
Tight plotting has proven to be beneficial to Siege. Â At least, it has in my humble (and probably wrong) opinion.
I mean, I’ve made it no secret: I hated Civil War. Â Even though the story was fairly decent and had a great premise, by the halfway point it had already lost it’s steam, and the onslaught of delays didn’t help in the slightest. Â And Secret Invasion, though it didn’t really suffer any delays, was just as bad. Â The stories die out long before the end arrives.
But it’s different with Siege. Â With the book already facing it’s penultimate issue, the story is still running strong and powerful. Â Sure, it’s been a series of events you’ve seen coming, but it’s still a damn good issue with a lot of strong moments within. Â Marvel could learn a lesson from this (as could DC; even though I’m loving Blackest Night, it feels like it’s been going on forever, and the endless string of tie-ins aren’t helping in the slightest).
The only gaffe I can find with Siege has to do with it’s framing element. Â Bendis has a habit of telling rather than showing, resulting in the latter half of his blockbusters being described by people around the event, as opposed to those who are participating. Â It was reporters and survivors in Secret Invasion; here we’re being told the action by the President and his cabinet.
Despite this, Siege is still the best damn event Marvel has had in a long while. Â It’s good to see Steve Rogers, Tony Stark and Thor side by side on the same team again. Â Even though it’s a series of events that we’ve seen coming, there’s still a lot of excitement and well thought out action within this amazing blockbuster of a miniseries.
I think I feel kind of the opposite you do. I think the plotting of SIEGE has a feel of being rushed. Secret Invasion had the problem of being dragged out for eight issues when six would have sufficed. Now, it feels like Bendis has gone the opposite. Everything happens so fast that you never have time to feel any depth to it.
There is a tragedy. Asgard is blamed just because it has to be blamed. The President knows Osborn is mobilizing forces hours before the attack, but doesn’t stop him just because it has to for the story. Ares and the other Dark Avengers do not like the idea of attacking gods, but they go along with it anyway. The Asgardians are being treated like primitive Vikings just to bring them down to a level of humans just because it is needed for the story. Ares suddenly turns on Osborn just because he has to. People were hoping for an epic Thor vs. Sentry fight, but only get about three panels. The Ares vs. Sentry fight is the about the only time it slowed down at all to focus on anything.
As you state Bendis has to use narrating and waste space at the end of each issue to fill in background because he does not stop for a moment to develop any of the story points. One review I read stated SIEGE #3 is like something giving you only the highlights. Unfortunately, it feels like that for the entire series.
You are right in a way this is the best event in while, but I still think it could have been better had they bothered to slow things down a tad and extend it by a single issue to actually develop some of these story points.