Secret Invasion #2 Review

Written by: Ryan North
Art by: Francesco Mobili
Colors by: Jordie Bellaire
Letters by: VC’s Joe Caramagna
Cover art by: Rafael Albuquerque
Cover price: $3.99
Release date: December 7, 2022

Secret Invasion #2 amps up the paranoia and the mind games when Maria Hill devises a new method for detecting Skrulls; one that looks very familiar to John Carpenter fans.

Is It Good?

File this one under Secret Invasion #2 homages (read: rips off) John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982). If you know the film, you know where this is going – scorch the blood, find the Skrull. The results are equally unsurprising.

For anyone who isn’t familiar with John Carpenter’s classic film, a) what’s wrong with you? and b) stop and go watch it now. All done? Okay, let’s go.

In the film, a method is developed to figure out who is truly an alien in disguise by scorching blood samples from everyone present. When the test yields a positive result, the nightmare reaction is the stuff of cinematic legend.

Secret Invasion #2 takes the exact same approach by having Maria Hill insist on blood samples from the assembled Avengers and scorching them. When a positive result is found, the discovered imposter tears through the packed conference room like a hot knife through warm butter.

To be clear, the test makes sense in this context, and the action scene following the imposter’s discovery looks great, thanks to Mobili and Bellaire’s art. However, the plot in this issue is effectively one event with a plot twist cliffhanger at the end.

In other words, there’s not much story in this issue but for that one scene, but it’s a well-done scene, so set your expectations accordingly.

About The Reviewer: Gabriel Hernandez is the Publisher & EIC of ComicalOpinions.com, a comics review site dedicated to indie, small, and mid-sized publishers.

Follow @ComicalOpinions on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter

Final Thoughts:

Secret Invasion #2 is a tense, thrilling, paranoid-filled issue with great art, great action, and great drama. However, the meat of the issue is effectively one big scene that heavily borrows from John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982) and doesn’t move the plot forward more than an inch.