My sole criticism for this story is the ridiculously low death count on the side of the humans, which really undermines the weight of the narrative stakes considering the two separate huge battles fought in it. I understand why this needs to be the case, but it still rings false. But excepting this, "Secret Invasion" is a beautiful accomplishment years in the planning, which retroactively brings new light to years of Marvel output -- not only in Bendis' "Avengers" titles, but also to "House of "M", "Civil War" and (to a lesser extent) "Secret War". It even includes a very approachable and easy one-page prose recap of all these events before the comic starts, which was sufficient for both me (who have only read a tiny portion of these events) and my wife (who have read none of them) to thoroughly enjoy the story after.

This collection is also gorgeous, encompassing every bit of the event penned by Bendis himself (I have not read the tie-ins written by anyone else, so I've no idea if any of it would be worth checking out -- judging by the main narrative, I suspect at least the Fantastic Four tie-in to feel worthwhile from a story perspective). I do take slight issue with the decision to group the main miniseries together in the middle -- I get that some of the other issues set earlier would spoil big reveals, but it might have been worth the trouble to break up the main miniseries to insert the relevant issues where they actually occur once the reveals have been made. For instance, I could not make heads or tails of what was going on with the Sentry in the main miniseries, and then hundreds of pages later, I'm provided with the issue that tells the story from his perspective and it now makes perfect sense. But this is to some degree a matter of personal taste -- I'm sure other readers would prefer to keep the main miniseries together and uninterrupted.

The selection of issues is also well done, though the inclusion of the set up of the "Venom Bomb" arc without any kind of resolution felt jarring. It might have been worthwhile to add at least a handful of pages to wrap that up once it had started.

I also thoroughly approve of how far past the main event conclusion this collection takes us, letting the ripples and repercussions really settle in, and finishing on that one creepy smile in the final panel of Mighty Avengers #20 was to me a perfect ending.

Warmly recommended. ( )