What do you do when your old friend declares war on the entire world?  Your Major Spoilers review of Invaders #3 awaits!

INVADERS #3

Writer: Chip Zdarsky
Artist: Carlos Magno
Colorist: Alex Guimaraes
Letterer: VC’s Travis Lanham
Editor: Tom Brevoort
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Cover Price: $3.99
Release Date: March 27, 2019

Previously in Invaders:  America is readying for its final war with Atlantis!  It’s a race against the clock as the Winter Soldier infiltrates the military and Captain America confronts Namor’s human allies alongside the original Human Torch!  Can they get to the bottom of Namor’s plan in time?

A VERY REAL STORY OF LOSS AND HISTORY

We open with a very tense conversation between Captain America and Iron Man, during which Stark repeatedly insists that it’s time for a pre-emptive strike on Namor and his undersea empire, but Captain America wants more time to try and change his old friend’s mind.  It ends with a very tense accusation that Iron Man WANTS to go to war by Cap, as he and the Human Torch arrive at their destination: A naval base working on undersea weaponry, just in case of another Atlantean attack on the surface world.  The Admiral in command is very much NOT impressed with Captain America’s insistence that she not act, even though there’s great danger all around them, shutting down his arguments and allowing Cap and The Torch to do their meet-and-greet with the men under her command.  Of course, that leaves The Winter Soldier free to infiltrate and figure out what they’re working on and destroy the weapon’s key components.  While the former Bucky does his sneaky act, Captain America moves on to his next target, a very old friend named Randall Peterson, who has a few of Namor’s secrets that he’s kept since the Big War…

WEIRDLY STILTED ART

To begin with, Magno does a great job with the various leaping and flying sequences, and even the flying Jaguar that Steve and JIm are tooling about in, but somehow his characters’ facial expressions keep coming across as very wooden.  Admiral October is supposed to be angry at Cap, but she has a completely blank expression, and the multiple panels of Captain America saluting are VERY stiff.  Even with those strange moments, though, i enjoy a lot of this issue’s art and his rendition of the Human Torch’s flames is really creatively solid.  As far as the story goes, it’s complex, with a lot of moving parts that it’s easy to lose track of.  By the time Namor arrives to attack his former partners, the explosive action is a great relief from the tension of what we’ve been reading.  The dialogue and attitudes of the core Invaders are all clearly delineated, though, and I really enjoy Captain America’s difficulty in balancing his duty with his friendships and the clear discomfort that he experiences with it.

BOTTOM LINE: A SOLID MIDDLE CHAPTER 

Next issue promises to tell us more about Namor’s lost past, but Invaders #3 gets the job done, setting the stakes, putting our heroes in play and letting them all do what they do best, even if the art doesn’t always make the grade, earning 3 out of 5 stars overall.  As Invaders revivals go, having to fight one of their own gone rogue gives a stronger rationale for reuniting than most, and this creative team doesn’t make the characters feel old or out-of-time while working with decades of continuity, which is no mean feat.

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INVADERS #3

60%

60%

Intense

It's a story of misdirection and emotional reunions, all set against a potential war between old friends... Interesting stuff.

• Writing

  6
• Art

  6
• Coloring

  6
• User Ratings (3 Votes)
  5.7