In a stunning display of sheer nerve and terrible judgement, Brian Bendis devotes almost all of the latest issue of The Pulse to clip scenes from the first three issues of Secret War. There’s very little new material in the comic, except for an oblique opening sequence between Jessica and Wolverine and some moments told from a slightly different perspective. (We see Jessica leave the phone message for Matt Murdock… the phone message we heard from Matt’s perspective in Secret War.) I suppose one could at least credit Bendis for truth in advertising, as he’s said Pulse readers don’t need to read Secret War to understand what’s going on. What he neglected to say is that Secret War readers don’t need to pick up The Pulse at all.
As if to emphasize the issue’s superfluity, Marvel re-released the first two issues of Secret War yesterday, presumably so readers can compare and contrast. (Honestly, does anyone really think there isn’t a significant overlap between the audiences of Pulse and Secret War?) This is an amazingly lazy turn of events for what was the last Bendis book I’d been enjoying without reservation. But why focus on your flexible premise and interesting cast when you can do a Cliff’s Notes version of a half-finished mini-series that barely has enough material to crib?
The Pickytarian takes this turn of events as the perfect jumping-off point:
“I feel like a heel and a sucker for buying it. And do you know what? I’m getting off the train. That’s it. No more buying The Pulse, no more buying Secret War, no more buying any of this flimsy drivel that is being passed off as comic book entertainment.”
Even the Bendis Message Board can’t muster their usual enthusiasm:
“For a bimonthly book that offers my only real Jessica Jones fix, it’s kind of hard to deal with material that I’ve mostly seen before. Not really happy here. I miss Alias.”
“kind of pointless. Didn’t add anything to secret wars 1, at least not to me. I do like Brent anderson art though. Overall Meh””Too much retreading here for me. Needed a little more substance to it.”
“Also known as Secret War #1.5. On the plus side, Brent Anderson’s art is a lot more suitable for this book than Bagley’s was (well, Bagley did great action scenes). On the other hand, it’s a lot of retread stuff from the Secret War issues I’ve already read.”
And in another thread:
“Meh. We’ve basicaly had 4 issues of Secret War, and still have no answers. Half this issue was stuff we’ve all ready seen anyway.”
“It’s way loose and lacks organization. It’s a total throw-away issue for those of us reading Secret War, and we’ll have to wait 2 more months for another slow-ass issue. “
Bendis responds:
“there are a total of three pages that were secret war related material. not half. everything else was new. wolverine, the mystery man, ben, the hospital,”
but it isn’t quite cutting it:
“Okay. I just thought you’d be more clever than to take your script from another issue and paste it word for word. I feel you could have given us the same information in completely new scenes.”
“What did Wolverine and the mystery guy explain? Nothing. Because the mystery guy was a mystery, and Wolverine just got mad then cried.”
(Apologies to Graeme for stepping on his turf, but this just irritated me beyond all reason.)