Siege: An Event Seven Years in the Making?

Marvel's Siege event was supposed to capstone to seven years worth of stories and overall bad luck for the Heroes of the Marvel U. Briefly, the excellent Civil War mini-series served as the catalyst for some pretty hefty events that rocked the Marvel U. It all went down like this:

Civil War: The divisive Superhero Registration Act is passed. Led by Iron Man and Captain America, two warring factions of heroes and villains settle their differences with their fists - as if there is any other way. End Result: Iron Man's faction wins; heroes must register with government; Captain America dies; Bucky becomes new Cap.

Secret Invasion: Skrulls invade earth. Skrulls are lame. Iron Man fails to prevent/stop the invasion finds himself on the outs with pretty much everyone, especially Thor. Norman Osborn is promoted to head of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Dark Reign: S.H.I.E.L.D. becomes H.A.M.M.E.R. Osborn steals Iron Man's tech and leads a group of Avengers composed almost entirely of not-so-reformed super-villains. In order to protect other heroes' identities, Iron Man turns himself into a retard thus preventing Osborn from hacking his brain but failing to stop Osborn from beating him into a coma on live TV.

Siege: Loki tricks Osborn into attacking Asgard by triggering a disaster not unlike the disaster that kicked off Civil War. Asgard is blamed for the disaster, H.A.M.M.E.R. attacks.

Here's Marvel's promotional trailer for Siege:


My reaction to this trailer: HOT DAMN! There is nothing more boner-inducing than a high stakes brawl between heroes and villains, set on an epic stage. Now, before getting into my critique, overall, Siege was pretty o.k.. Brian Michael Bendis was given the hefty task of delivering the goods in a scant four issues, and did, for the most part, and Olivier Coipel, as usual, was rock-solid on the pencilling end of the story.

Here's my issue with Siege. Except for the bellow image of Ares, the God of War, being reduced to pudding, Siege was both contrived and anti-climactic, which, as you'll read in my conclusion, isn't necessarily a bad thing.



Contrived: Yawn...
While Bendis deserves all the credit in the world for spinning a pretty good yarn, he, like most event writers, was bound to the powers of the editor and the new direction of the Marvel U. - The Heroic Age. In other words, one only had to look as far as The Heroic Age promo material to figure out how Siege was going to end.

Take a look.



From this picture alone we can infer the following:

1. The big three (Captain America, Thor, Iron Man) have resolved their differences;
2. The Avengers are getting back together; and
3. Osborn has been deposed.

Did I need to fork over close to 20 bucks for an action-packed statement of the obvious?

Anti-Climactic

Siege was billed as a huge turning point for the Marvel U. The promotional material for Siege describes it as an event "Seven Years in the Making". Wait a minute... It took seven years to make Norman Osborn go crazy and get the Avengers back together? Really?

Normally, I'd take this opportunity to discuss the fact that, right now, no less than a dozen nerds are writing fan-fiction featuring Norman Osborn and the Avengers. Further, at least three of these scripts will feature a six-page threesome starring Hawkeye, Daken and Ms. Marvel (Carol Danvers). However, I'm going to take the high road and take a moment and discuss the concept of hubris.

Hubris, or excessive, blinding pride is very often the root cause of failure. I'm not saying Marvel failed with Siege, but how could Marvel hope to live up to it's own hype? Let's be honest here, Siege did not take seven years to develop. Hell, it only took a year to tear down the entire Berlin Wall; so, let's call a spade a spade - Siege like all other "event" comics is simply a publisher's regular cross-title cash grab that, although enjoyable, doesn't change the landscape all that much.

Am I right?

Well, without giving too much away, I'm going to say that I'm mostly right, and here's why. First, I'm right in that the conclusion to Siege was fairly predictable and uninspired. Maybe it's me, but, by the mid-point of issue #3, I was no longer invested in Siege, and found myself wishing the battle for Asgard was over and looking forward to the beginning of the Heroic Age. Now, it's worth noting that it remains to be seen how the Heroic Age will pan out, which makes me not completely right. While I will maintain that Siege accomplished little in shaking things up, the end of the series presents readers with a new vision that, at the very least, will be a well-deserved break from the usual tone of doom and gloom that has governed much of the Marvel U. for the past 10 years. That said, who knows, maybe the Heroic Age will change the comic medium as we know it.

Final Thoughts
Despite my criticism, truthfully, I'm on the fence when it comes to Siege. As a whole, Siege didn't rock my world and didn't change much. Rather, Siege presents us with standard comic book fare - a serviceable story and good art, which, to me, is just fine. Really, can we ask for anything more?

At this juncture, I feel it is best to wrap things up. I'd love to continue rambling and dissect my stance on Siege, but, in this case at least, brevity and some insight on the perils of neutrality will serve me, and hopefully you, best. A wise and great man once said, "If you sit on the fence too long, you will get speared in the nuts." So, with these prophetic words in mind, I offer my final verdict on Siege: Wait for the trade.