All-New Invaders #8

By James Robinson, Steve Pugh and GURU-eFX

The All-New Invaders has been a nice little surprise of a book. It’s great to see older characters that don’t get the chance to interact too much in modern comics work together as a team. For the most part this series has essentially been all about the original Human Torch, Jim Hammond, but this month he’s getting his old pals back for some more rowdy action.

James Robinson has done a phenomenal job of characterizing Jim Hammond. He’s a forgotten character that Robinson has made both relevant and cool. Now it’s time for Robinson to show us how well he can handle already established badasses like the Winter Soldier and Namor. Robinson starts off by giving us a touching moment between Agent Coulson and Jim Hammond. This scene is written very well and the characters come off sincere. One of the nice things about this issue is that nothing seems forced. Namor and Hammond team up for a good reason and Bucky joins later, but it all flows together. It’s apparent that Robinson has a good time writing Namor as well; he has all the funny lines in this issue and actually seems to be enjoying himself. James turns in a quality script that should leave the reader wanting more.

The art of Steve Pugh is always great, and he continues the trend this issue. All his lines are very crisp and fine, and the last page is glorious. Pugh succeeds in giving the reader exactly what they want out of this issue: great action scenes that are incredibly drawn. There isn’t much downside on his art. There were a couple of panels where someone’s face looked a bit off, but in the grand scheme of the issue, it doesn’t matter. Pugh is an all-star talent and he proves it every month in All-New Invaders.

This was a really good issue that could potentially have some crazy repercussions throughout the rest of the Marvel Universe soon. Robinson has gotten better on this title each month and this is the best issue so far. There shouldn’t be any doubt that Steve Pugh is a stud with a pencil. His work is very strong on this series and he will hopefully only get better. This series continues to get better every month thanks to the love that Robinson and Pugh put into their work.