Top Of The Pile: Secret Invasion - Fantastic Four #1

Call me a sucker, but I'm really getting quite hooked on this whole "Secret Invasion" megaplot that is running through the Marvel Universe at present.

Throw in my favourite superhero team (The Fantastic Four) to the mix, along with the requisite inter-dimensional shenanigans and a healthy dollop of shapeshifting aliens, and Secret Invasion: Fantastic Four is an instant winner with me.

This is a three issue mini-series that spins off from the main Secret Invasion title and looks at the impact the Skrull infiltration has on the Marvel Universe's First Family, served up with a cover reminscent of John Byrne's glory days on the FF and a writer (Roberto Aguire-Sacasa) who really gets what makes the FF so good.

A Skrull posing as Sue Richards (aka The Invisible Woman) sends the top of the Baxter Building (along with The Human Torch, The Thing and the two Richards' kids) into the Negative Zone, where she plays mind-games with Johnny Storm before revealing her true identity on the final page.

Aguire-Sacasa's handle on the Fantastic Four stands in stark contrast to the abomination that is Mark Millar's current stint on the main title.

Millar is showing a contempt for the superhero genre that borders on the insulting - if you dislike traditional superhero titles so much, then don't accept jobs to write them!

The power escalation of Reed Richards' inventions is just getting ridiculous - I'm sorry, but if he can produce an "anti-Galactus" suit out of nowhere, as he does in Fantastic Four 557, then all the other heroes in the Marvel Universe might as well go into retirement!

Increasingly, this title has the verisimilitude of a 1960's Superman story...

Couple this with some of the worst, seemingly rushed, art I've seen from Bryan Hitch (he manages to make Sue look like a transvestite), and the campaign starts here: Get Millar and Hitch off the Fantastic Four as soon as possible.

The final page teaser for the return of Doctor Doom should send tingles down my spine, but it just leaves me with a sense of impending dread - how will Millar muck up the FF's nemesis?