Editor's Note: New Avengers #40 arrives in stores tomorrow, April 30.

This issue sees Brian Bendis revisit the long period of time between the Illuminati's visit to the Skrull homeworld in New Avengers: The Illuminati #1, and the infiltration of earth's superhero community by the Skrulls, showing what the little green men have been up to for all these years, behind the scenes. It's an issue which provides a lot of answers to questions that have been asked by readers ever since Elektra was revealed to be a Skrull impostor, and--as with last week's Mighty Avengers #12--it begins to tie together subplots from Bendis' wider body of work at Marvel. We see the greater significance of the events of the first issue of the Illuminati mini-series, we get a lot of new insight into the Skrull society (including the introduction of a major new Skrull character), we learn more about how the Skrulls were able to perfect and test their newly-undetectable abilities, and--in a rare intersection with wider Marvel continuity--we see the writer acknowledging the events of the original Annihilation crossover, and working them into his plans for the Skrulls. Some people may be disappointed that the Avengers themselves barely appear in the issue, but it's a significant enough part of the overall story of Secret Invasion that it merits a fairly lengthy examination.

Indeed, one pleasant surprise of recent months has been the realisation that Bendis might have given more thought to his construction and pacing of the plots of New Avengers than it initially appeared. I'm not talking about pacing on the level of a single story arc, or a single issue: this instalment proves that Bendis still hasn't mastered that yet, with a slightly flat tone and a script that reads more like a potted history of the machinations of the Skrull empire than a truly compelling tale in its own right. However, the pacing of the writer's larger story has actually been fairly well thought-out when you stand back and look at it. Major surprises were revealed to the readers at the same time as the characters experienced them, giving us the sense that we were on the same ride as they were, and we only began to learn the story behind the Skrull infiltration at the same time as they did. The jury's still out on whether Secret Invasion was always intended to play out in this way, but even if it wasn't, Bendis is doing a fairly good job of making it appear to be planned out well in advance.

Still, despite Bendis' intentions now being clearer than they were at the beginning of his New Avengers run, there's no escaping the fact that many of the book's earlier stories simply weren't that enjoyable when I first read them - and even if the Secret Invasion storyline manages to retroactively improve them, their inability to stand as decent stories before Bendis made his big reveals is still a significant weakness. So whilst I might admire the writer's dedication to longer-form storytelling, I'm still not sure that serial monthly superhero comics are the best place to attempt it, especially if you can't make the story enjoyable on an issue-to-issue basis the first time around, too.

That said, I'm actually quite enjoying the way that the Avengers titles are functioning now that Secret Invasion has got under way in earnest. They're providing side-stories which flesh out the secondary subplots of the core Secret Invasion series without cluttering up the story of that book with an abundance of exposition. This approach might not be popular with everyone--I'm sure there are some Avengers fans who won't enjoy seeing their favourite book relegated to what could be considered as little more than a glorified appendix to the main series--but personally, I'm quite happy to see Bendis use his monthly titles to get stuck into the details of his current story and how it relates to plot points from his earlier issues, leaving the core Secret Invasion book to cover the events of the crossover as it happens in the present day.

Jim Cheung's artwork gives this issue a boost and elevates a middling story to a higher standard than it might have achieved with a lesser artist. There are a couple of tricks which are slightly overplayed, such as the cinematic zooms that Cheung employs, gradually pulling back or zooming in on a certain character to give the scene a greater impact. However, the effect still works, despite its overuse: I particularly enjoyed the eerie reveal of the hordes of devoted Skrull masses as they bow down in front of their Emperor. Cheung also shows that he's complicit in the guessing-game that Bendis continues to play with his readers, teasing us with obscured or ambiguous images before the final reveal of another likely Skrull impostor in the ranks of the Avengers. The artist manages to make his panels feel full and rich in detail without the pages ever feeling fussy or cramped, and this detail helps to create an effectively alien atmosphere for many of the scenes involving the Skrulls. Along with his expressive faces, clean lines and timeless style, Cheung is one of those illustrators who seems to be able to make any costume look good, no matter how goofy or outdated it might appear. He's a very well-rounded superhero artist, and it's a shame that we don't get to see his work more often.

There's a nagging suspicion at the back of my mind which tells me that I might be enjoying these recent Avengers issues more than they deserve, simply because they're justifying my having stuck with the book through some fairly mediocre stories on the promise of an eventual payoff. However, even if that is the case, I still find it pretty hard to find any major flaws in the way Bendis has handled Secret Invasion so far. Let's hope that the storyline continues to be entertaining, and that the writer has planned a conclusion that is strong enough to deliver on the potential of its premise.

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