Marvel Comics Secret Invasion vs DC Final Crisis from Comic Book Blog:

As a comic book retailer, I'm hoping that Marvel's Secret Invasion story-line brings a "Secret Invasion" of customers into the shop this summer.

In recent years the big comic book companies seem to save their biggest storylines for a summer release, in much the same way that Hollywood releases their big-budget action flicks around this time.

Getting an early jump on the summer season, issue #1 of Marvel's Secret Invasion has sold-out. Every tie-in book so far has sold-out. The alien race of shape-shifting Skrulls has declared war on Earth's heroes, promising lots of reveals and shocking moments.

In a recent interview, Secret Invasion writer Brian Michael Bendis has stated that The Avengers teams will be dramatically shifted and there will be a huge upset of power in the Marvel universe.

Love or hate the direction that Marvel is headed in, you have to say that at least they try like hell. Marvel's story-lines are the ones that keep the customers (old and new) coming back week after week. Whenever there's a lull between Marvel event-style story-arc, business slows down.

In the last couple of years, Marvel's gone from Civil War to Planet Hulk to The Death Of Captain America to X-Men Messiah Complex to World War Hulk to Spider-Man One More Day/Brand New Day and into Secret Invasion. The only one of these to get a negative buzz was the Spider-Man One More Day story-arc.

DC seems to really have slowed down (I'm talking about sales and buzz-wise).

This summer DC will be bringing out the Final Crisis, as the entire DC Multiverse will be threatened by the mysterious Libra. An army of the DC Universe's most ruthless super villains also gather to create chaos.

A few years ago DC really seemed to be on top. Superman/Batman, Identity Crisis, One Year Later and Infinite Crisis were all big sellers. Then 52 started up. People seemed interested at first, but then the interest started waning. Even the hardcore DC guys seemed to buy the book almost out of some kind of obligation to DC instead of being truly excited about the story. It takes a lot these days to get customers to spend $3.50 on a gallon of gas to go pick their stack of $3.00 comics. 52 and Countdown just don't motivate people to do that.

DC has to retire the Crisis stories for awhile, and start coming up with some new blockbuster type stories that can generate the kind of buzz that Marvel does. With so much competition out there for people's entertainment dollar, people need to be at least curious about a story-line to pick it up.

The return of Barry Allen (The Silver Age Flash), which is hinted at in the Final Crisis prequel "DC Universe #0" seems to be getting some early press and the comic has sold-out. Let's hope that Final Crisis builds on this buzz, and gets people interested the way that Secret Invasion has...

Marvel Secret Invasion: In Stores Now

DC Final Crisis: In Stores 05/28/08