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So yesterday we got the finale to “Secret Invasion,” Marvel’s latest annual blockbuster event that’ll change everything. While I found this to be more favorable and a better story resolution overall than “Batman R.I.P.”, it’s still helped cement a decision I’ve been needing to make for some time–that it’s time to say goodbye to monthly comics collecting.

Lots of extremely geeky thoughts and SPOILERS after the jump, including detailed discussion of “SI.” Don’t say you weren’t warned.
Let’s take the story itself first. As you might expect, a lot of stuff happens. This CBR review/interview with Bendis gives you a pretty thorough recap of all that came before. The Wasp’s demise is supposed to be heartrending and shocking, but it just didn’t really grab me, because 1) Bendis writes the Wasp as if the last thirty years of character development never happened, and 2) There’re a millions ways she could get out of that particular scenario, so for now it’s just marking time until another writer decides to bring her back.

Making Norman Osborn the new global security czar was a mite unexpected, and I’m sure this’ll be the next stop to making him President. Curious, though–Marvel prides itself on being “our world,” so why not make Obama President? Or is this just a setup to have Obama join the New Avengers and take Osborn down in the inevitable world-shaking showdown where his villainy is revealed? That, I’d read in a heartbeat.

The story is decent. Bendis does what a lot of other writers fail to do and gives lots of breathing room to the protagonists and antagonists alike to reflect on what happened. Clint (Ronin) Barton is happily reunited with his long-dead wife Bobbi “Mockingbird” Barton, for real this time. The Fantastic Four have a tearful family reunion and set about rebuilding the Baxter Building (with an able assist from Reed’s various contingencies). The Young Avengers are faced with how the Skrull Empire has been utterly broken and its denizens left without a home. And Thor slaps down Tony Stark and reminds him that there’s too much bad blood for them to ever be friends again.

(Just as a nitpick, why is it every time Tony needs a backup armor, he goes back to the classic red-and-gold? Surely some of his more recent non-Extremis armors could pack more of a punch than that old Edsel-looking thing.)

So it’s a good story, well told. But of course, as Bendis says in the interview, there’s always a next issue. So we’re left hanging as to the fate of Luke and Jessica’s baby, and we get a splash page with Luthor Osborn convening the Acts of Vengeance conspiracy the Masters of Evil the Legion of Doom…fuck, I give up–the bad guys and steepling his hands in anticipation of explaining his EVIL PLAN. Which, of course, you’ll have to find out by picking up “Secret Invasion: Dark Reign,” on sale at a local comic store near you.

Or, you could just browse the Marvel Previews for the next three months and gauge exactly what’s happening. Here’re my guesses:

• The Dark Avengers are Norman Osborn’s personal enforcement hit squad, with himself as the Iron Patriot, Moonstone as the Ms. Marvel-looking chick, Bullseye as Hawkeye, A slimmed-down Mac Gargan Venom as the Spidey analogue, and Daken as the faux Wolverine. The New Avengers #50 preview pretty much gives away that it’s Daken, because of the two-over/one-under claw configuration, and if you look closely, he’s got the tat on his left arm. He’s having them take on their identities because, well, he’s a dick and that’s what he does. Plus throw in Ares (who’s been a villain lot longer than a hero), Sentry (who’s easily manipulated), and Noh-Varr (who doesn’t know better, making him easy prey). Or, because Bendis knows this is what we’re guessing, the characters will all end up being total left-field choices no one recognizes, a la his mid-story switch of Ronin’s identity from Daredevil to Echo. EDIT: Oh, yeah, or these are actually the good guys, but they’re–wait for it–FROM THE FUTURE, sent back to warn our heroes of how everything goes bad if they don’t take down Osborn. There’s a plotline we don’t see enough of.
• Tony’s attempt to purge the Skrull virus from his body will end up getting rid of the Extremis as well, reverting him to being a normal human who’ll need one of those magnets implanted in his chest to keep him alive, and he’ll redesign his armor to look, by sheer coincidence, exactly like the movie version.
• Emma’s not really going bad, but she wants a place at the table of the bad guys to keep the mutants safe and to keep tabs on what they’re doing. Namor is doing much the same for his people, and he has much more reason to dislike Stark and trust the bad guys at the moment, but he’ll flip on them when he has to.

I’ll check back on this in a few months, but I think the truth is that I just don’t care. When you can see the end of a story before it begins, it takes away a lot of motivation to want to make the journey all the way from beginning to end. I love what guys like Bendis, Brubaker, Fraction, Gage, etc. are doing. They’re all talented, smart, funny, and sharp writers, but even the best are constrained by the realities of modern comic storytelling–that every storyline has to be setup for the next. That every story has to be drawn out to six issues in order to package it for trades. That the constant revision of storylines and characters back to the way they were robs the reader of the satisfaction of seeing their heroes grow and change as we do–or as we should, anyway. The relative immaturity of most comics geeks is another blog post altogether.

And then there’s the price factor. I’m lucky that I make enough money that the recession isn’t really hurting me, and I don’t have a lot of costs that are breaking my budget. But I’m always looking for ways I can reduce clutter in my life and save more money, and when you factor in the astonishing price increases for comics–much higher than the rate of inflation, as Rich Johnston infamously demonstrated–it becomes less and less justifiable to keep buying the monthlies. Yeah, the paper may be slicker and sharper, the colors may be brighter, but the end product–the story and art–just don’t meet the standard necessary to explain away the cost. And yet, Marvel looks like it’s going ahead with its plans to raise prices on its monthly issues to $4.

They say that every comic book is someone’s first. I’ve been reading and collecting them for twenty years. I think it’s time to say that every comic book is someone’s last, and this might be mine as well.  I hate feeling like this. I want to support local comic stores and creators whose work I enjoy. But I also have to have respect for myself as a patron, and to not let myself be played for a sucker in the hope that things’ll get better.

The major reason why I collect comics, beyond the stories themselves, is the community–the friends I’ve developed over the years shopping at places like Fantom Comics. We bond over the stories, share our enjoyment (and disgust), and revel in the fun times that can only come from being a geek. But moving 3,000 miles means I’ll be leaving that community, so this seems like a good time to leave the hobby behind as well.

I know L.A. has some great comic stores, and I’ll probably check them out on a weekend, but I think it’s time to switch to online retail ordering and buying trades, as well as drastically cutting back on the titles I buy. That seems to be the direction the industry is going in, and may indeed be the reason for the prohibitive price increases–to force more people to switch to buying trades. Well, it worked. You win. I hope it was worth it.

Comics are our modern myths, our fables, our moral stories told in bright colors and reflecting the times we live in. I love ‘em, and I always will. But nothing has to be forever, and there comes a point when you have to favor finding ways to make your own myths and tell your own stories over constantly shelling out money for someone else’s. That’s what I aim to do.