Siege Premiere HC [Hardcover]

It took me just a couple of very intensive reading hours to get through Siege. I had read some of Brian Michael Bendis' work before, as Powers, House of M and Civil War but this time he hit the spot. I couldn't stop reading until I reached the end and I would have continued all night long if there was more.
"The Marvel Universe is under the control of its greatest villains. Norman Osborn - the man previously known to the world as the Green Goblin - is the commander of H.A.M.M.E.R., the international peacekeeping force." This part of the story starts with Siege: The Cabal, where the reader is shown Osborn's madness is again overwhelming him. As he goes paranoid and while, after losing Namor and Emma Frost's support, Doom leaves the cabal and actually attacks him, Norman is seen falling prey to Loki's mischief. Afterwards the book collects Siege #1-4, where the attack on Asgard actually happens and comes to a somewhat surprising and close to apocalyptic end.
Siege is a very interesting story from the beginning, having its roots in the latest big Marvel events, probably better noticed by those following the cabal and also Thor, told just at the right pace to make the reader feel excited but not like jumping pages to the end. It's easily understood by anyone that knows what's generally been happening in the Marvel Universe. The war on Asgard allows the author to bring a lot of heroes and villains into play and still be able to peek into their personal troubles, their personality, so that by the end of this event, everything could change or just come back to normal, and all would be fairly within limits of credibility.
SPOILERS
As Osborn's, the full power of H.A.M.M.E.R. and the initiative are attacking Asgard, Steve Rogers gets the true Avengers into play, joined by Fury's Secret Warriors and later by a still recovering Iron Man into play. They manage to beat the attacking forces and disable the Iron Patriot armour but there is still one force to contend with - the "also" mentally unstable Sentry. Finally losing all control, Robert Reynolds fully unleashes the Void after destroying Asgard and becomes a danger to the whole world. When even the might of Thor's lightning and the heroes empowered by the Norn stones seem unable to stop him, Iron Man remotely crashes the H.A.M.M.E.R. helicarrier on him making him revert to human form. Reynolds begs the heroes to kill him and when they notice he is again losing control over the Void, Thor does just that and burns his body on the sun. In this single event, Thor has shown the extent of his determination, Loki demonstrated that even he cares for Asgard's existence over his own plans, Iron Man and Steve Rogers made heroic comebacks and in the end, friendships seem renewed.
NO MORE SPOILERS
The Siege of Asgard, together with the X-men's Utopia stories, reset the Marvel Universe, preparing it for a Heroic Age, which seems to want to prove that after all the trouble, through the Civil War and the Secret Invasion, the superheroes can still find their old places in the world, as recognized defenders but also as friends with hopes of happiness. But any Marvel reader knows this will not be the end of the story, that problems will keep coming and the cycle will begin again, so all I can ask of the writers is that they do so in style, with the quality that Brian Michael Bendis showed in Siege. I must also make due reference to the amazing illustrations, penciled by Olivier Coipel or, in The Cabal, by Michael Lark. If not a masterpiece, in level with what can be done with separate, more independent graphic novels as Maus, Persepolis, Watchmen or even Sandman are considered (I still have to read some of those), I believe Siege is as good a novel as I've ever seen given its context.
I recommend Siege for all of Marvel's usual readers as I believe only those with enough knowledge of the current state of affairs in the Marvel Universe and of most of the characters can enjoy all that this graphic novel has to offer.

Siege is nothing ground breaking, its a relatively simple story which i dont want to spoil or cover here because thats why you should read it. Its solid writing, with great art and unlike most events is only 4 issues long. Its also a great jumping on point if you cant be bothered to go and find all the dark reign stuff that came before because it ties things up nicely to move into the heroic age. So from that perspective i can defintiely recommend it.
I wanted to comment more on the core story and all the ties ins. with any event i want to read the important issues, those that count. Unfortunately most events have a lot of pointless tie ins, and i have now read all related hardcovers and can confirm that aside from the core hardcover, you want to pick up the Thor hardcover and the dark avengers only. Siege embedded was filler and didnt add anything for me, new avengers was just tagged on because they had to but also brings nothing new to the story, and battlefield has one or 2 interesting stories but by and large if you want the core experience i can only recommend the 3 above.

All in all a good story but only 2 other hardcovers are needed for the full reading experience.

I have waited a long time to buy Siege, because the reviews here on Amazon weren't quite that positive. Finally, it was
Tyler S's review that convinced me to buy it and surprisingly, I wasn't disappointed at all.

Why the surprise? Well, the last event book I have read was Bendis' Doomsday and I must say I was deeply disappointed. I
absolutely adored his work on Ultimate Spider-Man and New Avengers, and couldn't for the life of me understand how he
could create such an improbable, overly convoluted story, in which Ultimate Reed Richards acts so much out of character
it's not even funny (much like the book itself). The somewhat-event story that I had read before Doomsday, Ultimate
Origins, wasn't bad, but at the same time wasn't that great either. Actually, come to think of it, the only event book in
the last years that struck me as being really interesting was Millar's Civil War (the idea itself brought a new drive to
the stagnating Marvel Universe). Okay, back to Siege, and what's good about it.

Well, pretty much everything.

Bendis handles the characters really well and takes care to make each of them distinctive dialogue-wise. The pacing is
excellent (the story drives forward like a bull on steroids), the high quality one-liners are back and the overall
atmosphere of the book is amazing, with a deep sense of a really epic event.
Coipel's art is no less spectacular, and gives Bendis' script a powerful visual voice (wow, that was a weird collocation).
The (SPOILER WARNING) destruction of Asgard and the battle between Sentry and Ares are the obvious highlights of Coipel's
work, but I really appreciated his composition in "subtler" scenes like the reflection of Cap's oncoming shield on Iron
Patriot's head or a shot of Donald Blake about to change to Thor with combat jets flying overhead.

Concerning the Norman Osborn/Green Goblin "transformation" and the final fight with Sentry, which seem to be the most
criticised elements of the book, I was not nearly as disappointed as other readers. I do not find Osborn's change to be
"sudden" or "improbable", simply because Bendis has been setting up the Goblin persona to take over his behavior more and
more towards the Siege event, and it is only logical that his inner rage would completely take over once Osborn lost
everything.
The same goes for the final Sentry smackdown which some considered to be rather anticlimatic and again, improbable: the
guy gets pounded on by Thor, then the entire Avengers empowered by the stones of Norn, then a helicarrier crashes on top
of his head and then it's back to Thor's hammer justice once again, at the end of which his remains are cast into the Sun.
Well, that would pretty much do for anyone, in my opinion...

Okay, enough with the compliments! Why does it get only four stars, you ask? For all its qualities, the Siege is still
only a slugfest. Granted, perfectly executed and put together, but a slugfest nonetheless. Five stars should I think be
reserved for works of immense and long-lasting importance, such as the Watchmen or Sandman, or exceptional longer runs on
regular series.

Other than that, if you are not sure whether or not to buy it - I'd definitely say go for it!