Invading ESPN - Marvel Comics "Secret Invasion" embraces change and confuses viewers

Multi-part, giant cross-title event sure to Change The Face Of The Marvel Universe Forever, about the attempted takeover of Earth by a race of shape-changing aliens who have infiltrated our most trusted institutions.

OK, this one's a bit of an oddity. So, Marvel Comics is in the middle of "Secret Invasion," a multi-part, giant cross-title event sure to Change The Face Of The Marvel Universe Forever, about the attempted takeover of Earth by a race of shape-changing aliens who have infiltrated our most trusted institutions.

Not reading it personally, but following the coverage; by all accounts, it's generally well done and well received. io9 has an article about a TV spot for Secret Invasion, designed to generate traffic to the event's Web site, that ran on ESPN the other night. 

Several of the comments on the article have to do with targeting and demographics — why run an ad for sci-fi-inspired comic book series on a sports network? Somewhere in there, one commenter notes that that it was during a baseball show, and that given the nature of baseball fans and fantasy sports participants, there might actually be some crossover in interest. Kind of the way that, with this post, I'm hoping there's enough crossover in interest between the Adgrunts and the geeks (or is that nerds?) to get into the Hall of Fame. But other commenters note — and I have to agree — that the ad just isn't really very good. For me to welcome our new Alien Overlords, I'd have to believe that they could put together a better 1:23 ad than that. It's neither clever and futuristic enough, nor does it really get the smarminess and cheesiness of a political attack ad (and it's not like we're lacking for examples of those). Even if an advanced extraterrestrial race only had access to lots (and lots) of stock footage, I'd hope they'd have an editor who could tighten it all up. The premise is fine, and it's really just a teaser, but the whole thing is kind of … leaden. I'm sure it's going to get noticed simply because of the novelty of an ad for a comic book! on a sports channel!, but it does seem like a missed opportunity. It'll be interesting to see the response.