After literally four years of build up, Secret Invasion is getting ready to hit comic shops on April 2nd.

For those unaware, Secret Invasion is the latest gigantic Marvel crossover-of-doom (following House of M and Civil War), and apparently ties all loose ends that started in Avengers: Disassembled and the two prior-mentioned mega events. While I think we comic nerds can agree that Civil War didn’t end up as epic as we all wanted, I have an odd hunch this may be the comics mega-event we nerds have been breathlessly anticipating every Wednesday.

Why do I have such faith in this, considering every epic-comic story either ends up faltering or being retconned out of existance within months? The man behind the tale, Brian Michael Bendis. Since hitting the scene with Powers in the early 2000’s, he’s been one of the best scribes in the comics world, wowing me (and comic fans) with his fantastically plotted run on Ultimate Spider-Man and a metric-shitton of Avengers tales. Arguably THE man responsible for Marvel’s current renaissance, he’s been quietly plotting this tale, hiding clues in comics for the past four years, and apparently this eight issue mini series is the end-all-be-all.

The hype train began proper today at Entertainment Weekly’s site, with not just an interview with Bendis, but a 10 page preview of the first issue. Looking pretty good so far.

Is my word not enough to be excited? Maybe this quote from my personal hero, Professional nerd/comedian/rat voicer, Mr. Patton Oswalt will get you fired up.

Brian’s already let me read the first three issues of SECRET INVASION, which is Marvel Comics’ big summer dust-up. After COUNTDOWN and CIVIL WAR, I was going to take a break from these big summer crossover thingies. But this SECRET INVASION … holy shit.

This is not a big, disposable, multi-issue donnybrook. This is a blitzkrieg from page one. Bendis basically worked out a remorseless, nothing-but-business tearing down of the Marvel Universe. And it’s clear the story has been set up … for … years. And the deaths are treated so off-handedly, with no appeal or remorse — and this is three issues in.

So far, each issue has also ended with a shit-your-pants, ’Wait, what in the FUCK?!“ moment … after, of course, about three or four what-the-fuck moments tossed off during the course of each story.