Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Secret Invasion The Infiltration by David W. Mack David Mack (disambiguation) #2 David Alan Mack, primarily known for his tie-in novels. (These two both normally go by just "David Mack", but have a gentleman's agreement to use the differentiating middle name when approaching each other's "territory"-- for example, David Alan Mack used his middle name in the byline for his Wolverine novel, Road of Bones .) #4 David B. Mack, Timber Milling in Australia: The Shepherdsons, 1849-1984 . #5 David Mack, Buzzfeed reporter. Improve this author. Combine/separate works. Author division. "David Mack" is composed of at least 4 distinct authors, divided by their works. You can edit the division. Includes. David Mack is composed of 2 names. You can examine and separate out names. Brian Michael Bendis. Brian Michael Bendis (born August 18, 1967) [1] is an American comic book writer and former artist. He has won critical acclaim, including five Eisner Awards for both his creator-owned work and his work on various Marvel Comics books. [2] Starting out with crime and noir comics, Bendis eventually moved to mainstream superhero work. With Bill Jemas and Mark Millar, Bendis was the primary architect of the Ultimate Marvel Universe, launching Ultimate Spider-Man in 2000, on which he continues as writer to the present day. He relaunched the Avengers franchise with New Avengers in 2004, and has also written the Marvel "event" storylines "Secret War" (2004), "House of M" (2005), "Secret Invasion" (2008), "Siege" (2010) and "Age of Ultron" (2013). Though Bendis has cited comic book writers such as Frank Miller and Alan Moore, his own writing influences are less rooted in comics, drawing on the work of David Mamet, Richard Price, and Aaron Sorkin, whose dialogue Bendis feels are "the best in any medium." [3] In addition to writing comics, he has worked in television, video games and film, and began teaching writing at University of Oregon in Fall 2013. He has also occasionally taught at Portland State University. In 2014, Bendis wrote Words for Pictures, a book about comics published by Random House. [4] [5] Contents. Early life. Brian Michael Bendis was born on August 18, 1967 in Cleveland, Ohio to a Jewish-American family. Despite rebelling against a religious upbringing, he attended a private, modern Orthodox religious school for boys. He decided he wanted to be a comic book industry professional when he was 13, working on his own comics, including a Punisher versus Captain America story that he revised several times. A fan of Marvel Comics in particular, he emulated idols such as George Pérez, John Romita, Sr., John Romita, Jr., Jack Kirby and Klaus Janson. [6] [7] [8] He later discovered crime comics by Jim Steranko and José Munoz, which he traced back via Jim Thompson's work to the source novels of both Thompson and Dashiell Hammett, which helped cement his love for crime stories. [3] These in turn led him to discover the documentary Visions of Light , which taught him the explicit visual rules of film noir, an important influence on him creatively. [3] [8] While in high school, he submitted for a "Creative Writing assignment" a novelization of Chris Claremont's X-Men and the Starjammers story, which gained him an A+ grade for imagination and inventiveness. [8] Between the ages of 20 and 25, he sent in a large number of submissions to comics companies, although he ultimately stopped his attempts to break into the industry this way, considering it too much of a "lottery." [7] Comics career. Caliber Comics. Best known as a writer, Bendis started out as an artist, doing work for local magazines and newspapers, including caricature work. He worked at The Plain Dealer as an illustrator. Although he did not enjoy caricature work, it paid well and funded his interest in writing crime fiction for graphic novels. [3] He eventually moved into both writing and illustrating his work, before he began producing work for Caliber Comics, including Spunky Todd . [8] Through Caliber, he met many of his longtime friends and collaborators within the comics industry, including Mike Oeming, Dave Mack and Marc Andreyko, [9] and began the first in a series of independent noir fiction crime comics when he published two issues of Fire in 1993 and five issues of A.K.A. Goldfish in 1994 with Caliber. In 1995 he illustrated Flaxen , from a script by James Hudnall, with David Mack providing inks to the story featuring former Playboy Playmate Susie Owens as mascot of the Golden Apple Comics chain [of comic shops] in Los Angeles. [10] Bendis' best-known early work, Jinx , starring the titular bounty hunter in a crime noir version of the Sergio Leone film The Good, the Bad and the Ugly , began publication in 1996, and ran seven issues from Caliber. [10] Most of these early works share a common universe, with Goldfish , Fire , Jinx , Torso and (stories from) Total Sell Out sharing characters and settings as well as tone. He characterizes much of this period of his professional life in terms of working as "a graphic artist for almost twelve years" [3] undergoing a period within that of "nine years" living as a stereotypical 'starving artist'. [7] Image Comics and Oni Comics. In 1996/1997, Bendis moved from Caliber to Image Comics, [7] where Jinx and his other previous crime comics were published by Image's Shadowline arm in trade paperback. At Image, he also produced five more issues of Jinx . [10] Impressed with A.K.A. Goldfish , Image founder Todd McFarlane sought out Bendis, which led to his writing Sam and Twitch . Although set in the Spawn universe, Bendis approached Sam and Twitch primarily as a crime comic. [7] [9] He wrote Sam and Twitch for twenty issues, as well as most of the first ten issues of Hellspawn , another Spawn spin-off title. This non-creator-owned work allowed him to, in the words of Rich Kriener in The Comics Journal , "[add] the responsibility of caretaker to his resume, in that he would answer to a vested owner about developing a property as a tangible asset with the future in mind," rather than only working on his own characters under his own terms. [10] In 1998, Bendis co-wrote and illustrated the Eliot Ness-starring Torso with Marc Andreyko, again for Image, and in 2000 he produced three issues of the autobiographical Fortune and Glory for Oni Comics. [10] That same year saw the debut of the superhero police/noir detective series Powers , co-created with and drawn by Michael Avon Oeming and published by Image. Powers won major comics industry awards, including Harvey, Eisner, and Eagle Awards. Marvel Comics. Around the time Bendis began Sam and Twitch , his friend David Mack began working for Joe Quesada's Marvel Knights imprint, of which Bendis himself was a fan. Based on Bendis' work on Jinx , Quesada invited him to pitch ideas for Marvel Knights, which included a planned, but ultimately unproduced Nick Fury story. [7] Marvel Comics President Bill Jemas, on the recommendation of Quesada, hired Bendis to write Ultimate Spider-Man , which debuted in 2000, [7] and was specifically targeted to the new generation of comic readers. [11] Bendis adapted the 11-page origin story of Spider-Man from 1962's Amazing Fantasy #15 into a seven issues story arc, with Peter Parker becoming the titular hero after the fifth issue, making the book a bestseller, often surpassing in sales those of the mainstream Marvel universe title The Amazing Spider-Man . [12] The Bendis/Bagley partnership of 111 consecutive issues made their partnership one of the longest in American comic book history, and the longest run by a Marvel creative team, beating out Stan Lee and Jack Kirby on Fantastic Four . [13] Bendis subsequently wrote other books in the Ultimate line, including Ultimate Marvel Team-Up , [14] which Bendis himself pitched to Marvel as a follow-up to his success on Ultimate Spider-Man , [8] as well as Ultimate Fantastic Four , Ultimate X-Men , Ultimate Origins , Ultimate Six , the first three issues of Ultimate Power , and the Ultimate Comics: Doomsday metaseries. In 2011, Bendis and artist Sara Pichelli created the Miles Morales character as the new version of the Ultimate Spider-Man. [15] [16] As of June 2013, Bendis continues to write every issue of Ultimate Spider-Man in its current form, Ultimate Comics: Spider-Man . Quesada offered Bendis the writing duties on Daredevil , [7] [17] which he took over in 2001, writing most of the subsequent 55 issues until 2006, collaborating mostly with artist Alex Maleev. As a major Daredevil author, Bendis' name is one of the names used for boxers mentioned by a corrupt boxing manager in the 2003 Daredevil movie. Also in 2001, Bendis helped launch Marvel's non-Comics Code-approved, adult MAX imprint with Alias , featuring former superhero Jessica Jones operating as a private investigator. [18] The series ran for 28 issues before many of the characters moved to Bendis' mainstream Marvel Universe series The Pulse . In 2004 Powers moved from Image to Marvel's creator-owned imprint Icon, where it was relaunched as Powers Vol. 2 alongside another ex-Image series, David Mack's Kabuki . Also in 2004, Bendis oversaw the closing issues of The Avengers as part of the crossover storyline "Avengers Disassembled". [19] This led directly to the Bendis-helmed relaunch of one version of the eponymous team in the pages of The New Avengers . [20] Bendis' work on this storyline included the death of Avenger Hawkeye, which proved controversial. [8] In 2005, with artist Olivier Coipel, Bendis wrote the New Avengers / X-Men crossover, "House of M", [21] which would retroactively be considered the second act of a three-act super-event beginning with "Avengers Disassembled" and culminating in the Bendis-written 2008 storyline "Secret Invasion". [22] Bendis also wrote Secret War , which was serialized between 2004 and 2005. The series, which was not connected to the similarly-titled 1984 miniseries Secret Wars , served as a prelude to Secret Invasion . After Marvel's 2006 "Civil War" storyline, Bendis helmed another Avengers revival, launching Mighty Avengers with Frank Cho in 2007. [23] Post-"Secret Invasion", Bendis left Mighty Avengers with issue #20 and wrote Secret Invasion: Dark Reign , a one-shot that preceded another ongoing Avengers series, Dark Avengers . [24] [25] [26] In 2009, Bendis and former Daredevil collaborator Maleev launched the long-delayed Spider-Woman , following up on her role in the Secret Invasion storyline. Spider-Woman was the first comic book to be offered simultaneously on the Internet as a "motion comic" and in comic stores in print form. [27] Bendis re-teamed with House of M' s Coipel for the 2009 crossover series Siege , which brought the "Dark Reign" storyline to a close, and with it Dark Avengers . Springboarding out of Siege , Bendis relaunched both Avengers and New Avengers as part of the "Heroic Age". Also in 2010, Bendis launched Scarlet through Icon Comics, his first new creator-owned comic book in over a decade, re-teaming once again with Maleev. In February 2011, Icon released the all-ages graphic novel Takio by Bendis and his Powers collaborator Mike Oeming [28] [29] and in mid-2011 a maxiseries called Brilliant with artist Bagley. [30] [31] Bendis' other 2011 projects included a new Moon Knight series with Maleev, which concluded with issue 12. [32] In 2012, in conjunction with Marvel Studios' feature film The Avengers , Bendis began writing a new Avengers comic, Avengers Assemble . Bendis wrote the first eight issues of Avengers Assemble , a series that premiered in March 2012 that featured a new incarnation of the Zodiac, as well as the return of the Guardians of the Galaxy, which teamed with the Avengers against Thanos. Bendis concluded his almost decade long stint on Avengers and New Avengers in 2012 with the "End Times" arc. His final issue of Avengers , released September 2012, was a "jam issue", featuring splash pages by Marvel artists including Walt Simonson, Jim Cheung, and Leinil Yu. Following Marvel's "Marvel NOW!" relaunch of its titles, Bendis took on writing duties on All New X-Men , which saw the return of the original 1960's X-Men to the present, Uncanny X-Men , [33] whose focus shifts to Cyclops' team of X-Men going rogue after the events of "Avengers Vs. X-Men", and Guardians of the Galaxy , picking up where his Avengers Assemble run left off. Bendis wrote the "Age of Ultron" crossover storyline, which included an eponymous 10-issue miniseries, that was published between March and June 2013. [34] Issue 10 saw the introduction of the Neil Gaiman character Angela into the Marvel Universe. [35] Work in other media. In addition to his primary work for comics, Bendis has produced written work in several other media, such as video games, TV and film. Bendis was the co-executive producer and series-pilot writer for Mainframe Entertainment's 2003 CGI animated Spider-Man show, Spider-Man: The New Animated Series that aired on MTV and YTV, which features a college-aged Peter Parker, and was written to tie-into the then- unreleased 2002 film Spider-Man . The pilot episode Bendis wrote became the third episode aired. His dismay at being credited for something written by someone else, and the multitude of corporate and legal departments involved in the animation process soured him on the show. [8] [36] Bendis is one of the writers on the Ultimate Spider-Man animated series, which debuted in 2012. [37] Bendis' video game work includes Activision's Ultimate Spider-Man video game, which Bendis wrote. [2] He also wrote an Avengers game, which was never released. He is also writer of Marvel's MMO, Marvel Heroes . His film work includes the screenplay adaptation of A.K.A. Goldfish for Miramax, [38] and the screenplay adaptation of Jinx for Universal Pictures. [2] In 2014, he wrote the plot of the Disney Infinity: Marvel Super Heroes video game. [39] Bendis also teaches a course on writing graphic novels at Portland State University. Among the works he employs as teaching guides are the works of Scott McCloud and Will Eisner. [6] In 2013, he was named on IGN's list of "The Best Tweeters in Comics", in part for his frequent Twitter posts highlighting the work of other creators. [40] Writing style. When creating characters, Bendis says that he always begins with someone he knows and builds upon that inspiration, allowing the character to eventually evolve naturally. His depiction of Aunt May in Ultimate Spider-Man , for example, strongly resembles his mother. [41] Personal life. Bendis met his wife Alisa in 1995 through the Cleveland chapter of the Hillel Foundation, where Alisa worked and Bendis was a staff illustrator. The two were married within a year. Alisa Bendis runs the business end of JINXWORLD, the company through which Bendis produces his creator-owned comics work. The company also acts as the middleman through which he produces his licensed comics work. [8] They have three daughters. His oldest, Olivia, [42] is his biological daughter, while he and his wife adopted their two younger daughters, one of whom is African- American, and the other of whom is Ethiopian. [42] [43] [44] Bendis mentioned in a July 2013 post on his Tumblr account that they had a newborn son, London. [45] Secret Invasion: The Infiltration by David W. Mack. The surge had been developed under the working title "The New Way Forward" and it was announced in January 2007 by Bush during a television speech. Bush ordered the deployment of more than 20,000 soldiers into Iraq, five additional brigades, and sent the majority of them into Baghdad. He also extended the tour of most of the Army troops in country and some of the Marines already in the Anbar Province area. The President described the overall objective as establishing a ". unified, democratic federal Iraq that can govern itself, defend itself, and sustain itself, and is an ally in the War on Terror." The major element of the strategy was a change in focus for the US military "to help Iraqis clear and secure neighborhoods, to help them protect the local population, and to help ensure that the Iraqi forces left behind are capable of providing the security". The President stated that the surge would then provide the time and conditions conducive to reconciliation among political and ethnic factions. Units deployed The five U.S. Army brigades committed to Iraq as part of the surge were. 2nd Brigade, 82nd Airborne Division (Infantry): 3,447 troops. Deployed to Baghdad, January 2007 4th Brigade, 1st Infantry Division (Infantry): 3,447 troops. Deployed to Baghdad, February 2007 3rd Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division (Heavy): 3,784 troops. Deployed to southern Baghdad Belts, March 2007 4th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division (Stryker): 3,921 troops. Deployed to Diyala province, April 2007 2nd Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division (Heavy): 3,784 troops. Deployed to the southeast of Baghdad, May 2007 This brought the number of U.S. brigades in Iraq from 15 to 20. Additionally, 4,000 Marines in Al Anbar had their 7-month tour extended. These included Marines from the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit, 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, the 2nd Battalion 4th Marines, the 1st Battalion 6th Marines and the 3rd Battalion, 4th Marines. Most of the 150,000 Army personnel had their 12-month tours extended as well. By July, 2007, the percentage of the mobilized Army deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan was almost 30%; the percentage of the mobilized Marine Corps deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan was 13.5%.[55] Operations The plan began with a major operation to secure Baghdad, codenamed Operation Fardh al-Qanoon (Operation Imposing Law), which was launched in February 2007. However, only in mid-June 2007, with the full deployment of the 28,000 additional U.S. troops, could major counter-insurgency efforts get fully under way. Operation Phantom Thunder was launched throughout Iraq on June 16, with a number of subordinate operations targeting insurgents in Diyala province, Anbar province and the southern Baghdad Belts. The additional surge troops also participated in Operation Phantom Strike and Operation Phantom Phoenix, named after the III "Phantom" Corps which was the major U.S. unit in Iraq throughout 2007. Counterinsurgency strategy Counterinsurgency strategy in Iraq changed significantly under the command of General Petraeus since the 2007 troop surge began. The newer approach attempted to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people through building relationships, preventing civilian casualties and compromising with and even hiring some former enemies. The new strategy was population-centric in that it focused in protecting the population rather than killing insurgents. In implementing this strategy, Petraeus used experienced gained while commanding the 101st Airborne Division in Mosul in 2003. He also explained these ideas extensively in Field Manual 3-24: Counterinsurgency, which he assisted in the writing of while serving as the Commanding General of Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and the U.S. Army Combined Arms Center (CAC) located there. Instead of seeing every Iraqi as a potential enemy, the current COIN strategy focuses on building relationships and getting cooperation from the Iraqis against Al Qaeda and minimizing the number of enemies for U.S. forces. The belief is that maintaining a long term presence of troops in a community improves security and allows for relationships and trust to develop between the locals and the U.S. military. Civilian casualties are minimized by carefully measured use of force. This means less bombing and overwhelming firepower, and more soldiers using restraint and even sometimes taking more risk in the process. Another method of gaining cooperation is by paying locals, including former insurgents, to work as local security forces. Former Sunni insurgents have been hired by the U.S. military to stop cooperating with Al Qaeda and to start fighting against them. To implement this strategy, troops were concentrated in the Baghdad area (at the time, Baghdad accounted for 50% of all the violence in Iraq). [64] Whereas in the past, Coalition forces isolated themselves from Iraqis by living in large forward operating bases far from population centers, [65] troops during the surge lived among the Iraqis, operating from joint security stations (JSSs) located within Baghdad itself and shared with Iraqi security forces. Coalition units were permanently assigned to a given area so that they could build long-term relationships with the local Iraqi population and security forces. However, opponents to occupation such as US Army Col. David H. Hackworth (Ret.), asked whether he thought that British soldiers are better at nation-building than the Americans, said "They were very good at lining up local folks to do the job like operating the sewers and turning on the electricity. Far better than us -- we are heavy-handed, and in Iraq we don't understand the people and the culture. Thus we did not immediately employ locals in police and military activities to get them to build and stabilize their nation." CNN war correspondent Michael Ware, who has reported from Iraq since before the U.S. invasion in 2003 had a similar dim view of occupation saying, "there will be very much mixed reaction in Iraq” to a long-term troop presence, but he added, “what’s the point and will it be worth it?” Mr. Ware contended that occupation could, "ferment further resentment [towards the U.S]." Results Security situation. Hostile and Non-Hostile Deaths. Despite a massive security crackdown in Baghdad associated with the surge in coalition troop strength, the monthly death toll in Iraq rose 15% in March 2007. 1,869 Iraqi civilians were killed and 2,719 were wounded in March, compared to 1,646 killed and 2,701 wounded in February. In March, 165 Iraqi policemen were killed against 131 the previous month, while 44 Iraqi soldiers died compared to 29 in February. US military deaths in March were nearly double those of the Iraqi army, despite Iraqi forces leading the security crackdown in Baghdad. The death toll among insurgent militants fell to 481 in March, compared to 586 killed in February; however, the number of arrests jumped to 5,664 in March against 1,921 in February. Three months after the start of the surge, troops controlled less than a third of the capital, far short of the initial goal, according to an internal military assessment completed in May 2007. Violence was especially chronic in mixed Shiite-Sunni neighborhoods in western Baghdad. Improvements had not yet been widespread or lasting across Baghdad. Significant attack trends. On September 10, 2007, David Petraeus delivered his part of the Report to Congress on the Situation in Iraq. He concluded that "the military objectives of the surge are, in large measure, being met." He cited what he called recent consistent declines in security incidents, which he attributed to recent blows dealt against Al-Qaeda in Iraq during the surge. He added that "we have also disrupted Shia militia extremists, capturing the head and numerous other leaders of the Iranian-supported Special Groups, along with a senior Lebanese Hezbollah operative supporting Iran's activities in Iraq." He argued that Coalition and Iraqi operations had drastically reduced ethno-sectarian violence in the country, though he stated that the gains were not entirely even. He recommended a gradual drawdown of U.S. forces in Iraq with a goal of reaching pre-surge troop levels by July 2008 and stated that further withdraws would be "premature." Sectarian violence. While Petraeus credited the surge for the decrease in violence, the decrease also closely corresponded with a cease-fire order given by Iraqi political leader Muqtada al-Sadr on August 29, 2007. Al-Sadr's order, to stand down for six months, was distributed to his loyalists following the deaths of more than 50 Shia Muslim pilgrims during fighting in Karbala the day earlier. Michael E. O'Hanlon and Jason H. Campbell of the Brookings Institution stated on December 22, 2007 that Iraq’s security environment had reached its best levels since early 2004 and credited Petraeus' strategy for the improvement. CNN stated that month that the monthly death rate for US troops in Iraq had hit its second lowest point during the entire course of the war. Military representatives attributed the successful reduction of violence and casualties directly to the troop surge. At the same time, the Iraqi Ministry of Interior reported similar reductions for civilian deaths. Iraqi Security Force deaths. However, on September 6, 2007, a report by an independent military commission headed by General James Jones found that the decrease in violence may have been due to areas being overrun by either Shias or Sunnis. In addition, in August 2007, the International Organization for Migration and the Iraqi Red Crescent Organization indicated that more Iraqis had fled since the troop increase. On February 16, 2008, Iraqi Defense Minister Abdel Qader Jassim Mohammed told reporters that the surge was "working very well" and that Iraq has a "pressing" need for troops to stay to secure Iraqi borders.[76] He stated that "Results for 2007 prove that– Baghdad is good now".