All-New Invaders #7 (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

Wait, what?

I was following this issue pretty well.  Jim's tells the story of Radiance's grandmother convincing the Invaders not to use their powers to sink the Japanese fleet with a tsunami since it would kill the innocent people living in the outlying islands.  Moreover, Radiance is understandably upset when she discovers that the United States' Plan B was dropping the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, meaning that her grandmother inadvertently brought about those events.  Her resultant outburst destroys the S.H.I.E.L.D. base.  But, Jim takes the heat (heh) for her, since she also saved the lives of the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents in the ensuing blast.  I'm not sure that Robinson made her an interesting enough character that I'm excited that Hammond kept her in the game by saving her from S.H.I.E.L.D. putting her in a hole somewhere, but it's a good enough story, particularly for an event tie-in issue.

My main problem with this issue before the last page was that Robinson's prose seems to be getting worse.  The first two pages are painfully awkward exposition.  Hammond skips to the end of his story, but the debriefer interrupts him to relay the story so far to the reader and then insists that Jim returns where we ended last issue.  It's terribly obvious as it's happening, and it just starts off the issue on a bad note.  But, the last page makes this complaint a minor distraction.  Suddenly, Jim reveals to his handler that he knows that he's an artificial man.  He expresses distaste that S.H.I.E.L.D. wouldn't give him a "real human."  But, instead of it just being an issue of segregation, the handler suddenly reveals that he's also some sort of alien, declaring, "My mission on Earth was about done anyway."  What the what?  Did this guy infiltrate S.H.I.E.L.D. just to get access to Hammond?  If so, why?  If not, what was his mission?  Did Jim just discover him by chance?  

I want to like this series, given that it's a combination of James Robinson (whose "Earth 2" work I loved, exposition and all) and some of the my favorite characters.  But, between the prose and these sorts of bizarre endings, I keep feeling like I don't know what's happening from issue to issue or where we're going.  Robinson managed to pull it together to deliver a solid first arc, but the "All-New Invaders" now seems to have become "Jim Hammond, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.," and I'm not sure how interested in that story I am.  I guess we'll see where we go from here, since I'm excited to learn Toro's fate.  But, Robinson really has to sell me on this series with that arc.

** (two of five stars)