[1] It was plotted by Keith Giffen, and ties up a great many plotlines from various Giffen-created DC series, including Omega Men, Justice League International, and Legion of Super-Heroes.
Pencils were by Todd McFarlane, Bart Sears, and Giffen himself; inks were by Joe Rubinstein, P. Craig Russell, Tom Christopher, Dick Giordano and Al Gordon.
As it worked out, the Dominators provided the overall strategy for the invasion, with input from each member world while the Khunds acted as the shock troops for the first wave of attack that overran Australia.
After purging the galaxy of numerous potential threats to their plan - securing Darkseid's non-interference by assuring him that they would not destroy the planet and thwart his quest for the Anti-Life Equation, assassinating many former members of the disbanded Green Lantern Corps, and attacking the Omega Men - the Alliance launches a massive attack on Earth, overrunning Australia and establishing a base there from which to conquer the rest of the planet.
The Dominators decide to ignore them, unaware of the effect a yellow sun has on Daxamites, until the fleet deploys several thousand soldiers into space as a near invincible attack force.
[4] However, a young Dominator, aspiring to prominence among his people, manages to isolate the "metagene" in humans that enables a person to develop superhuman powers.
On his own initiative, he develops and deploys the Gene Bomb, a device that bathes the Earth in an energy that affects every metahuman exposed to it, causing them to lose control of their powers and fall into a coma.
This was done to give new writer Grant Morrison a clean slate to revamp the book, including the addition of new metahumans having powers awakened by the Gene Bomb.
Morrison used the Invasion fallout for a pair of Animal Man stories, including the acclaimed "The Death of the Red Mask".
Also, the Gulag storyline introduced the character of Vril Dox II and the organization called L.E.G.I.O.N., which received its own title soon after Invasion!
Initially, she could only exhale bursts of fire, but after being affected by the Bomb she got powers similar to Marvel Comics's Human Torch.
Several other Dominators were left on Earth for years and appeared in various comics (usually briefly) including one in Captain Atom (became a farmer), a few in the Outsiders #44, and a cameo in a prison break in Flash.
The Flash's father, Rudolph West (a Manhunter agent) appears to die in an explosion in Cuba, defending the land during Invasion #2.
All tie-in issues between #2 and #3 ended with the gene bomb being detonated in Earth's atmosphere, so that the coloring of the artwork is flipped to a photo negative.