The Concept: The Skrulls have invaded! We recap! Let’s go!
Secret Invasion #5 : As you may recall, Crisis on Infinite Earths
gave us the over-used catch-phrase “red sky crossover”. That’s because
as the Crisis began in earnest, the skies went red. Occasionally,
tie-in books had no other tie-in apart from a “red Crisis sky”. I bring
this up because this issue gives us a new phrase that shall now rival
“red sky crossover” in subsequent use. We’ll get there in a minute.
Things start off with Skrull-Vell (who’s on our side! Whoo-hoo! Captain
Mar-Vell’s an American! I mean human! I mean Kree! I mean Skrull who
wants to be Kree! Damn it.) and Norman Osborn still.talking.
Finally, their heart to heart ends and Marv splits. Norman goes all
Alpha Male to assemble his troops, just as The Hood did last issue.
While it’s true that those two scenes are similar, it won’t matter; The
Hood won’t show up at all this issue, and that’s the last we see of
blonde-loving Norman.
Elsewhere . . . (seriously, it says, “Elsewhere . . .”) Stature wakes
up to find that Vision’s got his head together (ha!) and that she and
the Young Avengers are hanging out in Nick Fury and the New Howling
Commandos’ base. They watch as the Skrulls, impersonating everybody
from Osama to Obama, from Oprah to the Pope-ah,.promise the world that
their problems are over . . . if they submit to the Damn Dirty Skrulls.
Meanwhile, in Low Earth Orbit, Agent Brand reveals that she a) speaks
Skrull and b) knows how to shoot a blaster. Skrull blasters,
incidentally, go “Psham”. Twenty-two “Pshams” later, and Brand has
saved Reed Richards. Like Black Widow before her, Agent Brand is
f*@$ing scary. Reed starts out looking a bit like the Yankee Stadium
infield tarp, but Brand helps him get it together. Reed snaps out of
it, and before you can say “Deus Ex Machina!”, has a patented Reed
Richards IdentoSkrull Lamp slapped together.
Over in the Bermuda Triangle, Maria Hill smarts off one too many times
to Skrull Jarvis. The Skrulls light her up, but wait! It’s a LMD (a
callback to one of the Avengers tie-in issues, wherein Nick Fury
advised Hill to have the LMDs on deck)! The real Maria gets in some
sniper action, some self-destruct sequence, and some jet-pack action
before flying away as the Helicarrier goes WHROOOOOOOOOOM!
Speaking of explosive sound effects, Reed and Brand are under fire in
the Skrull ship when Captain Marvel arrives! We know that Captain
Marvel arrives because when he arrives, Reed yells, “It’s Captain
Marvel!” complete with his logo. Apparently, it’s a hidden power of
Reed’s. The same thing happens when he orders a Coke; the word appears
in the air with a swirl under it.
On Earth, in the Savage Land, suspicions run rampant. Just when the
various factions are about to come to blows, Reed arrives with the
Light of Truth. In seconds, EVERY SINGLE SURVIVOR FROM THE SAVAGE LAND
SHIP IS REVEALED TO BE A SKRULL. Earth’s heroes are naturally saddened
by this. So saddened that they kill the hell out of them. Black Widow
rains the Buddas. Luke Cage punches the closest woman. Ares utters a
nonsensically censored curse (Caleb pointed this out, but he’s right,
what the f*@$ is a “@#$ing hole”? Four swear signs would make sense; it
could even stand for “Shut your fishing hole!”, which I understand is a
curse in Greece). Even Zabu gets in on the action, fulfilling my
awesome scene quotient for the issue by eating Skrull Jewel (the Skrull
version of Jessica Jones in her super-identity, not the Skrull version
of the pseudo-folkie/country singer, though I think that we can all
agree that Zabu eating pseudo-folkie/country singer Jewel would
likewise be awesome).
Things wind down as our heroes examine the emotional wreckage of the
scene. Notes are compared. Ka-Zar wants to go the New York and kill
more Skrulls. Spider-Man nearly swears when he finds out Spider-Woman
was a Skrull. And as for Clint, well . . . Clint’s upset that he had to
smoke Skrullingbird. In fact, he advocates genocide, albeit with the
proper number of symbols in his swears.
As for my earlier promise regarding “red sky crossover”, the new phrase
is “Savage Land Skrull Ship”. We can now safely employ that phrase for
an event storytelling element that initially seems important, but upon
reflection turns out to be a red herring or completely irrelevant.
Think about it: the Savage Land Skrull Ship contained not one actual
hero. Why was it there other than a plot device to get the main heroes
out of New York? Here’s an example, “Remember that part in Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
when Indy lectures Mutt on the importance of scorpion size relative to
venom, but they never visit that point again, making you wonder why
they spent time on it? Total Savage Land Skrull Ship, man.”
Secret Invasion: X-Men #1 : The Skrulls attack San Francisco, but
they didn’t count on the X-Men! Uh, that’s pretty much it. When the
Skrulls realize that they’re fighting the X-Men, they actually show
fear. That’s because the X-Men a) handed their green rumps back to them
during the Warskrull story circa 1990/91 and b) previously foiled their
earlier “use Skrull versions of ‘70s heroes” plot in the late ‘90s.
Aside from Skrulls being beaten by X-Men in fog, another thread comes
from Nightcrawler’s temptation by a Skrull Palantir, er, holy object.
Nightcrawler overcomes this because he’s a man of God. Actually, if you
remember the Chuck Austen run, he’s a creature of Satan or something.
I’d go back and re-read that story to be sure, but it nearly burned my
eyes out the first time, and I enjoy seeing my wife and kids.
Secret Invasion: Thor #1 : The main Skrull point of contention is
this swell issue has to do with Beta Ray Bill. BRB lands, defeated, in
Asgard, and bearing news of the conflict. Naturally, he arouses
suspicion (due in part to s#!+-stirring Loki), but has his identity
confirmed by a clever Thor. Only problem is that BRB is zipping around
with Mjolnir when the Skrulls actually show up to attack Asgard (which,
if you recall, is parked over the plains).
Secret Invasion: Inhumans #1: One thing is certain: The Inhumans
have crappy security. First off, their king gets replaced and they
don’t know it. After a heated confrontation with Iron Man, Medusa
brings the truth back to her people. Of course, it’s not long before
the Skrulls show up in force, both from within (drinking with Gorgon,
hiding in the Terrigen Waters, skulking about in Medusa’s room) and
without (biiiiig ship descending). The issue ends with one big
confirmation: Black Bolt is still alive in the hands of the Skrulls.
Actually, this revelation raises some ramification questions. If Black
Bolt is alive, are all of the other replaced characters alive? Is so,
will they all be rescued? If they’re all rescued, has the Skrull scheme
failed? Y’think? Sure, they can still conquer Earth, but that’s a lot
of effort wasted.
But wait, there’s more!
Oooohhhhh one, two princes kneel before you, that’s what I said now…
That's right, we see Prince Xavin and Prince Dorrek, both having been
promised as saviors and peace-bringers of the Skrulls team up in SI: Runaways/Young Avengers #2.
We get a little more of the background behind both of these
royals-in-training, re-iterating that Xavin was taught that Dorrek (aka
Teddy Altman, Hulkling) is the savior of the Skrulls. Xavin and the
wonder twins, Billy and Tommy, take down three Super Skrulls, with
Xavin once again showing that he can now masterfully use two Fantastic
Four powers simultaneously (in this case, in the form of scientifically
baffling stretchy rock). Meanwhile, the Runaways get their asses handed
to them until Old Lace (who joins Zabu in the animals-that-eat-Skrulls
club. I think it’s high time we see an Old Lace/Zabu Eat the Marvel
Universe special; make it happen, Marvel!), Chase, and Molly throw down
on some Super Skrulls, while Molly spouts the best line in comic book
history (you go, Princess Powerful). A Jedi-hooded Skrullektra
(presumably a new one, though Elektras HAVE been known to come back
from the dead) is sent by Xavin’s old trainer to take down Dorrek and
friends, gets held off, but finds out that Xavin’s there. Finally,
General Muckety-Muck shows up with five variety-pack Super Skrulls,
telling the Runaways that he’s going to use them to kill the two
princes, princes who adore you. Hopefully, they won’t go ahead now.
Oh, oh, oh, it’s magic! Over in Captain Britain and MI13 #4
the only magic that hasn’t been stolen by the Skrulls, that of
Excalibur (the sword, not the old British Mutant Team. Though, either
of the Magiks would have come in handy, as they tap into non-Avalon
connected power…hmmm) is wielded by the freshly dead-and-reborn Captain
Britain. He thoroughly kicks the tar out of Super Magic Skrull, cutting
his magical chains (and him) in half. As the magic returns to the
beings from which it was stolen, the evil magic beings Wisdom freed
(they were part of a package deal) take down the Skrulls in Avalon, but
not before John the Skrull (one of those good-guy Skrulls) is shot in
the face and killed. As part of the deal, Sattanish the scary bad magic
guy grants Pete Wisdom one wish, which can affect only Britain. Wisdom
does his best Scarlet Witch impression, saying three little words, “No
More Skrulls;” instantly, every Skrull in Great Britain is vaporized,
and any that try to cross over wind up the same way. This also
indicates they are in fact massively vulnerable against magic, perhaps
foreshadowing a greater solution to the Skrull problem in the rest of
the Marvel Universe.
I have nothing funny to say about Secret Invasion: Fantastic Snore #3.
Lyja and Johnny talked. A lot. FOR THE THIRD ISSUE IN A ROW. The
Tinkerer, who was arrested because Tony Stark and Reed Richards are
dicks, fixes the teleporter. He, along with Johnny, Ben, Franklin, and
Valeria, zap back into Manhattan, while Lyja stays behind in the
Negative Zone to “find herself.” They arrive to find a Manhattan in
ruins, with several buildings burning, which is bizarre for a race that
wants to “save” Earthlings, not annihilate them. As far as importance
goes, you needed to read approximately .2 pages of this three-issue
mini. That would be the very last panel, where an unhappy ending to
this crossover is alluded to, as Franklin thinks, “Nothing was gonna be
okay ever again.”
Ms. Marvel #29 actually addresses the fact that our heroes are
fighting shapeshifters, and should thus be having a harder time killing
them than they seem to be (explaining why she keeps doing full blast
headshots, which take a lot out of her). She creatively blows a hole in
a Giant Skrull, then hooks back up with Agent Sum (though not “hooks
up” in the way she’s recently hooked up with a Kree, whom she seems to
have forgotten about, and Wonder Man). They kill some Skrulls, he goes
Skrull bowling in a bus, and Ms. Marvel takes out an entire battalion
by beating the crap out of a Nitro-Skrull, forcing him to recreate the
Stamford Incident, but with a lot less kids and a lot more
super-powered alien shapeshifting religious zealot invaders hell bent
on taking over Earth and using it as the homeworld for their reborn
empire. She then takes a bus full of people to The Raft, thinking the
prison would be a relatively safe, defensible position. Unfortunately,
a Skrull that “other Skrulls were scared of” has ritualistically
murdered every S.H.I.E.L.D. agent stationed at the island jail. “THEY
WERE SCARED OF IT!”
The Skrulls are trying to get Vibranium from Wakanda over in Black Panther #39 .
They show up expecting to be able to run right over the African nation,
thanks to Skrull agents placed amongst the secluded super-power. Most
of (but not all, we find out at the end) these agents were found out
earlier, and killed, then posted Lord of the Flies style as a greeting
for the invading party. After a game of “my weapons disabling ability
is stronger than yours,” ending with both forces having no advanced
weaponry or power. As the Skrull General does his best Braveheart, the
Wakandans do their best Spartacus (“I’m Black Panther!”) and the two
armies clash medieval style. T’Challa is keeping Storm’s powers at bay
as an ace-in-the-hole, but Commander K’Vvvr has a Skrull agent who is
yet-to-be-revealed as his own secret weapon. The battle of
apostrophized leaders is clearly just beginning.
Finally, Secret Invasion: Front Line #2 sees a decent
amount happen, just not a lot that affects the greater crossover.
Apparently the Nitro-Skrull gets around, or is a popular upgrade, as
one blows up a hospital, killing Urich’s lady doctor friend. Outside of
Stark Tower, a Nova-Skrull burns an Officer Bill’s leg, and we know he
gets out of the situation alive, as he’s narrating the story to Mr.
Urich. Meanwhile, some employees in said Tower del Stark are being led
down the stairs and out of the building by a man and his
hoochie-dressed daughter using cellphones as flashlights. They
frantically try to sneak past a room where a Skrull has been playing
hungry hungry hippos, except in place of a plastic hippo, it’s the
Skrull, and in place of small plastic balls, it’s human heads. Yum.
Readers shouldn’t get too attached to any of these characters, due to a
recent twitter by writer Brian Reed: “The "everybody dies" issues are
always sort of cathartic. These bastards have made life difficult for 5
months and now you can kill them. 02:47 PM August 06, 2008.” That may
or may not be referencing this book, but the timing is about right.
Related:
Damn Dirty Skrulls: What We Know Now, 9Damn Dirty Skrulls: What We Know Now, 8
