Captain Marvel hits the big screen on March 8th and there is a good chance you have seen a trailer for it. If not, here is your chance.
If you are wondering if the old lady is a future version of the Black Widow brought back from the future, she’s not.
She is a Skrull.
To be more precise, a Deviant Skrull.
Introduction of the Skrulls
Let’s start at the beginning, all the way back in January 1962 Stan Lee and Jack Kirby introduced the Skrulls in Fantastic Four #2 “Skrulls from Outer Space”. In this issue, we find the Fantastic Four wreaking havoc on citizens. But why would our newly minted super heroes create such chaos?
Of course, they wouldn’t. We soon find out that it is really four shapeshifting aliens called the Skrulls. After our champions overcome the impersonating imps, they convince the Skrull High Council that Earth cannot be conquered. More awesome than that, three of the invading Skrulls forced to transform into cows and Reed Richards hypnotizes them to forget their past.
Cows! Yeah, Got Milk?
Who are the Skrulls
It turns out that the Skrulls have the oldest known interstellar empire still in existence within the Andromeda Galaxy. The Skrulls began on their ancient home world of Skrullos as a peaceful race. It is here where the Celestials found the Skrulls over 100 million years ago and performed genetic experimentations on them to create three distinct branches of the species:
- Prime – This is the original extinct branch of the species. The Prime Skrull was the last of its kind and fled to Earth only to crash in Roswell in 1947.
- Eternals – The Eternals were given super powers and long life. Eternal Kly’bn was the last of his kind who convinced the Deviants that he was critical to the survival of the Skrull civilization. He was later killed during Secret Invasion.
- Deviants – The Deviant Skrulls can shapeshift into anything they can imagine both organic and inorganic as long as it is solid. For the most part, they cannot take on the qualities of the object such as super powers. They are fierce, ruthless and devious. This became the dominant species. They eventually waged war against the other species and all but exterminated them. Since the other species are extinct or near extinction, this is the race that is usually just referred to as Skrulls.
Other Skrull variations
- Dire Wraiths – But wait, you said the Celestials created three species! Yes. The Dire Wraiths were a mutation of the Deviant Skrulls. They can shape shift and use magic. However, their use of technology is limited.
- Super-Skrulls – To date, there have been 37 appearances of Super Skrulls. These variations may take on super powers for various periods of time. The first appearance was of Kl’rt. His powers were beamed to him from the Skrull Throneworld.
The Skrulls have advanced scientific knowledge and technologies. In fact, they created the Cosmic Cube. They have used their technology, shapeshifting abilities, ferociousness and deviousness to build a vast intergalactic empire.
Roughly 100,000 years ago the Skrull capital was relocated to Throneworld, which was originally named Tarnax IV. Throneworld was eventually devoured by Galactus. After the destruction of their homeworld, the empire divided into quarreling factions and a civil war broke out.
Major Story Lines Kree-Skrull War
The Kree-Skrull war story line was written by Roy Thomas and drawn by Sal Buscema, Neal Adams, and John Buscema as a nine-part series in June 1971 Avengers #89 to March 1972 Avengers #97.
Through flashbacks, we learn that Rick Jones had been trading atoms with Mar-vell for some time. But recently Mar-vell was trapped in the negative zone. He appeared to Rick and tells him that he witnessed a battle between Mr. Fantastic and Annihilus during which he discovered an exit from the Negative Zone. Rick and Mar-vell trade places to allow Mar-vell to use a machine in the Baxter Building that will open a portal to allow Rick to return from the Negative Zone. The portal is opened and Rick returns.
Captain Marvel eventually escapes the Avengers but they discover that his weeks spent in the Negative Zone have filled him with radiation that could destroy him and potentially the world. The story begins with the Avengers capturing Captain Marvel (Mar-vell) with the help of Rick Jones.
Meanwhile, Ronan (the Accuser) remotely activates the Kree Sentry #459 and commands the robot to destroy Mar-vell. Later Ronan attempts to de-evolve humanity so the Kree can conquer Earth. Before his plan can be fulfilled, the Kree-Skrull war breaks out.
Remember the Cows? They regain their memory and once again shapeshift into the Fantastic Four and fight the Avengers who are searching for Rick Jones and Captain Marvel. During this time, the Super-Skrull is the Empire’s agent on Earth and joins the fight. He proves too much for the Avengers and kidnaps Mar-Vell, the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver. During this time the rest of the Avengers have to tangle with S.H.I.E.L.D. Mandroids and Inhumans but finally travel into space to rescue team members taken by Super-Skrull.
They travel to SHIELD’s space station where Nick Fury loans them a space shuttle to travel to Andromeda. En route they cross paths with the Skrull armada, engage in battle, fight back the invaders and board the lead ship. When they discover that Captain Marvel has been manipulated by the Skrull emperor to create a weapon. The Vision nearly beats the ships captain to death in his fury over the threat to Wanda’s life and learns of the Skrull plan to destroy Earth with their new weapon.
Back on the Kree homeworld, the Supreme Intelligence transports Rick out of Ronan’s prison and back into the Negative Zone where Annihilus is waiting to attack him. During the battle, Rick finds that he has been imbued with the full potential of the human race. Rick is transported back to the Kree homeworld where he fights off the Kree soldiers and eventually freezes all members of the Kree and Skrull races in place, ending the Kree-Skrull War. In doing so, Rick is drained of all strength and passes out. Collectively, Mar-vell and the Avengers use their life force to save Rick.
Secret Invasion
The Secret Invasion storyline was a cross-over event from April 2008 to December 2008. The core series consists of eight books titled Secret Invasion Part 1 through Part 8. Numerous tie-ins provide a great deal more detail. The seeds of the Secret Invasion story line were planted in the Annihilation story line where the Skrulls are said to believe that the Earth is “religiously and rightfully theirs”.
As you can imagine with as many books and tie-ins, Secret Invasion is rich in detail, so this is a very brief recap.
After the Kree-Skrull War, the Illuminati travels to the Skrull Throneworld to persuade the Skrull to stay away from Earth. Instead, they are captured and before they can escape they are experimented on. They used their research to slowly replace Earth super heroes and infiltrate the ranks of Earth’s mightiest teams.
After Galactus destroys their Throneworld in the Annihilation Wave, their empire is decimated. Homeless and believing that Earth was rightfully theirs, they begin their outright invasion. During this time, Nick Fury was in hiding after the events of Secret War and discovers that a Skrull invasion is taking place. He recruits Spider-Woman to be a mole for him in both HYDRA and SHIELD. Unfortunately, Spider-Woman was the first super-human to be replaced by a Skrull.
I really don’t want to spoil this because it is a great series with abundant twists and turns. As you can imagine, the paranoia that comes with not knowing whether your oldest friend is actually that friend or has been replaced by a shapeshifting Skrull is some fun reading.
The Secret Invasion storyline potentially sets up some interesting opportunities for the MCU in the future.
Along with the 8 core Secret Invasion books, the following is a list of tie-ins to the series.
Secret Invasion: The Infiltration
The following issues were released with The Infiltration banner prior to the launch of the Secret Invasion series:
- Avengers: The Initiative Annual #1
- Captain Marvel vol. 6, #2-5
- The Mighty Avengers #7-8
- Ms. Marvel vol. 2, #25-27
- The New Avengers #38-39
- The New Avengers: Illuminati #5
- Franklin Richards Not-So-Secret Invasion
- Marvel Spotlight Secret Invasion
- Secret Invasion Saga
- Secret Invasion Home Invasion
Secret Invasion
The following issues tie-in to the Secret Invasion mini-series:
- Avengers: The Initiative #14-19
- Black Panther vol. 4, #39-41
- Captain Britain and MI: 13 #1-4
- Deadpool (vol. 2) #1-3
- Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 2, #4-6
- Incredible Hercules #117-120
- Iron Man: Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. #33-35
- Marvel Spotlight: Secret Invasion Saga #1
- The Mighty Avengers #12-20
- Ms. Marvel vol. 2, #28-31
- New Avengers #39-47
- New Warriors vol. 4, #14-15
- Nova vol. 4, #16-18
- Punisher War Journal #24-25
- Secret Invasion: The Amazing Spider-Man #1-3
- Secret Invasion: Aftermath Beta Ray Bill: The Green of Eden #1
- Secret Invasion: Dark Reign #1
- Secret Invasion: Fantastic Four #1-3
- Secret Invasion: Front Line #1-5
- Secret Invasion: Inhumans #1-4
- Secret Invasion: Requiem #1
- Secret Invasion: Runaways/Young Avengers #1-3
- Secret Invasion: Thor #1-3
- Secret Invasion: War Of Kings (One-Shot)
- Secret Invasion: Who Do You Trust? (one-shot)
- Secret Invasion: X-Men #1-4
- She-Hulk vol. 2, #31-33
- Skrulls! (one-shot)
- Thunderbolts #122-125
- X-Factor vol. 3, #33-34
This is just a brief history, but it should give you enough background to be prepared to school you friends before the release of (or while watching) Captain Marvel.
Skrull Variant Covers
Marvel has previously used Skrulls on Variant covers. You can see the Secret Skrull Variants here: https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Category:Secret_Skrull_Variants
And Marvel is celebrating the release of Captain Marvel featuring the Skrulls with 22 new variant covers across the Marvel Universe. You can see the first batch of these here: https://www.marvel.com/articles/comics/marvel-comics-will-pit-the-universe-against-the-skrulls-on-22-variant-covers
- AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #15 by Lee Garbett
- AVENGERS #14 by Carlos Pacheco
- BLACK PANTHER #9 by Ryan Benjamin
- CAPTAIN AMERICA #8 by Nick Bradshaw
- CONAN THE BARBARIAN #3 Pepe Larraz
- DAREDEVIL #1 Humberto Ramos
- DEADPOOL #9 by Mike Hawthorne
- FANTASTIC FOUR #7 Mike McKone
- HULKVERINES #1 TBD
- IMMORTAL HULK #13 Chris Stevens
- LOVE ROMANCES #1 Annie Wu
- SPIDER-GWEN: GHOST SPIDER #5 Pasqual Ferry
- THE GUNHAWKS #1 Bob McLeod
- THOR #10 Khary Randolph
- TONY STARK: IRON MAN #9 Khoi Pham
- UNCANNY X-MEN #11 Inhyuk Lee
- UNCANNY X-MEN: WINTER’S END Tom Raney
- VENOM #11 John Tyler Christopher
- WOLVERINE: INFINITY WATCH #1 Jee Hyung Lee
- X-23 #9 Ema Lupacchino
- X-FORCE #3 Butch Guice
- ZIGGY PIG – SILLY SEAL COMICS #1 Bobby Rubio
Edited by Hunter Raffety
