#skrull army

[vertigoartgore]

Jason Pearson's (rest in peace) cover for 2008's Black Panther #39.

One of the best stories Jason "Scalped" Aaron ever wrote at Marvel.

[gunsandspaceships]

MCU Timeline: Captain Marvel

Over the centuries - war between the Kree civilization and the Skrulls.

1946 - launch of the Project PEGASUS.

July 4, 1950 - Nicholas Joseph Fury is born in Huntsville, Alabama.

~1963 - Carol Danvers and Maria Rambeau are born.

Note: Calculations are based on the assumption that they were 18 years old when they entered the United States Air Force Academy in September 1981. The age could be different, so it is impossible to say exactly when they were born based on the film alone.

~1967 - Nick Fury graduates from high school and joins the army.

1980s:

Fury retires from the military as a colonel and becomes a spy. He serves in cities beginning with the letter B (Belfast, Bucharest, Belgrade, Budapest).

Kree scientist Mar-Vell takes a group of Skrull refugees and flees with them to Earth. There, she takes the terran name Wendy Lawson and begins work on a light-speed engine to save the Skrulls from the Kree.

June 1985 - Carol Danvers and Maria Rambeau graduate from the United States Air Force Academy.

September 24, 1985 - Lieutenants Danvers and Rambo become active US Air Force pilots.

April-May 1986 - Maria Rambeau undergoes training at the USAF Officer School.

Note 1: She was probably a) with Carol; b) training to be a test pilot.

Note 2: I broke my eyes and brains trying to make sense of the dates on this form. Because I can't figure out how September 1985 to 1989 can be 5 years. So I don't know where to put Maria's discharge, in 1989 or 1990 or even 1991.

Between 1986 and 1989 - they join the S.H.I.E.L.D./USAF PEGASUS project as test pilots.

~March 24, 1988 - Fury joins S.H.I.E.L.D.

Note: it is complete BS that Fury is a Level 3 in S.H.I.E.L.D. after 7 years of service, including being a deputy in Bogota and a "friend" of high-ranking politician and Secretary of the DoD Alexander Pierce. He has his own rookie and is about to be promoted to Director! Bad job, Marvel.

June 28, 1988 - Carol and Maria buy tickets to a Guns N' Roses concert.

July 10, 1988 (Sunday), 8 pm - Carol and Maria attend the Guns N' Roses show.

1989:

Dawn - Carol wakes Maria up (as usual).

Danvers and Rambeau race to the base in their Mustang and Camaro, respectively. Danvers cheats by taking a shortcut.

An agitated doctor Lawson meets them in the hangar and attempts to fly the ASIS. Danvers takes the pilot's seat.

~7 am - the two take an unauthorized "test" flight in the light-speed aircraft.

Note: ~7 am is based on Carol's watch at the moment of Mar-Vell's death.

Lawson gives Danvers the coordinates of her secret lab.

As they reach space, they are attacked by Yon-Rogg, who was sent to capture the scientist and take her back to Hala.

ASIS hits the ground. Lawson reveals who she really is to Danvers and attempts to destroy the engine, but Yon-Rogg kills her before she can do so.

Danvers shoots the engine herself, destroying it and absorbing its energy.

She is taken to Hala (the Kree capital). The Kree give her a transfusion of their blue blood (Yon-Rogg's), alter her memories and suppress her powers with a chip implanted in her neck.

Note: The photo is labeled "06/23/1990" but was likely taken during an investigation that could take years.

Between 1989 and September 1991 - Captain Maria Rambeau leaves the Air Force.

1992-1995 - Kree spy Soh-Larr gathers intelligence on Skrull refugees on Torfa.

~September 1995 - Phil Coulson joins S.H.I.E.L.D.

The main events take place in early October 1995 (or, as a second option, in September). For details, see the end of the post.

~October 7, 1995:

120 days since "the last Skrull attack on the Kree".

Early morning on Hala - Danvers, now "Vers", a member of the Kree Starforce, wakes up from a dream with a scene from his past altered by the Kree.

She wakes up her commander Yon-Rogg and invites him to a sparring match.

They fight, but Vers loses control and uses his powers against Yon-Rogg.

He takes her to the Supreme Intelligence, the AI ​​leader of the Kree civilization. The Intelligence allows her to go on a combat mission.

Starforce is sent on a search and rescue mission for the spy Soh-Larr on the "recently invaded by the Skrulls Kree border planet" Torfa.

Ronan the Accuser goes with them to blow up a Skrull stronghold on the planet.

On Torfa, the team is ambushed by Skrulls. Vers is captured by Talos, the Skrull general.

~October 8, 1995:

The Skrulls take Vers onto their ship and study her memories for clues that could help them find Mar-Vell.

They learn that she must be somewhere on planet C-53 (Earth) and set course for it.

Vers frees herself from the bonds and fights the Skrulls.

~5 am in California - After blowing a hole in the ship, she boards one of the shuttles and makes an emergency landing at a Blockbuster Video store in Los Angeles, Earth.

Security guy calls the police.

~7 am - a group of Skrulls led by Talos lands in LA.

Vers calls her team on a landline she modified, telling them her location.

Starforce head to Earth.

LAPD and S.H.I.E.L.D. (Coulson, Fury and his supervisor Keller) arrive.

One of the Skrulls takes on the appearance of Coulson while the real one is collecting evidence inside the store with Agent Keller.

Vers activates her beacon and meets Nick Fury.

Before he arrests her, they are attacked by another skrull.

Vers, Fury, and the fake Coulson pursue the Skrull. Vers fights him on a train, but he manages to escape.

Fury discovers that the real Coulson is still in Blockbuster and the one next to him is a Skrull. They fight, resulting in a car crash, and the Skrull does not survive.

~8-9 am - in the internet cafe, Vers searches for "Pegasus" and "Pancho's Bar" from the memories extracted from her.

She steals some casual clothes and a motorcycle and heads to Pancho's Bar, which is located near Edwards Air Force Base.

Talos knocks out Keller and takes his identity (but forgets his ID).

~10 am - a S.H.I.E.L.D. medical examiner performs an autopsy on the dead Skrull. Talos, posing as Keller, sends Fury to find Vers.

Coulson hands Fury the police report and helps "Keller" to return to Keller's office for the ID.

~12 pm - Vers makes it to Pancho's bar, where Fury is already waiting for her. They talk and prove to each other that they are not Skrulls.

~1 pm - Fury takes her to the Pegasus Project base.

~2 pm - while they are detained by the facility's security, Fury sends a message to Keller-Talos asking for reinforcements.

Fury opens the locked door using the guard's fingerprint, and the two head to the Records Department, meeting Gus the Flerken along the way.

Vers and Fury find Lawson's files and learn that 1) the ASIS light speed engine project was terminated; 2) Lawson was actually a Kree; 3) she died along with her pilot during an unauthorized test flight of the light speed aircraft.

Fury receives a message from "Keller" and leaves Vers. She learns that she was the pilot and calls Yon-Rogg. He tells her that Lawson was an undercover Kree agent named Mar-Vell. Vers tells him that her memories of life on Earth are returning.

3 pm - "Keller" arrives with other agents and accidentally reveals himself to Fury, calling him Nicholas.

Talos attacks Fury in the archives. Vers saves Fury and they escape.

They encounter Coulson, but he lets them go.

Vers takes Fury's pager from him.

They take a quadjet from the hangar and a stowaway, Goose, and head to Louisiana to see Maria Rambeau.

Ronan contacts Starforce and informs them that his part of the operation was a success. He insistently offers to "search and rescue" Vers, but Yon-Rogg brushes him off.

Back at PEGASUS Base, Talos receives the ASIS black box recording and learns that Vers is a Terran who worked with Mar-Vell. He takes Norex and heads to Louisiana as well.

~7 pm - Vers, Fury and Goose reach Louisiana and meet Maria and her daughter Monica.

8 pm - they tell them what's going on, Maria tells Vers what happened that day 6 years ago.

Talos enters the house, now without disguise, and explains himself.

He gives the Terrans the audio file from the ASIS black box, and Carol's memories return.

Talos asks her to help find the energy core (Tesseract) in Mar-Vell's laboratory, and Maria gives her a pep talk.

~9:30 pm - Talos is informed that the laboratory is not on Earth, but in orbit.

~10 pm - Norex, a Skrull scientist and engineer, begins work on adapting the quadjet for space travel.

Carol and Monica persuade Maria to take the co-pilot's seat.

~October 9, 1995:

Monica changes the colors of Carol's battle suit to red, blue, and gold.

Her grandparents take her to their home until Maria returns.

Carol, Maria, Fury, Talos, and Goose head to the lab, leaving Norex to pose as Vers for Yon-Rogg.

~7 am - Yon-Rogg reaches Maria's house and kills Norex after he fails an identity check. He calls Ronan to bomb the Earth.

~8 am - The Terrans and Talos find Mar-Vell's lab, which is also an Imperial Kree cruiser full of Skrull refugees. Talos is reunited with his family.

The reunion is interrupted by the arrival of Starforce, who capture everyone on board.

Danvers is brought before the Supreme Intelligence. She gets rid of the Kree implant that was suppressing her powers, and breaks free.

Goose swallows the Tesseract.

The Battle at Mar-Vell's Laboratory that ended in the Mojave Desert.

Maria kills Minn-Erva in a dogfight.

Ronan and the other Accusers arrive and launch ballistic warheads towards Earth. Carol destroys them all in mid-air and then blows up one of the Accusers' ships. Ronan decides to retreat.

Danvers sends Yon-Rogg, who has crashed on Earth, back to Hala with a message.

Goose scratches Fury's eye.

Night - back at Maria's house, Carol promises the Skrulls she will find them a new home and asks Fury to hide the Tesseract on Earth. She also gives him a pager she upgraded for him so he can call her if needed.

~A couple of days later, mid-October, 1995 - Carol and the Skrulls leave Earth.

~Second half of October 1995:

Fury eventually loses his scratched eye. He returns to duty, working on his idea for the Protector Initiative at the S.H.I.E.L.D. Los Angeles office when Coulson brings him prosthetic eyes to choose from. Fury looks through Maria and Carol's USAF files and decides to name the Initiative after Carol's USAF call sign.

Goose, who stayed with Fury, throws the Tesseract up on his desk.

Why October (or September):

The Official Timeline book and Fandom Wiki timeline tell us that the main events of the movie take place in the summer of 1995. Indeed, we see some indications of this in the film, such as this calendar in Maria's office that says "June":

However, other evidence tells us that it cannot be summer:

The yellow notice says, "Effective November 1, 1995." In the summer months, this may be too early.

Look at the posters:

The newest shows announced in mid-September, those announcing shows in July and August, are the oldest on the wall and are already covered with many more recent announcements.

The advertisement for the Smashing Pumpkins' 1995 album Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness could not have been posted on the wall in the summer of 1995, as the album's recording was completed in August and the album itself was released in October.

While trying to convince her mother to go on the mission with Carol, Monica mentions The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (1:16:10), which began Season 6 on September 18, 1995 (and I couldn't find any VHS of that show, so Monica is most probably referring to watching the season on TV when it aired). The full moon in September was before September 18, and the full moon in October was on the 8th, which fits well.

So Maria might want to turn a few pages on her calendar (though that happens to all of us sometimes, doesn't it?).

MCU Timeline: The Infinity Saga

[oimoitalaina]

The Bucky We See in Thunderbolts is a Skrull

I feel like my continued enjoyment of Bucky as a character is going to have to rely on the interpretation that he’s just been replaced by a Skrull in Thunderbolts. I believe it's a perfectly reasonable way to interpret such a consistent, long-standing character being so completely out of character for an entire movie. It also has the side benefit of giving the same level of disrespect to the work of a writer who clearly did not respect Bucky’s character *at all* and clearly just included him to get his fans to watch the movie (which also clearly didn’t work because the movie bombed)! So while I am perfectly aware that this interpretation wasn’t intended by anyone involved in the movie, I don’t really care because their intent for the story was terrible. So here are my theory-crafting thoughts on why I think Skrull!Bucky is a reasonable interpretation.

Why’s his hair so bad?

Seriously, Bucky’s hair looked better when he was imprisoned by Hydra for decades. His hair looked better when he was on the run for two years in Europe, and when he was blipped back into existence in order to fight Thanos’s army. And during that time, he never made a facial hair decision as bad as the goatee we see in Thunderbolts. Not when he ghosted Sam for 6 months, not during his time in Wakanda, never. He is not the kind of man who would choose to cultivate such a bad look. A Skrull however? They don’t even have hair! They can’t grow a beard in the first place to mess it up properly! A Skrull imitating Bucky would have no insight into Bucky’s hair care decisions, and that’s why it shows for this movie.

 Why isn’t he talking about Sam?

Val talks about the finale of Captain America: Brave New World without mentioning Sam at all. Now, from Val’s end this makes sense - she’s a villain who wants to control the superhero narrative. Sam’s involvement goes against her case completely, so it makes sense she wouldn’t mention him. But Bucky? He has an established interest in taking down Val, and he is absolutely devoted to Sam (which was established once again in Brave New World). Why wouldn’t he bring him up? When Bucky’s working alongside John Walker of all people, probably his least favorite person in the universe, why isn’t he mentioning Sam? Surely the *real* Bucky would delight in taking the opportunity to rub Sam’s success in Walker’s face at every opportunity! But Skrull!Bucky would have plenty of reasons to not mention Sam. First off, while the real Bucky is in love with Sam, the Skrull imitating him is not, so Sam isn’t on this imposter’s mind 24/7 like he is for Bucky. Secondly, for this theory to work I believe that the Skrull is there to work with Val and her plans. So calling her out regarding Sam would be counterproductive, and so would antagonizing Walker. 

 Why would he work for Val?

Arguably the worst and most out of character parts of this movie is the end, where Bucky, along with all the other Thunderbolts, let Val announce at a press conference that they are all the New Avengers. Gross! Awful! Stupid! Plenty of other people have written about why that’s a terrible conclusion, mostly because it makes no sense for any of these people to work with Val since she’s such an obvious villain, who they all witnessed torture Bob. Bucky choosing to not say anything and go along with her plans is the most galling given what he’s experienced with HYDRA and his relationship with Sam. But! A Skrull imitating Bucky, who is working alongside Val, would have every reason to bolster his partner in crime’s desperate and stupid last minute save. And it makes sense that the rest of these idiots would follow Skrull!Bucky’s lead and go along with it. Yelena can tell Val that “we own you now” but that’s completely meaningless. The villainous duo got away with everything. Now as to why Skrull!Bucky would work against Val’s initial plan to just kill the Thunderbolts in the trap she started with, I’d like to think that this is kind of a belligerent alliance. Skrull!Bucky might have his own intentions with his new gaggle of assholes, and there can be this behind the scenes push and pull where Skrull!Bucky and Val try to get one over on each other while still working towards the same goal. What is that goal you ask? Wow, thanks for asking!

 Whatever happened with Secret Invasion?

Remember when the Secret Invasion show came out and it was the worst thing the MCU ever made? Except now I guess it's joined by Thunderbolts and like half of the What If? Episodes. And it seems like its sheer awfulness got it sort of erased from the canon moving forward. I mean, the show ends with a sudden escalation of global conflict where humans and Skrulls are killing each other, the US president declares war on all aliens (like including the Asgardians?!) and there is no followup in any MCU project. The plot of The Marvels completely ignores Secret Invasion, there is no consequence whatsoever. The conclusion among most fans is that there was never any Secret Invasion show, and it seems that all the creative teams also agree. I’ve just concluded that Secret Invasion was an extended, live action What If? episode. All of this is disappointing, but for the sake of this theory, it’s very useful.

Because now the Skrull!Bucky theory can expand to being a redo of Secret Invasion. Secreter Invasion, let’s say. It's so secret that it didn’t even get made into a show or movie or anything. And this means that I can include elements to a Secret Invasion plot that I really thought they were building up to before the original show came out. And I was really expecting Val to be a big part of that story. In Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Val recruits John Walker at the end of the show, giving him a new suit and a new title - US Agent. She introduces this change by telling John that things are really going to hit the fan, and when that happens they’ll need him. I don’t know about other people, but my friends and I really thought that was referencing a Skrull plotline. Because what else would Val have been planning? 

The only other big plan we see is when she shows up in Wakanda Forever, where she’s doing pretty typical CIA stuff by trying to overthrow a sovereign African nation to steal its resources for the USA. But that wasn’t supposed to be an event where stuff “hit the fan”, that was just Tuesday for the head of the CIA. And while things do hit the fan in Thunderbolts, that wasn’t any calculated plan on Val’s part. Sentry turning into the void was not at all what she intended. But something like a Skrull takeover would definitely be the kind of thing Val would need to prepare for well ahead of time by collecting loyal agents. And, tying into Wakanda Forever again, Val would probably have a serious interest in stealing Vibranium if she has an even grander world takeover via Skrull plans.

 Why does Bucky’s arm work like that?

Ok now this one is going to be an *extreme* stretch, but I think it ties a lot of things together so I’m just going for it at this point. In Thunderbolts, we see Bucky’s arm get removed twice. First, he’s washing it in the dishwasher, next it's being ripped off by Sentry. In both of these cases, I don’t think it follows the internal logic regarding Bucky’s prosthetic arm that has been established earlier. Take the dishwasher scene. First of all, I’m being extra harsh because I think that scene was terrible and unfunny. But from a theorycrafting angle, I also think it goes against how his prosthesis has been treated in the past. I know that *in real life*prosthetic limbs need to be removed often, both for comfort and cleaning. But I’d argue that Bucky’s prosthesis exists mostly as a fantasy rather than accurate representation. We’ve seen that Bucky sleeps with his arm on and cleans it while still attached to him. In fact, as I’ll get into later, I don’t think Bucky makes a habit of removing his arm at all. 

When Ayo (perfectly justifiably) removes Bucky’s arm during their fight in Falcon and the Winter Soldier, he’s shocked to see that’s even possible. Sam even asks if he knew she could do that, to which Bucky says no. I interpret that scene less as the realization that *Ayo* can remove his arm, and more that his arm can be removed at all. That’s because Bucky’s HYDRA arm wasn’t at all removable. And while he didn’t have a prosthetic arm during most of his time in Wakanda, when he was given one by T'challa I don’t think he considered the mechanics of taking it off once it got put on. This might be a niche opinion I hold but I swear it connects some dots!

The second time Bucky gets his arm removed in Thunderbolts, its when Sentry rips it off (which has not led to any outcry online despite it being *way worse* than what Ayo did. Crazy how that works!). Again, if this happened in a movie that was good and didn’t destroy Bucky’s character, I would have looked it over, but since I’m not doing that here we go. I don’t think Bucky’s arm can just be yanked off by brute force like that for a variety of reasons that I think Shuri would have considered in universe when designing the prosthesis. The main reason would be Bucky’s safety. 

What if Bucky got into some kind of situation where he expected his prosthetic arm to be able to hold onto something only for it to fail at its union to his shoulder? If that isn’t something he expects (which we’ve established he doesn’t), that could end really badly for him. The properties of Vibranium are fantastical enough that I believe if Shuri designed it so, it wouldn’t just fail at the connection. It's the strongest, most versatile material in the world, there’s no reason it would necessarily behave like a real life engineered counterpart. The other reason ties into why Ayo had a special removal sequence in the first place. The Wakandans have a vested interest in keeping Vibranium out of the wrong hands. If someone could kill Bucky to take his arm, or just yank it off, that would be a huge risk. That’s why Bucky keeps his arm attached at all times, and why the Wakandans have proprietary knowledge for how to remove it. So these two moments go against previously established rules about how Bucky’s arm works, rules that have in-universe justification. Why am I making such a big deal about this? Hold onto your seats!

 Why did Rocket get Bucky’s arm for Christmas?

Hey remember that five second gag that James Gunn put into the Guardian’s of the Galaxy Christmas Special without considering the in-universe implications at all because it was a silly five second gag? Well it's coming to the rescue for this fan theory! At the end of the holiday special, Nebula gifts Rocket with Bucky’s prosthetic arm, much to the insane engineer’s delight. When asked how that happened, Gunn said that Nebula just popped over to Earth, rolled up to Bucky, and took his arm. There was some fandom bewilderment at the time, but it quickly passed because we understood it was not at all associated with the greater story. But now I’ve decided it is. Because as I’ve established, Bucky’s prosthetic arm can’t just be yanked off.

 Also, unless Nebula attacked  Bucky at Sarah Wilson’s house in Delacroix, Louisiana, the Bucky she grabbed the arm from was not the real Bucky. Because ever since the events of Falcon and the Winter Soldier, there’s no way that Bucky didn’t spend every Christmas with the Wilsons. And I don’t think Nebula is the type to traumatize Sam’s nephews by attacking and dismembering their Uncle Bucky in front of them on Christmas. 

So I’ve decided that this is evidence that there was at one point both a Skrull who decided to imitate Bucky walking around and a *fake copy* of Bucky’s prosthetic arm! Now of course the timeline doesn’t line up with the plot of Thunderbolts, as the Christmas Special happened years before the events of the movie, but I can still work with that. This was the equivalent of a prop or prosthetic makeup test that the entertainment industry uses. It would make sense for Skrulls to practice imitating different people before having to actually do so in a high stakes environment. And I think Bucky would present a challenge for a Skrull to imitate because of his prosthesis. I think imitating things like limb differences could be a challenge for a Skrull who is accustomed to having two full arms. And this idea leads to my final theory!

 Why is Bucky *so* out of character?

All of this wild theorycrafting circles back to the original reason for the Skrull!Bucky theory in the first place. He is so out of character that he must be a shapeshifting alien. But the whole point of a Skrull is that they are supposed to be a perfect imitation! A Skrull should be able to imitate Bucky so well that nobody is suspicious, that’s the entire reason they’re a threat in the first place. So why is Skrull!Bucky so out of character, other than the fact that he’s working with Val? In this movie, he’s completely off - he’s creepy to Mel, he’s not reading the materials he’s supposed to for his job as congressman, he’s sloppy and messy, he’s unable to speak coherently to reporters, he’s generally just unthinkingly foolish and seems tired, miserable even. This isn’t the Bucky we know - the real Bucky is respectful to women, clever and witty in a deadpan way, he values doing his job well whether it's as a sitting congressman or fixing the Wilson family’s boat. The Skrull’s disloyalty to Sam and association with Val again makes sense because he’s working with her, but how do we explain the rest of what we see in the movie? Well, it all comes back to his prosthesis. 

Here’s my theory - I think that while Skrulls are capable of transforming into lots of people, some transformations are harder than others. For example, what if you are a smaller Skrull who needs to turn into a really tall person? I think it's possible, but probably requires more training and a form of concentration. Like, if shapeshifting is like a basic instinctual movement for Skrulls, more advanced forms of shapeshifting like changing sizes or imitating a limb difference and wearing a prosthesis is akin to a human learning a more complex physical skill like gymnastics or martial arts. I think that the act of imitating Bucky specifically is taking a physically and mentally taxing toll on the Skrull replacing him. 

Skrull!Bucky has to stay transformed for a long, unbroken period of time while also navigating the stupid plot of the movie, guiding the gaggle of assholes into working for Val, fighting people and doing various difficult physical maneuvers. He’s probably taken the form of Bucky for a decent amount of time before the movie, obviously sometime after the events of Brave New World. But he would have had to take over Bucky’s role investigating Val for long enough to know to track down everyone at the start of the movie. So the Skrull!Bucky we see is probably just at the end of his rope, exhausted by the role he’s taken on, and ready for it to be over. That’s why he’s not really doing a good job imitating Bucky at this point, and nobody else notices because they don’t know the real Bucky. 

The darkly funny twist is that this could have been Walker’s opportunity to recognize that something’s up, since he’s the only person who met the real Bucky. He could have unraveled this whole plot and saved the day, but he didn't. He can’t, because he never grew and realized how he mistreated Sam and Bucky, he never got out of his own head and learned to empathize with other people. So the fact that his deep seated issues never got addressed because the Bucky everyone got to know was really a Skrull fit into the villain’s greater plan. If the real Bucky had shown up to rescue everyone, things would have gone way differently! He would have been able to provide guidance to the people who wanted to do better. He also would have actually confronted Walker and Alexei on their genuinely terrible behavior and maybe actually gotten through to them. But instead, Skrull!Bucky and Val got what they wanted, a group of people who think they’ve made progress when they really haven’t at all. People who could have chosen to stand up and do the right thing but instead got taken in by another evil organization who plan to use them for their own terrible ends.

So that’s my take on the “Bucky is a Skrull in Thunderbolts” theory. I haven’t written any fanfic before but I still wanted to try to work through my thoughts so I figured this would be the next best thing! Also I do have the beginnings of an idea that would explain the post credit scene while making it so Sam and the real Bucky aren’t separated for over a year because that would break my heart.

[ghost-mantis]

Headcanon that Skrall as a species are essentially doomed on Spherus Magna.

Even though they are warriors of the highest caliber, 100,000 years of war, starvation, and the loss of every female of their species leads to a slow, inevitable decline.

Ruthlessly culling any member of their species that wasn't a high-class warrior meant that there was no investment in education or skilled labor. The only way their society functioned was to rely on pillaging and slave labor to obtain food, medicine, and essentially everything that didn't involve stabbing.

Given their very rigid social system, it didn't seem like female Skrall had much say or power in their society. On Bara Manga, the second they did get mental powers they were considered a threat and banished to the wilds. Canonically, the male and female Skrall also separated into two societies on Bota Manga.

After that point, the population replacement rate was 0 and the male Skrall were in an endless war with the Agori for resources. While they never really lost fights, that didn't mean that they weren't losing people to disease, injury, and old age.

And then Mata Nui came along and curb-stomped the only leader-cast member of their species they had left. The remaining male Skrall dispersed into smaller groups led by named Skrall or high-tier casts.

And then Teridax came along.

A huge portion of their remaining population was atomized when Teridax blasted their home in the Black Spike Mountains. The remaining groups decided to join the free-for-all fight between the Agori, Toa, Rahkshi, and Skakdi.

And even as amazing warriors in a normal fight, there's no way the Skrall did anything but get their shit kicked in against armies of beings with ranged supernatural powers. A sword is great, but not much use when all your opponents can do things like suck the oxygen from your lungs, or summon a mountant to crush you without breaking a sweat.

Plus, every Agori and Glatorian hates their guts and wouldn't hesitate to gut any Skrull injured or trapped by the absolute free-for-all that was Bara Magna.

Anyone who survived the bloodbath and subsequent reformation of Spherus Magna, including adding Bota Magna Skrull to their ranks, is still looking at a very grim future.

The Skrall are now outclassed by almost every sentient species (and most wildlife) on the planet in terms of power and resources. Their home and leader cast are gone, and they have no slaves left (all killed or emancipated by Toa) to produce goods or labor. Their species is still split into two societies by gender and getting together long enough to have kids probably isn't in the cards.

A few Skrall are hired on by the Dark Hunters, but given their lack of powers, they would be best as cannon fodder, or as combat trainers to beings with greater powers.

Every other remaining male Skrall group is going to have their shit kicked in by every other group the second they try to cause trouble. And the Baterra are probably still picking off warriors whenever and wherever they find them.

Their population has plummeted over the last 100,000 years and the remaining members of the species are essentially the last generation.

The best hope their species has is that the female Skrall, being less militant and having no mental powers left, join with Agori or Glatorian society. They might be closely related enough that they can have children with the Glatorian or Agori.

If so, any future Skrall are at most 50-50 genetically split with another species. Subsequent generations will have thinner and thinner Skrall genetics, and they'll be extinct as an individual species.

Given that they were absolute bastards as a species and society in-canon, that might be for the best. Banishing every member of your society that can have children, and then going to endless war with every one of your neighbors forever is essentially biological suicide.

[cap-ironman]

2024 Captain America/Iron Man Reverse Bang Masterlist

After months filled with creativity being crafted into fanworks, this year's Reverse Bang is finished! Thank you to all of our fantastic participants—congratulations on posting, and we hope you had a great time working together, whether this was your first Cap-IM RBB or not!

Here’s the final list of our 12 fantastic artwork entries and their accompanying works, all created specifically for this event. Enjoy exploring the new Stevetony content, and remember to show your appreciation through kudos, comments and sharing if you haven't already!

Mind the warnings for each individual work on their AO3 page, please.

A Brooklynite Abroad by BladeoftheNebula (G, MCU, art) ★ Team Masterpost

Found My Heart Wandering by ItsMayBiTheWay (M, MCU, 2972 words)

The scenery, for lack of better words, is simply breathtaking. The colors of the sunset before him, as he crosses his legs on the wooden pier, reach inside Steve’s sternum and cradle his heart gently, the soft pinks and blues swaying in the sky to create the perfect shade of lilac. They fill in the cracks like the ancient art of kintsugi, proudly emphasizing all the scars with gold- you are better for all the scars you take, Steven, it shows you have loved, it shows you have lost- it all shows you have lived; instead of wasting your heart away, the voice of his mother repeats. Backpacking across Europe for inspiration for his upcoming art show after a bad breakup; the last thing Steve expects to find is love.

caught red-handed by jetblackfeeling (T, 616, art) ★ Team Masterpost

Red Strings of Fate (Tying Me To You) by ItsMayBiTheWay (E, 616, 5035 words)

It should be uneventful. Steve has done this a million times, one way or another. Being used in public service announcements and publicity for the army came with the shield long before the ice did, and just because they changed mediums and became online in this century has made no difference for Steve. Shaking his head, Steve physically tries to chase the memories of last night away. He puts on his most charming smile- one that Tony always tells him that makes his knees go weak, and takes a deep breath, promising himself that he won’t think about Tony until he ends the live stream. These people are tuning in for a good cause, his whole attention is the least he can give back to them in exchange. Well, things rarely go according to plan, huh?

Situationship by Neverever (T, 616, 6832 words)

Steve isn't surprised that a clip of Tony appearing on his zoom meeting just wearing his thong went viral. He is surprised that his friends all think that it was a really weird way of making their relationship public. The thing is, he and Tony aren't dating and really aren't in any relationship.

A Dragon's Pride by massivespacewren (G, 616/MCU, art) ★ Team Masterpost

A Dragon's Pride by Naivelittleprincess (G, MCU, 14436 words)

Sir Steven has a great task ahead. Bring King Dreykov the heart of the dragon that took Princess Natalia and the knight would be rewarded with the truth. But all his expectations are thrown off the back of his horse when the dragon whisks him away to a distant land, where he just might end up finding what he had been missing for all those years of his lonesome wanderings. A home.

Etch Your Kiss Like Acid On My Lips by Zappedbysnow and Pia Bartolini (E, MCU, art, 8396 words) ★ Team Masterpost

A Skrull, an explosion, and a vat of lethally corrosive goo. - - - - - Or, that time when Steve lost his clothes, his left eyebrow, his dignity, and a boatload of baggage relating to one, Tony Stark. The forced proximity smut nobody asked for.

Gift of Consequence by oluka (G, MCU, art) ★ Team Masterpost

Gift of Consequence by KandiSheek (M, MCU, 15117 words)

Steve remembers the old wives' tale of the dragon in the mountain, sleeping on a pile of gold. He has never paid it any mind, but when his mother gets sick and time and money is of the essence... he might reconsider believing in fairytales.

I prayed on the unmovable by tossha and Missy_dee811 (T, MCU, art, 5177 words) ★ Team Masterpost

“There’s no way anyone survived out here,” said Steve. “That’s rich, coming from you,” said Tony. “You suspect he’s here; I gathered as much. That’s why you put together this team and why you’re tight-lipped about what’s inside that base,” he said. “I’ll admit, it’s a smart plan. At best, he’s here. At worst, we’ve learned the ins and outs of a Hydra base and hopefully, the location of another.” She looked up and met his eyes. “And what if I think he’s here?” “Are the rumors true?” “That depends, which rumors?"

A Kiss [ART] by Fluffypanda (G, 616/Warp World, art) ★ Team Masterpost

Ordinary Days by Neverever (T, 616/Warp World, 5275 words)

Sigurd cares for Stephen and Stephen cares for Sigurd. But Stephen can not be sure if his feelings only come from memories of emotions from other lives.

Lost Self [ART] by Fluffypanda (G, 616, art) ★ Team Masterpost

a four-dimensional object by veslarkinson (T, 616, 14722 words)

The year is 1975: the stonewall riots were only six years ago, the CD has yet to be invented, and Tony Stark is taking his first steps into trans-humanism. >> initializing(extremis-setup)...

President Rogers by AvengersNewB (T, MCU, art) ★ Team Masterpost

Codename: Liberty by SomeSortofItalianRoast (M, MCU, 11282 words)

United States President Steve Rogers is a Medal of Honor recipient. Billionaire lobbyist Tony Stark once sold arms to the Taliban (it wasn’t on purpose, Pepper!). It’s a match made… in the Oval Office? President Steve Rogers can’t stand billionaire lobbyist Tony Stark. Bad press between them requires them to work together and pretend to be friends. They slowly realize that they have a lot in common, and end up in a secret relationship, which, of course, gets out.

Stars, Stripes, and Unconfirmed Sources by ashes0909 (E, UNIVERSE, 13600 words)

BREAKING NEWS: Bucky Barnes, Press Secretary: I have answered this question multiple times, Stark and the President met at the Climate Conference over a year ago and became friends thereafter. That’s all there is to say on the matter. Next question.

Redemption by MassiveSpaceWren (G, MCU, art) ★ Team Masterpost

Redemption by Sedna (truthiness_aura) (T, MCU, 17863 words)

Steven of Stormwind, Paladin of the Silver Hand, has finally made one too many important nobles angry. Now he’s been sent halfway across the world to assist the Alliance’s new members, the draenei. And he’s been assigned to accompany the strangest of them all - Tony, an artificer - on a goodwill mission across the new territory.

Sunshine on Leith by KandiSheek and AvengersNewB (E, MCU, art, 16889 words) ★ Team Masterpost

With the new government law prohibiting the employment of unbonded omegas, Tony has no hope of keeping his job at SHIELD, knowing full well that he has little chance of ever finding a mate. That is until he's officially claimed by a very special alpha: Steven Grant Rogers, also known as Captain America.

Wine and Dine Me by Neverever and BladeoftheNebula (E, MCU, art, 5289 words) ★ Team Masterpost

Four times Steve tries to convince Tony he's ready to put out + the one time it works 😏

[maxwell-grant]

So, which of the alien empires do you like better, the Kree or the Skrulls?

I feel mostly the same way about either, in that I don't particularly care for them in their own right, there is plenty I outright dislike most of them, but they can be useful worldbuilding elements to have around and have led to decent things over the years. I guess if I had to draw a straw here I'd say the Skrulls, but the Skrulls have more asterisks attached. I think the Skrulls have aged poorly overall and seem to be more trouble than they're worth.

It simply was inevitable that the Fantastic Four, at the moment of their inception, would have to deal with little green spacemen bent on world domination, these being shapeshifting Red Scare allegories just being part-and-parcel of what alien invasion stories are generally about at core (well that and antisemitism). Invading armies made of alien races are just kind of grandfathered into superhero settings at this point, like one of those things you have to address or do at some point. I'd say my biggest issue with the Skrulls isn't so much that they exist, and less that they are made to embody ideas I find politically or socially or morally reprehensible (although that is an issue, and Secret Invasion was an abysmally fucking ugly chapter in Marvel history, I'll link these articles by Ritesh Babu and Kelly Kanayama who can better elaborate why), as much as I think they really fall apart as a concept that's meant to exist in a shared universe where everybody's gonna be approaching them with different sensibilities and everybody who does so is gonna do some course-correcting on the previous takes to make their new one stand. They are living breathing allegorical embodiments of The Other who are also meant to pose an actual verifiable threat to the planet, and when you treat that idea seriously, when it’s no longer the 60s and this stuff is no longer given a pass for being charmingly antiquated, what do you do with it?

Are the Skrulls refugees? Are they imperialists? Are they warmongering genocide enthusiasts by nature or are they just regular people abused and groomed into war by their leaders? Are they space capitalists or commies? Are they honorable warriors or filthy backstabbers? Are they evil jihadist extremists hellbent on destroying America? Are we supposed to cheer when the heroes enthusiastically destroy them to save the planet or is this an oh-so-sad why-couldnt-we-get-along thing where the superheroes are very sad they have no choice but to kill them all? Are we meant to distrust the heroes when they attack Skrulls who are clearly not the aggressors or is it just an understandable funny misunderstanding? Are they really just gonna keep ping-ponging between perfect aggressors and perfect victims depending on what is convenient? That just feels irresponsible and too discomforting to me.

And I think that discomfort with their past depictions, with Secret Invasion, with the general fantasy orc problem they carry, is very clear in how modern creators tackle the Skrulls, and so they lean more heavily on making the Skrulls palatable, making them warriors torn between their honor and their loyalty to their dying empire, going hard on the angle of them as refugees displaced by war (which only makes the people at conflict with, the Kree and the superheroes, even less sympathetic in a way that never allows that thread to pan out), making conventionally pretty Skrulls like Hulkling to be "the good ones" in charge, drowning them in white savior bullshit that does little to address that fundamental tension and doesn't even last because eventually the Skrulls will be villains again, eventually it's their turn on the list of old pulp tropes superheroes recycle periodically. Even putting Secret Invasion aside, and you can't, the Skrulls are fundamentally a hostile endless race of alien monsters seeking to infiltrate America's borders by replacing it's people with themselves so they can take over the world. Valuable attempts have been made to flesh them out, but you are just not going to bleed that fascistic validation out of them.

The most I ever liked the Skrulls as a concept is probably in that storyline where Ben Grimm gets captured and sent to a Skrull planet where they are all obsessed with imitating Prohibition-era gangsters and forcing several other captive aliens to battle out, simultaneously allowing The Thing to deal with an upscaled gangster problem and a Star Trek problem and a Flash Gordon problem all in one. Skrulls-as-Space-Gangsters felt like it was onto something, a decent middleground power and threat-wise for them to occupy in the cosmic hierarchy with a niche not occupied by anyone else in the F4 rogues gallery and one that might de-emphasize the inherent xenophobia, open up different nuanced takes without needing to defang their value as an imperial power (and frankly Ben Grimm should be punching gangsters more often, he'd be the first to agree). That might be too limiting, so if there were a step beyond that, I'd suggest doing more on the weird exploration side, go big on the Skrulls as a species of copycats who can be anything and allow for weird alternate scenarios and themes and topics to be touched on, some of that weird anything-goes experimentation that made so much of F4 fun to read.

Skrull utopias, Skrull dystopias, Skrull societies that revolve around cooking competitions (maybe there are Skrulls morphing themselves into meals). Skrull planets doing shonen fighting tournaments, Skrull corporations dissatisfied with the Super-Skrull so they start splicing superpowers from a bunch of others hoping to strike big with the next great warrior, planets that are moving backwards because everytime their Skrulls get dissatisfied with modernity they take a step back on their timeline as literally as possible, Skrulls play-acting their versions of Marvel story arcs that center them as the heroes, a planet that is just the Skrulls doing their version of the DC universe, a city of rocky orange Skrulls who worship Ben as the greatest warrior in the universe, serious debates in Skrull circles over what is the worst form possible to take, roving bands of Skrull hippies trying to find the next cool thing to transform into and mold their identities around, Skrull beauty pageants, etc. I guess most of these are ideas better served outside of the Skrull framework and there's not much getting around the core make-up of these guys, but idk, if the Skrulls are gonna be a thing forever then they should be something that isn't just an Other existing in service of white savior/xenophobic fantasies. Give them their own Monkey Meat-esque anthology series about the things these weirdos endure and do when they aren't getting into spats with superheroes or space fascists or their warring governments.

Oh yeah and there's these guys too, I guess. To be honest I don't think I actually even know what's their deal. I know they are distinct enough from the skrulls due to their superpowers and big hammers and imagery, they come in different colors, they take orders from a big weird mostly-evil supercomputer, they have the Accusers as essentially a police force they've used to murder a bunch of planets with, they created the Inhumans by fucking around with cavemen, and their deal a lot of the time seems to be that they are powerful space fascists, and also that they are responsible for Captain Marvel, which doesn't do a lot to dispel the whole space fascist thing. I do think Ronan is okay though. I liked him allright in his FF debut because, given his introduction, given how he spends every line of dialogue in it flabbergasted at the F4 for daring to oppose his authority and resist his judgement and that of his empire and shocked that they won't simply comply and bow and accept death, it made him maybe thee closest you could get to a evenly-matched Fantastic Four vs The Cops story, which I thought was enough reason to justify him and the Kree as an ongoing element. Hickman also does good stuff with him and the Kree in his Fantastic Four and Avengers runs enough that I am broadly okay with them as a thing, along with the whole reocurring cosmic invader bucket they share with the Skrulls and the Shi'ar and whatever. The best one in that alien invader bucket I'd say is Annihilus, but he is his own degree of freak not really comparable to them.

If I was gonna point to anything between the two that I actually love, not just appreciate but actually really enjoy, it would be the guy in that image speaking the thing on my mind most of the time, Super-Skrull. That is ENTIRELY because he is a very entertaining character in MvC3, not just in terms of his playstyle but his general personality and demeanor, and that was my introduction to him, mostly divorced from the context the Skrulls usually occupy I was very on board with this funny green spaceman with such a cool and busted powerset and such an attitude problem. Charlie Adler does so much for his personality, this hilariously unpleasant egotistical jerk who's spitting and snarling everything he says, jeering and stomping the camera or stomping your opponent after they're down, nobody in the game is quite playing the Heel to the extent Super-Skrull is, and I like that some of his lines and ending emphasize how he's not even really that much of a villain. He is the hero his empire needs, even if he nurtures a rebellious streak, and asks you not to look too much into whenever he breaks character.

[yesbutmakeitgay]

Once Upon A Time I Used To Know A Girl

Chapter 10

Carol Danvers x Reader

Masterlist | This work's masterlist | AO3

Summary: A peek into what Carol has been up to during these trying times.

Angst, Slow Burn, Amnesia.

Word count: 778

A/N: Officially halfway through the fic!!!!

I Tried To Write, But It’s Killing Me Inside

Carol lands her ship on the strange planet and veils it, you both get out all geared up and ready for the last minute mission. The place is hot and sandy with big rocks scattered around, it almost looks deserted.

The Captain scans the area with her eyes, "We should split up to cover more terrain," she instructs, "keep your comms on and meet back here in 15." You give her a nod and do as you're told.

Carol starts walking after she sees you leave, sensing something off about the environment. A couple of minutes go by and she hears you through her ear piece, "Carol, I think someone's here," you whisper.

"Send me your coordinates." She receives some signal but it's too choppy to understand, "Can you hear me?" Her voice growing desperate, "Angel?"

Static.

She turns around as quickly as she can to get back to you, but when she does, she finds a small army of full body armored soldiers waiting for her. They start charging at her with weapons of all sorts and she gets to work on every one of them. When she thinks she's almost done, backup shows up with even bigger weapons. It takes her more than 15 minutes to get through all of them, but when she does she flies back to your meeting point.

She arrives, but doesn't find you there, panic starts to set in her mind. She follows your footprints in the sand until they disappear somewhere down the path. She keeps going and sees a body in the distance, lying against a rock. Upon closer inspection she realizes it's you, unconscious, fully bruised, head bleeding, uniform destroyed.

"Angel?" Her voice is drowning in despair, when you don’t show a reaction she picks you up and rushes you back to the ship. She pilots it as fast as she can to get you to the compound.

"Please wake up." But the next time you did, you didn't know who she was.

Carol takes the Skrull memory device off and gets out of bed, Goose following behind her. She's wearing sweatpants and a Nine Inch Nails t-shirt that she probably hasn't changed all week, there are dark circles in her eyes.

She's been off duty since her last mission and she hasn't left her Louisiana home at all in that time. Her ship is parked in the backyard, veiled and untouched.

As she gets to the kitchen her cell phone starts ringing, she doesn't even look at who's calling before she silences it. "They keep calling," she rasps to Goose, annoyed. She makes coffee and puts some takeout leftovers in the microwave.

They sit at the table with breakfast, "I shouldn't have told her to split up," she mutters into her coffee, "it's all my fault." Goose just meows in return, already having had this conversation everyday for the past few weeks, "I should have known." Carol can't seem to think about anything else, she feels crushing guilt and grief for what happened, but also can't muster the courage to face you.

She picks up a newspaper in an attempt to distract herself. She blinks a few times to get her stinging eyes to focus, but gets stuck rereading the same sentence over and over again, failing to get her brain to process the words. Another call pulls her out of her thoughts, coming through her intergalactic device, "Val," she grumbles, before turning it down. After that, she gives up on the newspaper.

When she's done eating she takes the rest of her coffee to the porch to get some fresh air, Goose sits right beside her, "I should have gotten to her faster." The memory of the mission never leaving her mind, always trying to find a way it could have gone differently, "How did I let this happen?" She’s all out of tears, traces of the past weeks still marking her cheeks.

A third call starts ringing, this time, on her landline. She runs to stop it, but she's too late, the call goes to voicemail, she's about to delete it until she hears Kamala's voice, it is sweet and caring and full of kindness.

"Hey, I know you know we've been calling, please pick up, please, so we can talk. Whatever it is you're trying to achieve, it's not working, you're hurting her a lot more by not being here. You can just come by the compound, we can set something up. You owe it to her. Okay, um, goodbye."

Before even thinking it she pulls the phone cable out of the wall, regretting it immediately, "Fuck!" she yells into the empty house.

Chapter 11

Clap if you missed Carol Danvers!

Tags: @graniairish @carols-photonblast @thelittleliars @unicorniusfallapatorius @prplepeony

Let me know if you wanna be tagged :)

[gelu-the-babosa-multiversal]

man...

For my TFRB x AEMH crossover, I can't stop thinking about the possibilities of when the Skrulls invade earth...

The idea of Skrull Steve going to ¨visit¨ Cody and the rest of the Rescue team to learn more about Griffin Rock and the crazy tech they use to then realize that there's another alien race living hidden on earth... if we use the logic of the episode New Normal where the Velgrox believed that the planet was under Cybertronian control would it mean the same for the Skrulls and Kree??

Tho they may know that Cybertronians are a dying species at this point but then again, find out that Megatron still has an army and tons of big weaponry. Maybe they would think on leaving as it would be logical to them to think that the only outcome of this is Cybertronians destroying earth or the Bots revealing themselves to the public and making the other alien races leave the planet as there are not many other alien species that like Cybertronians...

But going back to Skrull Steve trying to manipulate Cody into showing him the most unhinged tech but Cody being Cody just knows that this isn't Captain America and be like

¨ok, or we become friends or I bring my 4 other giant alien friends to make you speak the beams¨

Which outcome is the best?? idk

Or, Skrulls kidnap Cody because he is the most dangerous of all and replace him with another Skrull while Cody ends up with Steve on the shapeshifter ship...

@bluekat12345 I feel that this is where Cody starts his hero career dhafkjshfsjdhfks

[thebibliomancer]

Earth X #X

What the hell does #X mean??

Well, it means the end. The end of Earth… X. There’s two sequel series after this.

Mar-Vell gets the cover to the last issue. And thank goodness for lens flares because I’m fairly sure he’s very casual Friday.

Earth X. It’s hard to summarize the previous 13 (because #0) issues.

Long story short, the Earth is an egg. All superpowers and mutation are because the Celestials manipulated human evolution to make them guardians of the egg.

The mass mutation of Earth’s population has kicked off 200 years early because Black Bolt set off a terrigen bomb.

A psychic kid called the Skull rose as a Celestial failsafe to control the aggressive and unruly mutated population but Captain America killed him.

So the Celestials landed on Earth to wipe out all life before it threatens the egg but Black Bolt sacrifices himself to shout really loudly into space for Galactus.

Celestials vs Galactus.

Kind of a lose/lose situation for humanity.

The Earth X X issue is double sized. There’s a lot to cover but the subplots have mostly dried up.

Here’s one I’ll get out of the way early.

Reed Richards suddenly remembers that he promised Medusa that he’d help find her missing son.

God. I had completely forgotten about that. It was almost an inciting subplot that got the Inhumans bumping into Reed. But anyway, since Reed got Black Bolt killed, he feels obligated to duck out mid-plot resolution and reunite Medusa and her son.

Who was the new Black Knight all along.

Cool to wrap that up.

But back to the headlining fight.

According to New Watcher Aaron Stack, Galactus is tougher than one Celestial but might get overwhelmed by a Host of them.

And he keeps tinkering with his Galactus machines instead of punching giant space gods.

Luckily, Galactus gets some backup.

Namor toots as he pleases to summon sea monsters to attack the Celestials in the name of ancient-er Atlantis and for the dinosaurs.

He gets smacked aside.

Silver Surfers Norrin Radd and Shalla-Bal attack the Celestials to buy some time. And Shalla-Bal gets blowed up. Dangit, she’d only just been introduced last issue.

Loki brings an army from Hel, after convincing them that death is fake and that their entire identity was imposed on them.

(That’s why he shanked himself last time.)

They buy some time until the Celestials convince them death is real and they drop dead from it.

And during this, Galactus makes some big moves of his own.

I can practically HEAR this panel.

Like a static-y reverbish BWOOOOOOOOM!

Anyway, the Celestials eventually decide “fuck this actually” or however space gods would phrase it. They fuck off back into space.

Which just leaves the problem that now Galactus hunters and there’s a tasty planet right here.

Or whoever new Galactus this is.

Reed Richards turned Galactus into a star. The running narration implied that someone else has filled the vacated role.

Which has all to do with the tiers of mutation discussed in the previous issue.

Tier 1 - everyone has different powers. Ex: Earth right now.

Tier 2 - homogenization of powers into shapeshifting. Ex: the Skrulls or Reed Richards

And revealed this issue Tier 3 - completely malleable in body, mind, and will. Incredibly powerful but constrained by how observers identify them. Ex: the Asgardians.

This Galactus has become Galactus because he believes he’s Galactus and is believed to be Galactus.

But originally his name was

Franklin Richards.

Franklin who has connections to Galactus and has been said to be destined to be the last survivor of this universe the way Galactus was of the previous.

(I don’t know whether all that stuff predates Earth X or was inspired by it. Possible tally marks.)

And Franklin whose name Black Bolt shouted into space, which drew Galactus to Earth to his confusion.

Reed can’t acknowledge Galactus is Franklin, not without leaving the universe without it’s counter to Celestials over-population. But he does suggest that Galactus is known for relocating the populations of the planets he eats. And since Franklactus is influenced by how he is viewed, the universe has a kinder Galactus now.

There’s no planet to relocate Inhumanity to so Galactus just slurps the Celestial embryo right out of Earth and flies off into space with it.

So the day is saved but damn that’s a sad and lonely existence for Franklin.

He doesn’t even get some Radd company because the Silver Surfer is staying on Earth.

Back on the Moon, Aaron Stack gets tired of Uatu’s blah blah blah.

He finds where the old Watcher is hiding, since he has only appeared on a screen. He throws Uatu’s prior dismissal of good and evil and says that evil is “to do nothing in the face of need.”

Then he unplugs Uatu from the observation equipment so that on top of being blind, he also can’t hear anything from Earth. A Watcher with nothing to observe.

“He doesn’t have the right to watch. He took my face.”

Aaron really held that grudge.

So now we get into the epilogues and sequel hooks for Universe X.

Now that he knows that the terrigen mist caused the mass mutation of humanity, Reed has some ideas on how to fix it.

But he’s getting some pushback. There are people who want to keep their cool new superpowers. And T’Challa thinks the mass mutation gave the animal spirits of Wakanda anthro bodies and he won’t endorse a plan that could reverse that.

Peter and May have repaired their relationship. May has been helping Peter get back in shape.

Cop Luke Cage is still after Peter to join the police but Peter laughs off the idea of becoming a cop.

The circus guys that became the new X-Men are going to stick around as X-Men.

I cannot fathom why these guys were given so much focus for the minimal impact they had on the plot. I could not tell you what their personalities or even powers are.

I also don’t understand why Circus Daredevil got so much attention.

Earth X still has its mysteries.

After being given some massive foreshadowing that he’d play a role, Mar-Vell finally shows up when the plot is done!

He assures Reed he’ll be huge in the sequel.

“There’s a lot that’s about to happen, Reed. I’m coming back. I’m coming back to save everyone. And they’re not going to like it.”

????

Reed asks him to clarify but Mar-Vell refuses.

He does find the time to imply he’s going to be born from Perfect Humans Adam Warlock and Her though.

Why? God knows.

Mar-Vell also suggests that the dream he kept giving Bruce was a big brain move to indirectly get Loki aware that the Asgardians are fiction so he’d shank himself, go to Hel, and recruit the inhabitants to help fight the Celestials.

That’s… either very big brain or a complete asspull.

Captain America is still sad he had to murder a child.

Aaron Stack decides he’s going to be the Watchman instead of the Watcher. Sounds like more of an active role and I dunno maybe he likes Alan Moore.

Luna finishes her transformation into a beautiful butterfly lady so she’s ready for her arranged marriage to Black Knight/the Prince. But he has no interest in her.

Oof, that’s rough.

And Reed finishes converting his old vibranium beacon towers into giant devices to siphon and burn the terrigen out of the atmosphere so things can eventually be normal.

He calls them Human Torches because even Reed Richards has his sentimental side.

So that’s Earth X.

I don’t love everything it does but it makes a decent stab at tying everything in Marvel up in a big Celestial-shaped bow. I can appreciate how fleshed out the setting is, how there’s still stuff going on that we don’t know, and how it’s tightly plotted so that a lot of what seems to be random weirdness plays into the resolution.

I like how many prominent heroes go from depressed and beaten down by the past to getting their groove back. Reed Richards, Tony Stark, Peter Parker all start in a bad place and find their heroism again.

The creative team must have been very confident it would succeed since there are SO MANY sequel hooks in the ending.

And it can’t be overstated how much of an impact Earth X had on the rest of Marvel. I tried to call out the times when something from Earth X inspired another Marvel book. And I probably missed a lot because the ideas have become common enough that I didn’t realize they originated here.

But the book never explains what the X in Earth X means so 0 out of 5 stars, bad comic.

[binkywinky]

i still don't understand how carol caused the Kree to collapse like they did. how does destroying their AI cause all of that?

Hmm, I guess it's not explained as clearly in the movies, but I'll try to explain based on what I know of its role in the comics.

The Supreme Intelligence is an AI, yes, but it's more pervasive than something like Jarvis. It was the ruler of the Kree civilization, it was their government, and it was their religion.

It dictated everything from what "role" an individual had in Kree society to literal population control. For example, the Kree have DNA samples from several dead high profile Kree members and use that DNA to create children from them. It's how Mar-Vell has so many damn kids in the comics despite never meeting them - they were born in a lab using Mar-Vell's DNA sample.

Giving people specific roles allows them to control every aspect of Kree life. Everyone from who is a scientist to who is a warrior to who is a sanitation worker is specified by the Supreme Intelligence. And everyone is taught to follow the laws as created by the Supreme Intelligence in order to ensure the best possible outcome for the Kree Empire's survival.

The Kree also worshipped the Supreme Intelligence like a god. It's essentially the religion of the Kree, and they are indoctrinated from birth to believe they are the most superior race in the universe and are destined to rule everywhere and control everyone, by any means necessary. That's what led them to war time and time again, such as with the Skrulls.

So imagine then when Carol comes in and fucking destroys this thing. It's not just a power vacuum that's created - it's chaos. When you live in a society where every single aspect of your life is controlled, what the hell is gonna happen when the very thing controlling you just disappears?

On the surface, it looks like you have freedom, which is what Carol thought. But the Supreme Intelligence cultivated a fascist, imperialistic civilization with such an intense dogma that there's no way it's just gonna disappear because the Supreme Intelligence blew up one day. And while the Supreme Intelligence was insane, it kept order. Without it, you're left with extremists that have advanced armies, like Ronan and Dar-Benn, who will use their skills to carry out that doctrine by any means necessary. And of course they have different approaches and each see themself as The One to bring their people glory, so what happens then? You get all these people trying to fill that vacuum, and there's no longer any order. None of them have the ability to reach and control everyone like the Supreme Intelligence did, and that allows for factions to form and dissent and conflict to fester.

So then who is enforcing the laws? Who is controlling the population? Who is making sure the society maintains an equilibrium that keeps the empire in a position to sustain for years to come? No one. All these conflicting interests lead to a civil war, and that's how you run out of food. That's how you get poor air quality. That's how the sun starts dying (based on the assumption that the sun is artificial because a sun isn't gonna die in 30 years unless it was already dying). They used up all their resources fighting amongst themselves, and by the time they stopped, it was too late to reverse the more extensive damage.

So, yeah... that's how Carol's actions led to the collapse of the Kree Empire. Personally, I'd say indirectly because they did it to themselves, but her taking out the Supreme Intelligence absolutely was the catalyst.

[artbyblastweave]

What do you mean, Reed Richards brainwashed a bunch of captured Skrulls into thinking they were cows? How? Why? What happened to them? Why?

In the second issue of Fantastic Four, The skrulls, in their debut appearance, attempted to get the army to kill the FF by impersonating them and wrecking havok. When the runaround was over the captive skrulls agreed to turn into cows and be hypnotized into forgetting their previous identities in lieu of being executed. Now obviously this was, like, a silly throwaway resolution so they could get to the next adventure. Par for the course for the 60s. Unfortunately, under the pens of Grant Morrison and Mark Millar, said cows later got slaughtered and converted into hamburgers, and the people who ate those hamburgers contracted a mad-cow-analogous disease that gave them skrull-like shape-changing powers as well as the ability to detect, and the irrational impulse to murder, hidden skrulls. They formed a team called the Skrull Kill Krew and proceeded to travel around the country doing what their name implies that they do. When Secret Invasion happened, Reed Richards specifically was tortured pretty badly by the skrulls in retaliation for the whole affair.

[justwriteryan]

Part 2: the White Event.

Planet Earth always had some degree of protection from the darker forces in the galaxy, even if they didn’t know it. Unfortunately, at the time of the Chitauri Invasion many of these powers were already engaged in conflicts across the cosmos.

The Nova Corps were deeply embroiled in the ongoing Kree-Skrull War, so failed to notice when a legion of Chitauri attacked Terra. Captain Marvel, Earth’s own champion among the stars was fighting her own one-woman war against her former Kree oppressors and at the same time providing safe passage and asylum for Skrull refugees.

Asgard had always kept a weathered eye on the affairs of the mortal world from afar. The recent destruction of the Bifrost, however, meant that they lacked the means or the manpower to defend Midgard. Reconstruction of the Rainbow Bridge went slowly and seven other realms still required protection from bandits and warlords’ eager for plunder.

The Sorcerers of Kamar-Taj held sanctums in major cities across the globe. From the Sanctum Sanctorum in Greenwich Village the Ancient One herself helped repel Chitauri marauders completely undetected by the troops on the ground. But as the nuclear missile approached, she hastily strengthened the building’s protection spells to withstand the impact and enchant the brownstone to appear as another crumbling ruin in a bombed city. Back at their stronghold in Kamar-Taj, the Ancient One decreed that the Chitauri invasion was not a metaphysical threat to their reality and so it was not their responsibility to intervene further. Already simmering tensions began to rise among the other masters at this news. Kaecillius, already growing disillusioned with their leader’s refusal to act, argued against staying hidden while the planet faced a danger like never before. Wong believed that contact with extra-terrestrial life of this magnitude was inevitable, but it was their duty to stand guard for threats like Mephisto or Dormammu. This discourse carried on and on, while Loki’s armies remained unopposed from the only magic practitioners with the skill to match his.

                                               **********************

Four weeks had passed since New York City was occupied by foreign invaders. The perimeter manned by military, National Guard and SHIELD stood strong. Loki’s forces, bolstered by an army of Frost Giants were fully entrenched in the ruins of the city and thwarted every attempt to breach their base. A stalemate had descended on the war torn region. A stalemate that would break that very night.

As the sun set over the Manhattan skyline, a military base south of Brooklyn detected a change in the local atmosphere. Although it was still June, thermal readings showed the temperature around the base begin to drop. One of the officers standing guard noticed movement coming the shadows under the horizon. They watched as a swirling, bubbling mass emanated from the twilight. It grew in height, stretched in diameter, until a dense white vapour could be seen gliding over the abandoned suburbs and ravaged highways. The air grew colder and colder as a great freezing most approached the base, buffeted by an icy wind. Commands were barked, positions manned and artillery prepped for deployment. As the mist swept over the base, the temperature plummeted below zero. Teeth chattered, frost formed across the ground and any equipment not built to withstand polar conditions quickly short circuited and was rendered inert.

Still the temperature fell. Surveillance systems went down. Then communications. Finally, the floodlights blew out. The encampment was totally enveloped by the mysterious fog and completely cut off from support. An order was given to fire flares into the darkening sky. As the last flare was shot, the red blinking light cast shadows on what appeared to be extraordinarily tall men with pale blue skin, charging towards the base on foot and covering great distance in long, loping strides. The commander of the base gave the order to open fire. What the Jotunn warchief bellowed at his reavers, no human could translate.

Six hours later, the sun rose. The freezing mist dissipated and the air became thick and humid once more. Army transport vehicles and medical vans that had been kept at bay by the freak weather conditions rushed to the base. Representatives from different military and intelligence services hurried to the scene, helmet cams relaying footage to the White House, Pentagon and Triskelion. When the convoy was not met by guards at the gate, their worst fears were confirmed.

Yesterday this had been a bustling military base with a barracks of three hundred troops and a state of the art command centre on the frontlines of a border war. Today it was the site of a massacre. Bodies and body parts lay in every direction. Walls and fences had been smashed as something through them. Tents had been flattened and trampled as if by a stampede. Armoured trucks had been rolled over and crushed. The radio tower had been pulled down and snapped into pieces. A Chinook helicopter had been ripped in two. And everywhere, all over the blood sodden ground, clearly distinguishable among the melting frost and sloshing mud were giant footprints, criss-crossing in a frenzied pattern with no indication of order. The only object standing upright among the devastation was a lone flagpole. The flag unfurled itself, without wind, as if commanded to by an unseen force. The banner displayed a green field emblazoned by a golden helmet with two long, curved horns.

Twenty-four hours later, inside an aircraft hangar not far from Washington D.C., General Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross addresses a select gathering of individuals.

“You’ve all seen the footage. At twenty-one hundred hours a joint operations encampment along the New York Perimeter was swamped by a weather anomaly the media are calling “the White Event”. By sunrise, it had been neutralised. With prejudice. There were no survivors. The despot who seized control of our most beloved city just showed the world that he’s ready to take this conflict to the next stage. So are we. Conventional methods of ground and air combat have failed and any suggestions of risking the nuclear option on U.S. soil again get laughed out of the room. But the late Nick Fury did have one good idea. The Avengers Initiative works in principle but the candidates Fury selected…well, let’s not speak ill of the dead. The World Security Council feel it needs a new direction. People with experience in military action, air force levels of endurance, a lifetime of espionage and intelligence gathering. People who can make the hard choices and still toe the line because that is what they’ve been trained to do! I have convinced the powers that be that you, assembled here, are the heroes this country needs.”

Joining the General in this meeting is Colonel James Rhodes, WAR MACHINE. 

Ava Starr, GHOST enhanced SHIELD black ops specialist. 

Darren Cross, head of Pym Technologies, wearing a silver and yellow mech suit: YELLOWJACKET

Justin Hammer, former C.E.O. of HAMMER INDUSTRIES.

and the enormous, shackled figure of Emil Blonsky, the ABOMINATION.

Abomination snorts at the General before him. “You want us to be Avengers?”

“No.” Ross replied. “The Avengers was Fury’s. This team will be mine.”

“Do we still work for SHIELD, then?” asks Ava.

“You heard him.” answered Rhodes, looking directly at the General. “We’re Thunderbolt’s.”

[theknightlywolfe]

Thoughts on Agatha All Along since I gave in to watch it since people on Tumblr seem allergic to tagging their spoilers.

I know it was inevitable but I am annoyed we didn't get Lilia's trial before she was killed off.

Why did amnesia Billy/William go goth-lite? There was no indication from either boy's life. Did he just realize he was gay and randomly choose that from the twink aesthetic catalogue? Did he go with it once he heard about witches and decided to lean into the commercialized version of that aesthetic that they had the whole co-opted culture rant about? If so, that would be hilarious. A bunch of witches stuck with a little fanboy in a Spirit Halloween costume of them the whole time.

I think the potion didn't work for Sharon/Mrs. Hart because they forgot to add her hair to the potion, not because she had drunk more of the wine.

It's going to be interesting to see how the passing of time on the Road vs regular world goes. Because we are talking about a regular of Westview life and a teenage boy just up and disappearing for a while. Lillia can close her shop and it's whatever, Alice just lost her job, and Jen it would make sense she went into hiding to avoid the charges. But Sharon and Billy were expected home for dinner soon. Knowing Marvel, they're just going to ignore that.

Given that only two witches can make it off the road, are they going to loophole Billy (and/or Rio?) since he wasn't one of the witches who summoned the road (or because they're going to technicality him into something not a witch), are they going to end it by trapping/killing Agatha in the vein of destroying the last of Vision in Wandavision so everyone knows there's no s2, is the other witch who made it off the road with Agatha the first time going to come into play (watch, it's Rio), or is Rio not going to make it? I can't imagine, with the poorly done hints at assembling the Young Avengers, that they're going to kill Billy. Also, let's be real, it's still Disney and their execs get nasty at the suggestion of killing children in their media, especially on screen.

The whole jade egg thing was hilarious.

How has Agnes been surviving for three years? Especially with the implication that she randomly goes cuckoo. Is Ralph still paying the mortgage and utilities in the hope he eventually gets the house back? Is she normal enough long enough to hold down temporary jobs to cover her bills and maintain friendships with the neighbors? Especially since they show up to bring her food and make sure she's okay when she does go cuckoo and they all know she didn't live there before Wanda showed up. Does Agnes have access to Agatha's bank accounts and has just been unknowingly draining her savings?

I really need one of those Bohner family tshirts.

On a tangent:

If they are going to Young Avengers Billy, I am even more annoyed at the implication that Kate and maybe Yelena are going to be part of that. Yelena is 30, Kate is going into her mid 20s, and Billy, Kamala, America, and Cassie are mid teens. And how is Shang Chi supposed to fit in? Are they ignoring Secret Invasion or are we really going to see Super Skrulls? If so, what good will Kate and Yelena be except as coordinators and trainers? Billy is the most powerful living witch, America is a universe jumper and wizard, Kamala has super powers and bangles which can build intergalactic wormholes, and Cassie can shrink into a realm where physics work differently and from where she can summon a multi-powers army of friends. Kate and Yelena fight good. Which is kinda useless against Hulk power Skrulls.

If they're going to ignore Secret Invasion the way they seem inclined to ignore Eternals and they're dropping whatshisface because of the actor's legal troubles and poor audience response, then what is the new generation going to be fighting? And if it's basic foot soldier invasion at a level two non-powered mortals can deal with, then what do we need Shang Chi, Kamala, America, and Billy for? I mean, even with everything the Avengers dealt with, the heroes were pretty low level power wise until the last Thanos battle. Thor didn't have his full powers and they're still kind of weak, Wanda didn't know the full extent of her powers, Vision was so busy waiting for Tony to give him orders he never actually used any of his real power, and the rest were mortals. Like, yeah, Cap and Hulk could hit hard but what good is that against Shang Chi or Billy?

So, what? The new full Avengers will be Sam and Shang Chi, with Katie along for the ride to fill the archer role and maybe Yelena, maybe She-Hulk? And then the Young Avengers will be Kate and Cassie and a few planet destruction level super powereds? And if they are going to split Hawkeye 2.0 and Widow 2.0, why bother introducing them to each other and making them be friendly.

And, again, if they are going to give everyone amazing archery skills, why bother with Kate Bishop at all? Kamala has plucky optimism and knows Fury, America has the active connections to the OGs through Strange and Wong as does Cassie in some ways, and Billy brings the purple. Kate has no tactical or strategic training or knowledge, no powers, and while the rest have experience with super powered battles, Kate has ... fought gang members.

And really, how stupid to have all the powers be on a Young Avengers roster while the only person in the potential new full Avengers who would maybe even survive a battle between them is Shang Chi. Because with what they have done since Endgame, all the powers except for him are with teenagers. Shang Chi is the only super powered who can walk in a bar. Are we going to have to wait eight years for them all to be acceptably aged? Is a Disney owned studio really going to lean into child soldiers? Is Sam just gonna swan off and do his own thing and not build a new Avengers team? Is Shang Chi gonna be a Young Avenger? Or is he gonna be the new Strange, there when needed but not really an Avenger.

Is Billy going to be the new big bad? His mom destroyed the Darkhold and the throne room place so he doesn't exactly have the path to world ruling and her full power. And again, is Disney really going to be okay with sending teenagers to kill each other in bloody battle? If Agatha might be the new big bad after she gets her powers back in the show, then they only need to send Shang Chi and Kamala against her since their power weapons are tech not magic and she can't steal them. Or maybe Billy distracts her while Yelena sniper rifles her from behind.

If they just let their stories run, fine, but they hint at team ups that just make no sense.

[alienpossession]

Only Secret Invasion can literally drag me back to Tumblr lol and make a post in the middle of such hectic week

Hhhhhhhhh.....first of all, for a series about shapeshifting alien, I feel like they can have more scene of the shapeshifting, especially for Pagon, I guess I really have a crush on the character lol

It's canon now that Skrulls Pagon is mimicking Russian commander or some sort by this scene and boy, the moment the series ended, my mind directly focused on that sole fact and went to the absolute wilderness with all this schematic on how the Skrulls managed to infiltrate Russian Army and FSB and then basically utilized the commander's powerful position to not only get more Skrulls posed as soldier, but also making all those kind of military authorization that led the Skrulls can set up a base at New Skrullos

I literally can write a literal series solely on two storyline alone, the Skrulls infiltration of the Russian military and intelligence system and the American Against Russia plot point -.-

And don't let me start on Brogan (the beanie guy)......he literally can be utilized in so many scenes to recruit more shells for the Skrull from Americans Against Russia membership base -.-

All in all, thanks for triggering my fantasy LMAO, I might even write a story right about now just because of the finale and the overall series potential that is not further explored

Oh.....one more note

What the heck is this character do other than just simply existing? He's Skrull High Council member and I literally imagined him to be some kind of Triad kingpin, Korean crime lord or some sort and he's controlling drug empire from East Asia while having his right hand man and closest bodyguard also replaced by Skrulls

Lol I really need to control myself with this obsession

[thenightslayers-musings]

Marvel event guide 2: The Kree Skrull War

Roy Thomas, Sal Buscema, Neal Adams, John Buscema

Avengers 89-97

Characters involved: The Avengers (Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, Vision, Scarlett Witch, Quicksilver, Goliath (Clint Barton), Captain Marvel, Rick Jones, Ronan the Accuser, The Kree High supreme intelligence, Annihilus.

Summary: The war between the Kree and Skrull heats up, and the Avengers, (Including their allies, Captain Marvel and Rick Jones) find themselves caught up in the middle of it, Subplots involve, a prehistoric jungle in the arctic, The avengers are attacked by cows, The Vision and the Scarlet witch have a romance plot, Captain Marvel and Rick Jones continue their symbiotic relationship years before Eddie Brock was a thing and is your neighbor an alien? If so,Report them to the Anti-human activities department

Are there tie-ins?: Nope, but there are a lot of backstories, like Fantastic Four, Avengers, Captain Marvel (Mar-vel)

Epic Marvel moment: Well, there’s two. The popular one people love is the Rick Jones using metal powers to summon an army of Golden Age superheroes to fight. But personally I enjoyed Ant-Man's journey into the Vision's body, a really good fantastic journey story where we see just how crazy the android avengers body is.

The past was a mistake: Hank Pym slaps his wife (No, it’s not that issue) off a Dragonfly to stop her going into a prehistoric jungle. Yes it stops her from becoming a caveman but still.

These are our heroes?: The vision beats up a Skrull after he’s been beaten, in all fairness other characters call him out on it, and it’s more of that delicious Marvel drama.

Has it been adapted?: In some ways, Avengers: Earth mightiest heroes throughout its run, and Captain Marvel did as well, so did Superhero squad.

Is the adaptation any good?: Avengers Earth’s mightiest heroes is excellent, Captain Marvels also something I liked at least.

What happened Afterward: The Kree and Skrull would continue to attack the Marvel universe, Captain Marvel would continue to have adventures with the Avengers and next time would go against Thanos, years later it would turn out that Iron Man lead a group of heroes to the Skrull home world to warn them not to bother with earth, It did not work well for them.

Should you read it?: Yes. As much as there’s a lot of backstory to catch up on, it’s a great space opera, mixed with some great character work with the avengers and some really great sci-fi stuff with Captain Marvel and Rick Jones

[dazzasarchives]

Fantastic Four Vol 1 Issue 2.

So in the last post I went over the start of the Marvel 616 universe with the debut of Marvels first family. The Fantastic Four. Well this is their second outing in the world of heroism, and my second outing in the world of reviewing these. So here's my flamin hot takes from this issue. Man the Human Torch would have loved that last phrase. Anyway let's start.

So this issue starts with what we the readers are to believe are the Fantastic Four commiting several crimes around the world. Well turns out that it isn't them, it's an alien race known as the Skrulls, you may have heard of the Skrulls from the MCU movie Captain Marvel, and the show Secret Invasion. Though I do find it interesting that they did aliens right in the second issue.

Well our Fantastic team is rightfully blamed for the crimes, though they escape the United States military. They then set about a way of stopping the Skrull invasion of earth. How do they do this you may ask. Well they discover the Skrulls ship, disguised as a Water Tower. They then travel to the Skrull flagship, and then convince them that they shouldn't invade earth because of the awful creatures that live there. If you think they mean humans they definitely don't, they use clippings of monsters from other Marvel Comics. Which the Skrull leader believes and they just leave earth, and the Fantastic Four convince the Skrull leader to leave them behind as like a sacrifice.

Then they return to earth and convince the United States military, and also police that aliens that can shape shift have been doing this, granted at least now they have some evidence with the water tower spaceship. Never thought that would be a sentence I'd write. They then go and defeat the Skrulls and Mister Fantastic uses Hypnosis on them to have the Skrulls turn into cows, and basically live their lives as cows until the end of time. It is the wackiest ending so far, but I feel like wackier is still to come.

Alright on to my favorite part, talking about the main characters of this issue. Again I'll be starting with the heroes. So that means first up is Mister Fantastic.

I don't mind Mister Fantastic in this issue. It's just I still can't comprehend that he is the smartest man in the world. So far his ideas are something I would have thought up as super cool on the playground and would've most likely had the ideas rejected. Anyway he's at the same stage that I had him last issue, no true change yet for the leader of the Fantastic Four.

Next up is the leading lady of the group The Invisible Girl.

Again Sue Storm also doesn't change for me. She still hasn't done a whole lot for the team yet. She's either been a damsel in distress or kind of just there because she has to be. I think the best part about her this issue is when she just turns invisible and slips past to Army guards. Again another character that hasn't changed for me but I would really like to see her get better.

Next up is the Hot Head himself The Human Torch.

Honestly for this issue Johnny is a lot more likeable. I mean he's hot headed and does his own thing, but I like him more so this issue than the last. He's still not my favorite member but I'd prefer him over the last two members.

Next is the final member of the Fantastic Four, The Thing.

Definitely my favorite character this issue once again. I just can't help but to feel bad for this guy. First he transforms back to his original human form only briefly before being reverted back into the Thing. Also Sue is still a bit scared of him, which I'm like come on, you've been around him several times so you should at least be ok with his appearance. Anyway Thing is by far my top favorite of the Fantastic Four.

Now for our Antagonists, the shape shifting Skrulls.

I really don't mind the Skrulls, it's a fun concept having your heroes essentially fight themselves. Though I really find the ending all too funny to take seriously. These four Skrulls turn into cows and live that way basically forever. It's just so, anticlimactic.

Anyway that's my take on the second issue of the Fantastic Four. I can't wait to get into the third one, hopefully by then our team will have some super suits, until next time.

I do not own the images in this post they are a product of Marvel Comics.

Down below is the link to the website I use to keep these books in chronological order, you should definitely check it out here:

Also if you wanna catch up and look at the previous issue follow this link:

If you'd like to check out the next post in the series please follow this link here: