This week in Secret Invasion:
Secret Invasion: Who Do You Trust?


This week’s dip into the Secret Invasion involved several short stories that fill in a few gaps and create several more.

Part 1: Captain Marvel
Chapter 1 explains the actions leading up to Captain Marvel’s decision to attack Thunderbolts mountain in Secret Invasion #1. The rationale is a bit convoluted, so it makes me wonder if someone called an audible late in the game when they figured out something didn’t make sense.

Captain Marvel finds out that the data he swiped from the Skrulls makes mention of an invasion but gives no insight on how it’s going to happen. As a result, he decides to give himself up to the Skrulls, pretending to be loyal to the cause. They know that his secret identity programming went wrong, and that he’s a Skrull with Kree Mar-Vell’s personality intact. But now he tells them he wants to be part of their invasion, and his reason? He wants to help save Earth as a willing participant of the Skrulls’ destructive forces.

See, he’s figured out that evil has infected good on Earth, and he’s going to use his destructive powers in judgment of that evil. And this is why we see him laying waste to Thunderbolts mountain in Secret Invasion #1 — the Thunderbolts are just a bunch of villains, working for the government with little to no restrictions. They’re only “good guys” because they’re branded as such. So as a Skrull double agent, he gets to participate in the Invasion and take out Earth’s own infiltrators.

Past Implications:
I didn’t really get why Mar-Vell attacked Thunderbolts mountain at first. My initial read on it was that maybe his Skrull programming was powerful enough to send him on some involuntary destructive mission, but his underlying Kree personality was what made him hesitate to kill. Now we know he was fully aware of what he was doing when he launched his attack.

Chapter 2: Agent Brand
As she floats in space following Dum Dum Dugan’s destruction of the Peak satellite base in Secret Invasion #1, Agent Brand reminisces on her early days in S.W.O.R.D. while debris passes by.

She first recalls meeting Mister Deems, a high-functioning autistic agent who analyzes alien body language for clues to their motivations and intentions. They bring attention to Dalx, the Skrull cultural attaché — “the guy they wheel out to smile at us between atrocities,” one of the workers says. The agents are fixated on his finger-tapping during meetings, analyzing the frequency, looking for potential codes or messages broadcast via the taps.

The next flashback is when Deems shows her the Skrull 3-D TV, which he observes to get a better understanding of their culture. He and Brand watch what appears to be a Skrull soap opera, where one Skrull confesses to another that he’s been poisoning his meals for years, declaring “My war against you did not begin when it was declared.”

The third flashback is of Agent Brand’s face-to-face meeting with Dalx. A conversation about religion turns to Brand’s belief in “insurance” — preferring to put her stock in revenge rather than faith in an afterlife or inherent spiritual good. At that point, Dalx says “Insurance policies have exclusions, do they not? For example, you cannot be insured against a disease you’ve already contracted.”

She leaves the party to join up with Deems, who is still analyzing Dalx’s finger-tapping, no closer to a solution. Brand tells him to drop it.

Back in the present, while floating through satellite debris, Brand puts the pieces together. It was not the tapping itself that was significant — it was what Dalx was tapping on — a copy of The Iliad. He said “Enemies — acting as friends — to achieve a goal.” The Skrull war on Earth did not begin when it was declared — Earth had already contracted the disease. The attackers within the Trojan Horse were just waiting for the right time.

Brand floats herself over to what appears to be a ship, climbs inside and says “You dropped your pants and you mooned me, you sons of grass-green whores. You get to do that exactly once!”

Past Implications:
This story didn’t really tell us anything more than we already knew. The Invasion has been planned for a long time. Unless of course there was some other clue I missed here. But considering they showed a close-up of The Iliad with a picture of the Trojan Horse on the cover, I’m guessing this story wasn’t the vehicle for another secret. I could be wrong.

The main thing this story established was that Brand survived the Peak explosion and she’s back in the game, to be seen next in Secret Invasion #4. It also helped establish her for everyone who wasn’t reading Astonishing X-Men. She has the potential to be an interesting character, so I’m glad she’s getting exposure outside of the fairly self-contained Whedon / Cassaday world. The only problem is that Secret Invasion’s roster of smart-aleck, tough-as-nails female leads — S.H.I.E.L.D. deputy director Maria Hill, Howling Commando Daisy Johnson and S.W.O.R.D. director Agent Brand — all seem to have fairly interchangeable personalities. At least Brand doesn’t have short black hair.

Chapter 3: Beast and Wonder Man
This story picks up in the middle of the Savage Land confrontation that really hasn’t gone anywhere in three issues of Secret Invasion, but has been fleshed out considerably in several other books.

Spaceship Beast and Mighty Avenger Wonder Man get separated from the main battle after the T-Rex interferes, and they fall into a big spider cave. Spaceship Beast kicks off the drama by asking “So which Wonder Man are you?” putting Wonder Man on the spot to prove he’s the original. Wonder Man counters that Beast is the phony, because “The Beast doesn’t look like that anymore.” Spaceship Beast is the old Beast, or at least Beast Phase II, when he was furry and blue but still basically had Hank McCoy’s face.

Beast keeps referring to old adventures he and Wonder Man had together, such as when the two took on Red Ronin. Wonder Man starts to join in the reminiscing, then quickly catches himself and says “I don’t care if you’ve memorized all our old cases, it’s not going to work.”

When Wonder Man keeps resisting Beast’s attempt at joint banter, Beast poses the question: “What’s more likely, some convenient ‘secondary mutation, or that the real Hank McCoy was replaced by someone else? A pretty clever way to avoid having to duplicate someone exactly, don’t you think?”

The two then discuss the end to their friendship, as Wonder Man explains Beast’s change in personality. He admits it was fun and he misses it. So this seems like clear set-up for Beast to turn on Wonder Man, as Wonder Man has finally let his guard down and trusts Beast. And sure enough, Beast does turn on Wonder Man, but it’s because he assumes Wonder Man is a Skrull. “If you could be a Skrull and not know it, well … I just can’t take any chances,” he says essentially to himself, because he knows Wonder Man is buried back in the cave.

But then he closes, while swinging away, by saying “You can’t trust anyone anymore, not even your best friend … and especially not yourself.”

Past Implications:
So I don’t know what Beast’s closing comment means. If Beast is a Skrull and knows he’s a Skrull, one might argue his speech about Wonder Man being a Skrull was just designed to make Wonder Man paranoid. Except for the fact that Beast was already out of earshot when he said it.

One thing we know — it is highly unlikely that they’re both Skrulls, because there would be no point in fighting each other. So that leaves three likely scenarios:

1. Wonder Man is a Skrull, and Beast is the real deal, which means that some of the people on the spaceship are real. This opens up the possibility that Mockingbird is the real one and especially that the Wonder Man on the space ship is the real one.

2. Both of them are the real deal. Carries the same implications.

3. Either or both is a Skrull but doesn’t know it yet. I have a feeling this “I’m a Skrull but don’t know it yet” thing is going to be used to cover up continuity problems.

If this was indeed the real Beast, I figured he’d try to trap Wonder Man in an error to prove Wonder Man’s phoniness. So I assumed that the two never tangled with Red Ronin, but I looked it up and Beast and Wonder Man did battle Red Ronin in Avengers #198.

I kind of like the idea of this being the real Beast. I don’t really care for how Beast has changed in the past decade, especially with his stupid lion face. It also gives a potential new level of meaning to Beast and Brand’s cooperation in Astonishing X-Men.

It also raises extra suspicion regarding The White Queen. She’s had probably the most dramatic change of all the people on the Skrull ship (with the exception of people who faced death), and she has also been the recipient of the now-suspect secondary mutations. Maybe Marvel wants to deliver a complete F-you to Grant Morrison … they already undid his work with Magneto … why not go ahead and undo what he did to Beast, Emma Frost and even Jean Grey while they’re at it? I realize the future stuff regarding Phoenix makes that last one pretty improbable, but Emma Frost was involved in the Sentry storyline in Bendis’ New Avengers. And she’s obviously positioned to be a potential infiltrator.

I’ve seen some speculation that Cyclops is a Skrull. Inviting the real Emma to be part of the X-Men would definitely take some suspicion off him. It makes him look bad in the short term, but it’s not like untrusting X-Men are going to be looking for reasons to doubt him when Emma Frost is hanging out there.

Chapter 4: Marvel Boy
This story takes place immediately prior to the scene in Secret Invasion #1 when Marvel Boy responds to the massive prisoner release at The Cube by saying it’s “Time to go.” Marvel Boy was imprisoned in The Cube after attempting to wage war against Earth due to the events of the Marvel Boy miniseries. He had secretly taken over The Cube, building a new Kree base inside it, unbeknownst to S.H.I.E.L.D. We learn here that he was planning to use mental rehabilitation to build an army out of the prisoners. He utilizes temporary mental control over the former Cube warden so as to not raise the suspicions of S.H.I.E.L.D.

This had the potential to be a very interesting premise, but a Skrull infiltrator at The Cube disrupts the Kree “Plex” programming, releasing the positive-vibe mental hold on the prisoners, which then triggers the human agents’ violent response. So the Skrulls set up a situation for the guards and the inmates to kill each other, and Marvel Boy leaves to take care of things himself.

Past Implications:
This really didn’t amount to much, in spite of what seemed like a promising start. We learn a little more about Marvel Boy’s intentions, but the events of this chapter leave us exactly where we started. If nothing else, it gives readers more insight into Marvel Boy’s anti-Skrull, anti-human stance. He’ll likely be some kind of asset in Secret Invasion only because an “Enemy of my enemy is my friend” situation.

Chapter 5: The other Marvel Boy, a Skrull and the Agents of Atlas
Portland, Oregon is under Skrull attack! They’re blowing stuff up and neutralizing the humans with some kind of gas, and they’ve captured Namora, who has just killed “Super Skrull Alpha.” This dead Skrull has hairy arms like Sasquatch, which first led me to believe that maybe Sasquatch wasn’t the lone survivor of The Collective’s attack on Alpha Flight, but the Skrull also appears to have Shaman’s belt and Guardian’s costume. So it’s probably just another one of those multi-pack Skrulls and nothing more.

The Skrull monologue sheds some fantastic light on the registration act, saying that registration has given the Skrull advance teams solid intelligence on what types of superhuman threats to expect. They also refer to their “paranoia campaign,” which successfully cut off Namora and the other Agents of Atlas from the rest of the superheroes.

The Skrull narrating this story is captured by Atlas and taken to their secret fortress, inside Golden Age Marvel Boy’s flying saucer at the bottom of a river. Marvel Boy dissects the Skrull’s body as its head watches, attached to technology that scans its brain for Skrull secrets.

The Skrulls find them, so Marvel Boy, Venus, Gorilla Man, the Human Robot and the rest of the Atlas gang fight back. By tapping into the Skrull’s brain, Marvel Boy finds the right frequency to pass on to Venus, which she then transmits through her voice, as a mythological Siren. This leads the Skrulls to begin marching in the water to their deaths, but Venus stops — “I can’t do it,” she says. “They’re not evil.”

Marvel Boy says there is no malevolence in the Skrull’s brain, and their claims that they would not hurt humans back in Portland were actually true. “They believe it’s our destiny to be one civilization … without suffering,” MB says. James Woo ponders the idea that maybe the Skrulls actually do want to live together in peace.

Doesn’t matter, because he says “…from where I stand, those are green men from outer space trying to take over the Earth,” and then tells M-11 to kill them all with his death ray.

Past implications:
This did a good job of setting up the Agents of Atlas as a covert anti-Skrull team. I had absolutely no knowledge of them before this.

I thought it was clever to mention the tactical benefits of the Registration Act, giving such a significant Marvel event some added importance.

The big thing here is the idea that the Skrulls aren’t here to kill everyone. I think this is the first we’ve seen of that concept. They’ve certainly had no problem killing plenty of people so far, though maybe that’s just all that wartime justification.

It may be that the whole invasion has been misinterpreted. Or it could be that some of the Skrulls are working with one set of motivations and another group has other plans. But that revelation has the potential to drastically complicate things throughout the rest of the event.