Let's have a game of guess the Skrull

[angelophile]

Since Marvel seem to be starting promotion on the whole Secret Skrull Wars or whatever it's called, I'm gonna have a guess at who turns out to be a Skrull in disguise across the Marvel Universe.




Let's see, book by book...

Mighty Avengers - The most obvious Skrulls are here, I think. The fact that the majority of characters have had inconsistant and rotten characterization since before Civil War is just down to Bendis being an awful writer when it comes to any mainstream book, not anything deliberate, or I'd be claiming the whole Marvel Universe has been Skrulls since prior to House of M. But in the Avengers camp, there's obviously Lindy (the Sentry's wife) who was fridged by Ultron and then turned up alive and well the next issue. Then there's Jarvis, who as Tony's commandant confidant is in a unique position of trust to manipulate and gain insider knowledge without, y'know, actually being important in any way. The only Skrull on the team itself? I'm calling Black Widow, who's been constantly trying to screw with people in an un-Natasha-like way (even more so than Bendis's normal character assassinations) and over in Incredible Herc, set Cho on the road to being a supervillain and freed the rebellious Herc to cause shit.

New Avengers - Don't read this book eiher, so I'm not sure what hints have been given in-book, but from stuff posted at Scans_daily, I'm assuming it's already revealed that Luke and Jessica's baby is part Skrull. Since Jessica seems to have picked the perfect time to leave Luke to distract from his mission to discover more about the Skrull invasion, I'm calling it on her too. Also, Tigra. Yep, I know Bendis hates the character enough to put her through regular misogynistic beatings anyway, but I figure his justification for treating her so terribly will be "Look! Skrull! She deserved it!" That and she too betrayed the New Avengers, claiming that everyone knew their location and setting the supervillains on them. Again, not sure about the whole thing of SHIELD knowing where the rebel Avengers are hiding out and doing nothing about it and it's conveniently timed to break the team up. On the team itself, I figure maybe Ironfist could be a Skrull, but I'm guessing probably not.

In terms of big guns on the Avengers teams, there's no way that Spider-man will be a Skrull, having just gone through a character-raping status quo shift in his books, Wolverine is seriously unlikely, Iron Man - definitely not, Marvel still seem to be bipolar on him, wanting everyone to love him and believe he's in the right while simultanously portraying him as the worst kind of fascist - the Sentry's a no, too nuts, Luke Cage is too much a pet character. Captain America - nope, they're not about to negate his solo book by claiming he was a Skrull, even it if's a way to explain his borderline retarded actions in Civil War. Let's face it - anyone acting wildly out of character and badly character raped by Marvel over recent months like Stark, Parker, Cap, Reed Richards or Hank Pym - no way they'll actually give an excuse for them turning into idiots. Marvel want us to believe that these guys were in-character.

So, speaking of Reed, on Fantastic Four I'm calling... none of them. Johnny at an outside bet, but there's no way there's going to disturb Millar and Hitch's new run by wedging in a Skrull storyline. However, Black Panther and Storm have recently been members and Storm's almost certainly a Skrull. She's politically important enough now to be a good target, has links to numerous teams, has been acting wildly out of character and, as we all now know, Marvel's new policy is that marriage sucks and the Storm/Black Panther marriage hasn't proved popular anyway, so they can use this an excuse to undo it and get Storm back in the X-books.

So, onto the X-men. Astonishing X-men's cast are out - I don't believe for a second that Marvel will allow anyone to mess with the supposedly god-like Whedon. With Messiah Comples springing up immediately following Whedon's unfinished run, too, where Beast's played a major role, as have Scott and Emma, I figure they're doubly safe. Possibly, in the future, we'll see Kitty being retconned into being a Skrull all along so she can be brought back after Whedon kills her off in his final issue, but don't expect that any time soon.

I think most of the X-books will be relatively immune anyway. We've just seen a couple of mutant-centric crossovers. I doubt there'll be much focus placed on the X-teams, so they can spin stories off MC without the Skrull thing intruding. Much like House of M, they might play with taking out some major players, but I seriously doubt they'll actually do anything to anyone central. Angel's started to appear in the books again, so he may be in place for a Skrull reveal, since he's not been central for ages and they may be bringing him in just to set him up for a fall again, like Brubaker already did with Banshee. I'm on the fence with that one. Nightcrawler seems unlikely, as does Iceman, simply because he's not in any books right now. Given that Legacy has just launched as a Professor X solo series, they wouldn't pull the rug from under the book with a Skrull reveal there either. X-Factor's just lost a couple of central characters, so losing one to a Skrull reveal also seems unlikely.

So, on the X-related titles I'm calling maybe Angel, definitely Storm and possibly Havok, who's not been central enough to any storyline for a reveal to negate it, but they can argue is an important player simply by being Scott's brother. I don't think we'll be looking at any more reveals except maybe, just maybe, some really obscure periferal characters like Match or someone.

In other books, Hercules and Amadeus Cho would seem to be safe, Namor, nope, can't see it. There's been one Illuminati reveal already in the shape of Black Bolt and I think that'll be it. Obviously there's a Skrull or two on the Initiative, but I've not read the book enough to guess who. Probably Nazi scientist guy and/or Gyrich. The Order's cancelled, so no Skrull there. She-Hulk, no. Hulk, definitely not. New Warriors - possibly Tattoo was and Radian is a Skrull, since they've not been central to any plotlines so far. Miss Marvel has a skrull in her book and presumably it's her agent friend, who I don't know much about. Not Carol herself.

In short, as much as they're playing up the whole invasion angle, I think the actual central character reveals will be few and mostly focused on Bendis books. Like Decimation, I can't see Marvel actually taking any of their really central figures off the playing board and the reveals will be obscure, supporting characters and political figures - SHIELD agents, government people, etc, enough to play off the invasion thing bt not upset the superhero applecart.

Comments

[newnumber6.livejournal.com]

Jubilee in NW is a skrull! Shapeshifting explains certain... enhancements she received when she appeared in the title. ;)

I'm not sure you can completely count out the X-Men on the "not messing with Whedon's run" grounds, because nothing says that all the skrulls had to have been in place for long periods. One could easily say that, say, Cyclops was replaced sometime between Messiah Complex (which takes place after Astonishing) and Secret Invasion, and is uncovered before Ellis' Astonishing run takes place.

I'm still kind of hoping Skrull Cyclops explains things like X-Force (where apparently he was able to do it without Emma's knowledge... something that seems a bit unlikely for Scott himself to manage, but a Skrull who had to deceive her telepathy anyway could probably do it) and sending the Young X-Men on a mission to _kill_ the new Brotherhood (which according to solicits is made up of old NuMus).

[wal-lace.livejournal.com]

There is no X-Force. Just remember that, and the world is a better place.

It would amuse me if Wondra-Jubilee and her wondra-boobs turned out to be a Skrull, and to have been a Skrull since before House of M, and the real Jubilee therefore still had her powers. But I'm a geek who can't let go of the 1990s, and that's not going to happen.

[angelophile.livejournal.com]

yeah, I've pretty much accepted that there's not gonna be a single case of a Skrull replacement explaining a serious character rapage. Just not gonna happen because Marvel hates us.

And looking at recent pics of Dani, clearly boob jobs ae a side-effect of depowerment.

newnumber6 is right that we might see some recent replacements, but it's hard to predict those since there'd be no clues in current issues. I still think it's unlikely that in the case of a X-line-wide revamp, we're going to see many characters pulled into the story, though. Marvel will have their eye on the trade market and pulling teams into crossovers is something you do with established titles, not new ones. Where it happens, I'm sure it'll be more along the lines of Paul Cornell's new Captain Britain and MI:13 title, where it's a team fighting an external Skrull threat, rather than people within their own ranks.

[distractedone.livejournal.com]

I don't believe Iron Man is a Skrull either. Considering that his movie will be coming out soon and the fact they have hyped him up so much, I doubt Marvel would want to ruin it for him.

It's a tough call for the X-Men. I think the AXM team is out of the question, definitely. I'm sick of people claiming Scott is a skrull because he's been acting "out of character."

[angelophile.livejournal.com]

He hasn't been acting out of character so far, although the whole "immediately assume Cable's gone evil and send stabbity squad after him to kill him" thing was more plot serving than necessarily Scott-like. But as newnumber6 mentions, some recent and fuure stuff can be argued as being out of character - hiding the formation of stabbity squad from Emma and sending it to kill people - recruiting the Young X-men with the express purpose of killing the new Brotherhood, some of whom were previously allies and possibly even New X-men...

Those could be considered out of character, but I don't think that's signs of Skrull, just signs that a few writers suddenly believe Scott's badass, like it's a recent development because of Whedon and not something he's been all along, and confuse badass with "willing to kill".

Reposted here, so I can find it again...

[angelophile.livejournal.com]

Hmm, I'm on the fence with the whole Scott issue (as I just said on my own LJ in response to you). I'm not gonna jump up and start screaming SKRULL or MURRDERER! but I do consider it to be a little out of character. Well, forming Stabbity Squad, not so much. He's always known what Wolverine did and while he's never openly condoned it, i think it's pretty obvious that sometimes Scott realizes rabid dogs have to be put down, even if he has a distaste for it.

Now, forming the Young X-men to hunt down and kill the Brotherhood, as is stated the book's going to be about, I have more of an issue with. That I do consider to be out of character and plot serving rather than character serving. That Scott would recruit a bunch of kids and turn them into killers? Doesn't sit well with me. While I have no doubt he's fine with training kids to use their powers and in a combat situation he'd expect the use of fatal force as a last result, I don't think he's someone who'd go out with that aim in mind. He wouldn't condemn a kid if they were in a "them or us" situation and killed someone, but actually recruiting children AS killers? Ehhh. Especially to kill people who are former allies and possibly kids he's taught. I'm hoping it plays out differently than the interviews suggest and it's less "he recruits kids to kill the Brotherhood" and more "he recruits the Brotherhood's old friends, hoping that they'll be able to reach them while strangers or older X-men might not and redeem them, otheriwse defeat them and if they've completely turned and lives are immediately at stake, he'd accept the use of deadly force may be necessary to stop them."

I don't buy the "X-men never kill!" thing, to be honest, though. I think it's clear they're quite prepard to use deadly force, and have, Scott amongst them, but for Scott it's when there's no other alternative. That, for me, is why Scott's a stronger character than Wolverine. It's easy to just kill someone to stop them. It's not easy to bring them down without killing them, to work out all the angles, to offer redemption time and again, even when you expect it to blow up in your face, to have the strength of will and convictions to use less than deadly force in dire situations, knowing things could get worse, but doing it anyway because you believe that there's hope and life isn't just something you snuff out without a thought.

That's why Scott's way more badass to me than Wolverine. Whedon seems to get that, Morrison certainly did. Unfortunately, since Whedon's issue which showed Scott being all kinds of badass, it's as if other writers in the X-men camp, those who never really got the character, suddenly went "wait, Cyclops is badass now? Cooool!" and set up turning him into Logan because they think cold blooded killer is what badass is. Whereas Scott's badass because he's NOT that.

[distractedone.livejournal.com]

I agree with you.