Drunken Comics Rage

Issue #5 was a little bit of a let down. It's not that it was bad at all, and there is some interesting stuff happening, but it didn't quite have the pop that the other issues did so far. I guess you can't keep hitting triples and homeruns every time at bat, and this might still be sliding into second double.

Let's get to the issue.

It starts off in Thunderbolt mountain and Osborn is talking to the Skrull Captain Marvel. The Skrull Marvel had been sent to wipe out the Thunderbolts, and he can't bring himself to kill them. Osborn is lending a sympathetic ear, telling him he understands, and that he's sorry about the position the Skrull Marvel finds himself in.

The Skrull Marvel thought he really was Captain Marvel all this time, and that seems to be the reason that he can't just wipe out the Thuderbolts. He finally can't take it, and goes flying off. Osborn then tells his men to get everyone up, and get the transports ready, stating "We're at war". Looks like the Tunderbolts (who I know nothing about) are about to start the beatings.

We then flip over to Nick Fury's secret hideout. There's several super powered types hanging around, and  Fury seems to be interested in the fact that the Skrulls have cut all global transmissions. This quickly leads to a huge Skrull announcement broadcast on every channel on Earth.

The Skrull message seems pretty strait forward. Humans are bad, the Skrulls are good, and they're here to save us from ourselves. Don't fight back, and we'll give you everything you've ever wanted. Plus the "he loves you so much" religious stuff.

The message is delivered by a number of different people, and drawn as a nice two page spread. The people shown are everyone from Dr. Doom (which seems like it would be a bad choice) to Oprah. It would take a while to figure out who some of them are (foreign leaders mostly) and the ones that amuse me (though they don't talk at all) is Cartman and Chris Rock. They soooo should of had Cartman say something.

We then flip over to Agent Brand on board the Skrull ship. Last time we saw her, she was floating in space (from the blown up SWORD) and managed to jump onboard the Skrull craft. She made her way to an observation area, where she could see them working over Mister Fantastic. At the end of her last appearence, a few Skrulls found her.

This picks up where it left off, and Agent Brand busts out some decently passable Skrull, and claims she's a superior officer. The Skrulls are confused, and she grabs one of there guns, acting as though she's insulted that they are pointing it at her. The second she gets the gun, she starts blasting the hell out of every Skull she sees. I'm beginning to like her.

She is then able to rescue Mister Fantastic from whatever experiments they were putting him through. Reed pops out of the torture a little worse for the wear, and attacks Agent Brand, figuring that she's a Skrull. He figures she's not when he chokes her out, and she doesn't turn green. Well, more green than just the hair, suit, and lipstick anyway. Reed then jumps onto the Skrull equipment, and starts doing his thing.

We then flip to Maria Hill on the downed Helicarrier, talking to the Skrull Jarvis. Hill starts telling Skrull Jarvis a story about some advice Nick Fury once gave her, all about life model decoys. Jarvis tells his Skrulls to execute her, and you find out that the Maria Hill talking to them was a robot, and that the real one is on top of the tower with a sniper rifle, and begins pumping lead into the Javis Skrull and friends. She then sets the self destruct sequence on the Helicarrier (which has the funniest access code I've heard for that sort of thing). The Hellicarrier then does the big ka-boom, as Hill flies off using some sort of jet-pack thing.

We then jump back to the Skrull ship, where Reed Richards is still doing his thing, and Agent Brand wakes up. The Skrull ship is under attack, and Reed wants Agent Brand to fly them out of there, and head for New York. There's then a big bang, and and Reed finds that Captain Marvel (the Skrull) has begun kicking the hell out of the Skrull fleet.

Which is kind of cool, in that I'm pretty sure this is exactly what happened in his origin story when he was a Kree operative. Both times a soldier, both times he didn't like what his masters were doing on Earth, both times he turned against them, becoming the hero Captain Marvel in the process. Might be interesting to see if this is one of the Skrulls they keep around or not. Maybe throw him out into the cosmic arena with Nova and the Guardians.

Reed tells Agent Brand to head to New York, and Brand tells him they have to pick a few people up first. When then flip over to the Savage Land, where Tony Stark is puking. Nice.

Everyone that's been kicking it around the Savage Land ends up at the same place, with everyone thinking that everyone else is a Skrull. Skrull Emma Frost goes into some little speech about how she can see into people's souls and knows whose a Skrull, and Skrull Sue Storm tells everyone that no ones leaving until she gets answers, and the Skull Thor goes all old school "thee" and "thy" on the group. There's suddenly a flash of light, and Reed Richards is standing there with a big gun. He blasts the group, and suddenly all the Skrulls look like Skrulls.

The Skrulls then proceed to get wailed on by the real heroes in pretty short order. There is of course a point where Clint Barton (Hawkeye, Ronin) tells his wife (Bobbi, Mockingbird) something, turns to her, and finds out she's a Skrull. If you'll remember, he went all psycho a few issues ago, positive that she wasn't a Skrull, and really his wife. Apparently, Clint was the only one in either this universe, or the Marvel one, that didn't see this coming.

Clint takes Black Widow's gun, shoots his Skrull wife. The heroes clean up, and all of the Skrulls are down. Stark and Richards start working on a plan, and Clint finally goes totally bat-shit nuts. I guess having your wife back, then having to shoot her, might do that to you. Especially since he didn't seem all that well put together to begin with. Clint's plan is simple, kill them all. You can tell how angry he is from the veiny neck. 

That's all for this issue. I was really hoping to see more from last issue where Thor and Captain America looked like they were about to put the smack down on the Skrulls. Hopefully this issue was to just get all the players in place, and all converging on New York for a royal rumble. If that's done well, it could be pretty epic. 

Filed under: Ghostshark's Rants, Marvel Comics