THE SKRULL BONE'S CONNECTED TO THE NECK BONE

ITEM! Okay troops, it’s time to get your Skrull on at the Comic Con! Out in comic shops this week — the aptly titled “Secret Invasion: Skrulls!” Rather than restlessly recycle every known Skrull plot previously used in a Mighty Marvel Mag (mostly ‘cause Brian Michael Bendis already beat ‘em to it), Skrulls! uses the actual art of invasions-gone-by to deliver an encyclopedic entry for every known Skrull dictator, agitator, infiltrator, irritator or aggregator that ever appeared in a Marvel Comic! Everything yah ever needed to know about the Skrulls is covered in this one, from those funky “A Piece of the Action” gangster Skrulls to their distant Dire Wraith cousins and every Skrull-cow in-between.

And speaking of Brian Michael Bendis, just how far back was he really placing clues to the Secret Invasion story arc? The oldest clue Irving Forbush has uncovered so far is this ad in the back of Spider-Man #172 (Oct. 1977), which means that Bendis has been working on this story arc since he was at least 10 years old! Now that’s dedication above and beyond, pilgrims!

Honest Irv also found the following video clip of Bendis answering questions while on a panel at Comic Con New York this past year. Seems he got a little flustered and his true colors showed for a brief moment or two. Click on the YooTube thingy below to see what happened! 

Excelsior!

Smiley

THE SAME SKRULL, SIR, WAS YORICK'S SKRULL

ITEM! It’s the first Wednesday of the month, and you know what that means, pilgrims! That’s right! It’s time for your Uncle Stanley’s monthly Secret Invasion Bash! As you’ll recall from our last blogisode, Yours Truly was remarking on the uncanny plot-point-by-plot-point similarities of Secret Invasion to the original Lee-Kirby Skrull appearances in classic ishes of the Fantastic Four. I even offered to take bets that Secret Invasion #3 would feature a Skrull revealed to be Dr. Franklin Storm, as in their third appearance in FF#32 (Nov. 1964).

Well Lo and Behold, it wasn’t Sue and Johnny’s dad, but it was a trusted ally of the good-guys that was revealed to actually be a Skrull... that cool exec with a heart of steel, Tony Stark! Not even close, right? Well check this out, Frantic Ones. In FF #32 the Super Skrull masqueraded as Dr. Storm under the name of The Invincible Man. In Secret Invasion #3 a Skrull is revealed to have been masquerading as Tony Stark, the “Invincible” Iron Man! See what’s happening here? Brian “Continuity-Bending” Bendis just decided to play a little coy with his premeditated plot-stealing! No points for originality, but at least one score for clever cryptic obscuration.

By Ol’ Smiley’s calculations, if Brainy Bendis continues this pattern, then Secret Invasion #4 should involve our heroes taking the fight to the Skrull’s homebase in order to avenge a fallen comrade, as in FF #37. I’ll meet you Merry Marching Marvelites right back here next month, same Soapbox time, same Soapbox channel, to see how well we guessed!

Excelsior!

Smiley

SECRET INVASION #12 - SNEAK PREVIEW!

ITEM! Well pilgrims, it seems it only takes a little bit of Stan the Man re-dialoging of a page from the Lee-Kirby classic, Fantastic Four #18, and voila! A sizzling sensational sneak preview of how the Secret Invasion story line will probably end! That's right, Bendis! As the kids today say, "I'm in UR Head, Riting UR Comix!" I think I'll call this story, "Secret Invasions... Ur Doin' It Wrong!" Either that, or "A Tale Told by an Industry-Insider, Full of Sound and Fury, Signifying Negative Profits" What do you Tigers and Tigrettes think?

(Click on page below for a larger view.) 'Nuff Said!

AMONG US WALK... YOURS TRULY?!

ITEM! Apparently there are secret invasions, and there are really top-secret SECRET INVASIONS that even your Uncle Stanley knew nothing about. The following appeared in my emails in-box late last night:

“Dear Stan,

It is my unfortunate duty to inform you that you are in fact a Skrull sleeper agent that has been in place since at least 1973 (see attached photo), and almost certainly much longer than that. In an upcoming issue of one of the 250 Secret Invasion tie-in comics, it will be revealed that you replaced the real Stan Lee in 1962, shortly before writing the Fantastic Four #2 story “The Fantastic Four Meet the Skrulls From Outer Space.” This was part of a propaganda campaign to prepare the human race for eventual Skrull rule, as have been all of the Skrull stories that you've written since then.

Additionally, since I am retconning these events as outlined above, you will note that you no longer originally came up with the many Skrull story ideas, story arcs, and plot points that are now a part of my Secret Invasion story line. I did. You didn’t originally create my story because I created you first! I hope this settles the issue once and for all. I look forward to reading a retraction of your many slanderous blog postings.

Sincerely,

Brian Michael Bendis

Well, BMB... there won’t be any retractions until I have my liltingly litigious lawyers look over your delusional denouncements. Heck, maybe I’ll get lucky and a couple of them will turn out to be Skrulls, too! Actually, now that I think about it, that would explain quite a few things...

Excelsior!

Smiley

SECRET INVASIONS OF THE THIRD KIND

ITEM! Your Uncle Stanley has been taken somewhat to task of late for all the Brian Michael Bendis-bashing, so I thought I’d make some amends by pointing out that no idea is truly original, and even the Skrullicious Lee-Kirby classics borrowed ideas from previous Merry Marvel stories, Rod Serling, and maybe even Erma Bombeck. Heck, the idea of shape-changing aliens probably goes all the way back to ancient Greece with Zeus and that classic pick-up line, “Hey Lady, is that a swan in your lap, or are you just glad to see me?”

Well-read True Believers probably already know that the Dire Wraiths are the redheaded step-cousins of the Skrulls from the Andromeda Galaxy. But didja know that they had some even poorer, more-distant cousins? Check out the "Martians" (apparently Mars is easier to conquer than Earth) from Amazing Adventures #4 (Sept. 1961... four months before the Skrulls showed up in FF #2). Apparently these Skrull-like waffle-eared-ones lost their ability to shape-change somewhere along the Darwinian way. They had to resort to realistic rubber masks to impersonate humans! Still, the family resemblance is striking.

Three months later in Amazing Adult Fantasy #11 (April 1962, cover above), a whole ‘nother un-named branch of everyone's favorite metamorphic misanthropes show up and try to invade by shape-changing into the dominant species of planet Earth. There was just one snag... these Skrull cousins are really, really dumb. They didn’t even need Reed Richards' bovine intervention (hypnotizing them into unfortunate ungulates) to muff up their own invasions plans. I won’t spoil the ending, but you can read the whole story right here. Or better yet, get your own calamitous copy of the Amazing Fantasy Ominbus to check out these and other Silver Age classics!

So it’s true, Frantic Ones... everything old is new again. Yours Truly has been no less guilty than Bendy-Boy of recycling characters, plots and themes and regurgitating them into fan-boy orgies of cross-over collector classics in order to sell the next six months worth of books. Brian Michael "Continuity-Bending” Bendis is just walking around in my house slippers with his Uncle Stanley’s pipe the same as I did with others who came before me. Let he without sin cast the first Skrull! Or as Shakespeare said, “Why then tonight let us assault our plot...” 

Excelsior!

Smiley

HOW TO SUCCEED AT SECRET INVASIONS WITHOUT REALLY TRYING

ITEM! Well Fearless Front-Facers, it’s another month and that means another issue of Brian Michael “Mind-Bending” Bendis’ brainchild, Secret Invasion. Try typing THAT three times fast. Let’s see... where were we? As you’ll recall from our recent rollicking rant, in issue #1 of Secret Invasion, the Skrulls impersonated our heroes as a preparatory prelude to a mass invasion of Earth — not at all like the plan they used in their very first Lee-Kirby appearance in Fantastic Four #2 (Jan. 1962). This month, in Secret Invasion #2, the Skrulls augment their invasion plans by sending in specially-enhanced Skrulls that each have multiple powers based on our heroes’ powers — again NOT AT ALL like their second Lee-Kirby appearance in Fantastic Four #18 (Sept. 1963). You don’t exactly need concentric Spider-Sense squiggles emanating from your head to see where this is going, pilgrims.

Your Uncle Stanley probably should be flattered, and when Marvel pays me to be, I will probably act that way and say some very complimentary things about the All-Seeing Eye of Aga-Bendis in the forward of the expensive hard bound collection of this predictable exercise in repetitive storytelling that is sure to come. But that will be then, this is now. I mean come on... this is sequelitis at it’s finest. It’s like the stifling and stupefying studio-think we run into in Hollywood all the time. How can we make the exact same James Bond film 22 times in a row? That kind of thing.

While I’ll admit that some younger and less-well-read Marvelites may geek out at the scene of scads and scores of scabrous Skrulls with mix-and-match powers scampering around the battle-scarred cityscape... what a mess! A Skrull with the combined powers of Doctor Strange, Black Bolt, Iron Man and Mr. Fantastic? Oh wait — he's the Illuminati-Skrull. I get it. How is that supposed to work? He casts a spell and the second he utters “by the Crimson Bands of Cyttorak” he levels half his own forces with a vocal sonic boom? Maybe he’s supposed to stretch an armored hand over his mouth and try to shush himself! A Skrull with the powers of Sandman, Electro and Doc Ock? Points for pulling the powers of three of Spidey’s biggest baddies into one Skrull, but what happens the first time you throw a bucket of water on this guy? He shorts out his own mechanical arms while simultaneously fusing himslef into glass? Whaaaat? If that happens he better stay away from the smashing-slashing-blasting Skrull with Wolverine, Cyclops and Colossus’ powers! You start to see my point. Even I don’t know if Skrulls have toes, but if they do they’re gonna be stepping on ‘em faster than Spider-Skrull can say “Walloping Web-Snappers!”

Man alive, I’ve gotten myself a little worked up over this. It actually feels better than double-doses of St. John’s Wort! Maybe I should get cranky more often. Anyhoo, it’ll be worth it to your Uncle Stanley to pick up Secret Invasion #3 just to see if a Skrull impersonates Franklin Storm just like they did in their third appearance in FF #32 (Nov. 1964). I’ll be taking any and all bets via the Sock It To Stan emailagebox!

Excelsior!

Smiley

WHO DO YOU TRUST, PETEY?

ITEM! Well Secret Invasion #1 is out, and I have to say that despite my gregarious grousing about Brian “The Brain” Bendis taking my basic plot from FF #2 and stretching it out into one laborious year-long retcon of the Marvel Universe... not too shabby. And I’m not just saying that because Joe Quesada paid me to. My checks come from Isaac Perlmutter.

As readers can see from the impromptu interview in the back of that book, when pressed by Continuity-Bending Bendis on which Merry Marvel character Yours Truly would make a Skrull, I responded by quipping “Aunt May.” Though said in jovial jest, I’ve since decided to campaign for this calamitous concept because, well, honestly... I’m gettin’ a little cranky in my old age and if these damn kids are gonna keep playing in my old sandbox, the least they could do is let the old man pitch an ingenious idea, or two, or twenty.

There’s a certain synchronous simpatico to the idea, too. After all, Aunt May is only alive because Petey tried to cut a deal with the devil, and we all know how well that usually works out. It would be just like Mephisto to welsh on the deal by bringing Aunt May back to life, only to make her a prisoner on some interstellar Skrull slave ship... cookin' up wheatcakes for Torgo and the boys. I can see it all now. Man alive, a cup of steamin’ Joe and a couple of St. Johns Wort first thing in the morning and the creative ideas just start a flyin’! I may have to save some of this for the Spidey daily strip! Your welcome, Bendis.

Excelsior!

Smiley

SECRET INVASION, NOT-SO-SECRET PLOT-HOLES

ITEM! You’d think that Joey “Mad Dog” Quesada would call the Smiling One up once in awhile and solicit some of my 67-years-in-the-biz experience and advice before he goes off on these massively misjudged editorial misfires, like the so-called Secret Invasion multi-title story arc. 

According to this predictably pedantic premise, it will be suddenly revealed that unbeknownst to us rabid readers, several Merry Marvel Heroes have secretly been shape-changing Skrulls plotting the take-over of planet earth. No really — that’s the whole idea. You know, I liked this plot the first time I read it, in, I don’t know... Fantastic Four #2 (1962, by Yours Truly and the great Jack Kirby).

But R.F.O.’s (Real Frantic Ones) who have read the whole 102-issue Lee-Kirby run of the FF will notice that we only actually used the Skrulls as villains about four times, three of those appearances in the early run of the book. Why? Because even your sometimes seemingly senile Uncle Stanley understands the inherently inevitable story-logic problem with using a highly advanced race of shape-changing antagonists: they would roll right over us, pilgrim! How many times can even our cosmic-ray powered quartet manage to defeat an entire interstellar civilization of manic metamorphs? Not many, True Believer, before it becomes painfully obvious to even the most naive naysayer that the good guys are going to win no matter what. And when that happens, when the reader’s suspension of disbelief is senselessly shattered, then all the drama gets sucked right out of the story quicker than a prune juice smoothy going through Aunt May.

Joe, Joe, Joe... this isn’t rocket science, yah know. This is basic storytelling 101. I’ve unblocked your number on the Spider-Phone. Give your Uncle Stanley a call. If I could dialogue FF #91, then I can probably help you pave over this horrendously hideous plot-hole you've dug for yourself.

Excelsior!

Smiley