286: Secret Invasion

Matt Campbell
Oct 27
7 min read

Updated: Nov 2

What’s Covered?

Secret Invasion: X-Men # 1 - 4, X-Factor V3 # 33 - 34, Deadpool vol. 3 #1 - 3

Roster Watch

Synopsis

Events Preceding Secret Invasion

I just got done reading (or at least skimming) the 126 issues that encompass the complete Secret Invasion event. I loved it. I typically read nothing but X-Men, so I enjoy when I have an excuse to dip into the rest of the Marvel Universe. I don't intend to cover every facet of this event, but I do want to give an overview along with my commentary. I will dive into the small arcs that directly involve X properties (X-Men, X-Factor, and Deadpool) a little deeper.

You can trace these events all the way back to Brian Michael Bendis' Avengers Disassembled arc where Wanda goes mad, kills some Avengers, and essentially splits them up. This leads directly into House of M when the heroes of the world confront Wanda, only for her to alter reality into an existence where Magneto (and his family) rule a world dominated by mutants. After the false reality shatters, Wanda does one of the most impactful things in the history of the marvel universe, removing the powers of 90% of Earth's mutant population. The seriousness of these events lead to the formation of the Illumanity, a secret cabal of Earth's leading personalities (Iron Man, Dr. Strange, Reed Richards, Professor X, Blackbolt, and Namor) who decide to collaborate in an effort to avoid future calamities. It's worth mentioning that Black Panther declined an invitation. The heroes don't stay united for long as all of these tensions turn red hot when a group of inexperienced mutants accidentally blow up a town, leading to the Civil War. As terrible and impactful as all of these events were, we learn that there was an even bigger catastrophe that had been brewing in the background all along...A Skrull Secret Invasion!

Secret Invasion

Elektra Natchios, former Daredevil lover and insane ninja currently leading the Hand, is killed, which was pretty shocking in itself (even though she's been resurrected once before.) The truly shocking development was when her corpse transformed into that of a Skrull. This sets off panic as the heroes begin to wonder who else might not be who they claim to be. But before we go any further, we need to understand what the Illuminati may have done to piss off the Skrulls. In New Avengers: Illuminati (Volume 2 # 1), the Illuminati get this bright idea to proactively stop the Skrulls from messing with Earth by showing up, threatening them, and blowing up a ship. Unfortunately, things don't go to plan as they are all captured, experimented on, and genes were copied. They escape, but only after committing the cardinal sin of giving the Skrulls the knowledge they needed to more completely impersonate humans without any method of detection.

Over time we learn that the Skrull queen took over Jessica Drew (Spider-Woman,) and had been plotting for years alongside other imposters including Reed Richards, Hank Pym, Blackbolt, the aforementioned Elektra, the Avengers butler Jarvis, SHIELD leader Dum Dum Dugan, and many more.

One part that I specifically want comment on is that at one point we are lead to believe that Tony Stark is a Skrull too and pretty much every character starts saying "Oh, that makes sense! That's why he's been such a prick and started the Civil War." But then we learn that it's really been Tony all along. This twist gave me so many emotions. At first I felt the same as the characters, but then I started to realize that this would be a major cop out by the writers. A big way to undo the last several years of story. So when it turned out that Tony reall did all those terrible things consciously, that news was also simultaneously a gut punch and a relief.

There's one other plot point that stuck with me. A large part of this event is flashbacks showing how all of the pieces were put into place. We learn that the Skrulls actually didn't know how to conduct this perfect, secret transformation, however they figured that Reed Richards did. When he was captured, they tried everything to get him to talk: Torture, pretending to murder his family, fake escapes, etc. but nothing worked. Eventually they decided to simply impersonate his son Franklin and have him pretend to be scared that his mom is really a Skrull. It plants this idea within Reed that he can't stop obsessing over, and eventually he figures out how it can be done. So it was Reed all along who taught them how to pull this off!

There's a LOT of twists and turns along the way, but eventually our heroes win the day, kill the queen, and send the Skrulls packing. There was a bit of a cop out at the end when we find that all the replaced heroes were alive and together in one spaceshit, but this is still an event that I would strongly recommend reading. For now, let's focus on how the X-Men (and friends) factored in.

Secret Invasion: X-Men # 1 - 4

Writer - Mike Carey

Pencils - Cary Nord

Throughout the Secret Invasion event, there are some BIG name characters who we learn had been Skrulls for years. I was pretty excited to see how the X-Men would handle this and which characters would end up being Skrulls. In the end it was none of them and I think the story was hurt by that. I haven't found any evidence of this, but I can almost guarantee that the X-office said something like "We'll be a part of your event, but we'll tell our own story. You can have X-Factor though. I know how much Peter David loves taking part in cross overs..." This arc doesn't even follow one particular X-Men line (Astonishing, Uncanny, or Legacy,) instead it's just a hodgepodge of characters, including the Young X-Men.

In the very end of the Divided We Stand arc (UXM #499 I believe,) the San Francisco mayor asked the X-Men to stick around. Apparently we are going to get an extended look here at the X-Men making a home in SF (for the second time I believe.) This entire arc follows the story of one particular Skrull armada trying to take over San Francisco and not being ready for the X-Men.

There are a lot of skirmishes, but ultimately Beast presents a plan to Cyclops that involved covering the X-Men in the Legacy virus, letting themselves get captured, then only offering the cure to the Skrulls if they agree to stand down. Instead of standing down, the Skrull commander blows up all of their ships.

This opens up a big moment where Beast starts to truly question Scott's methods and morals. He was certainly a lot harsher after breaking free from Apocalypse's control during the Search for Cyclops. You can see that he was pushed pretty far after Genosha, House of M, and Messiah Complex. He even put together a proactive hit squad that went so far, Wolverine was questioning him (X-Force V3). I feel like we're heading towards a new version of Scott and I wouldn't be surprised if him going too far is a central plot point coming up.

Secret Invasion: X-Factor # 33 - 34 & She-Hulk # 31

Writer - Peter David

Pencils - Larry Stroman

A few editorial notes. First of all, Peter David's hatred for mandated cross overs is well documents. I'm sure he was pissed that he just did a 9 month time jump and moved the team to a new city (Detroit,) only for them to be used first in a Secret Invasion tie in that overlaps with She-Hulk of all people.

To make a long story short, a man asks X-Factor investigations to help them find his son, who is Darwin. We see that Darwin is with Longshot, however Longshot ends up being a Skrull! No, you don't get credit for the Longshot reveal considering how long it's been since Longshot has been seen. The Skrull is actually a really important priest who She-Hulk battles, but in the end it's Darwin who is able to put down the threat.

Deadpool vol. 4 #1 - 3

Writer - Daniel Way

Pencils - Paco Medina

When people ask me if the Deadpool movies are good, I'm never sure how to respond. Are they great movies? No. Are they incredibly entertaining? Absolutely. Ultimately, I'm reading comics to be entertained and this arc absolutely does that. I was laughing out loud several times!

We see the Skrulls show up at a baseball stadium, but then Deadpool shows up in a mascot's outfit and takes out a cadre of Super Skrulls. It's pretty damn funny. But then, he surrenders and says that he wants to switch sides. He convinces the Skrulls to replace all future Super Skrulls with his regenerative DNA and that he is the only one who can train them. Eventually the Skrulls realized that this new batch is insane, so they try to kill them, and fail. Then the new Super Skrulls start dying from his cancer and Deadpool calls Nicky Fury and says "Mission Accomplished."

My Connections and Creators

Boring or Great?

The Secret Invasion event was fantastic. The X-Men tie ins were the worst thing about it. It's actually interesting because my comic reading has moved incredibly slowly the past year. I'm just not as excited to read them at the moment, probably because the quality was so slow. But with this event (and reading non X-Men comics,) I couldn't put them down and probably read 20 - 25 per day. This is such a sign of this era where Marvel didn't care as much about the X-Men and tried to put all of their focus into the Avengers and Inhumans.

Thoughts on Art

The only comment I'll make is that I hated Larry Stroman's art 1 years ago and I still hate it today.

Things to keep an eye on

In regards to the X-Men, nothing significant took place here.