Skrull Watch: You Heard it Here... first-ish?

Issue #1 of Marvel's summer blockbuster of 2008, Secret Invasion, launches soon. A few hours from now, in fact. Basically, the idea is that over the past few years, several Marvel Super-Heroes have been replaced by Skrulls - shape-changing aliens bent on world domination. In Secret Invasion, this sleeper agents will supposedly reveal themselves, and Skrull shit will hit the Earth fan.

Marvel has released a pretty cool little trailer for the event which points at some things to consider when trying to guess who may be a Skrull. Namely, that Avengers Tower (home of the Mighty Avengers), Camp Hammond (home of the Avengers Initiative), Doctor Strange's Sanctum Sanctorum (home of the New Avengers), and the Baxter Building (home of the Fantastic Four) have all been infiltrated, insinuating that someone on each team is a Skrull.

There have been conspiracies galore as to who may be a Skrull, and I'd like to throw my predictions into the mix. Seeing as how there will hopefully be plenty of Skrull reveals in issue one, which is coming out, as I mentioned, in a few hours, I feel now would be as good a time as any to share. I realize that there's a good chance that each team has multiple Skrull members, but I'm going to go with my top candidates.

Let's start with:

The Skrull in the Mighty Avengers: For a book that's trying to "bring thought balloons back", it hasn't allowed to readers to dig very deep into the characters' minds. If I had to guess, I'd go with either Wonder Man or, even more so, the Wasp, who's an important figure in Marvel history, but hasn't really done much on the team. Black Widow and Spider-Woman would be too obvious, having a history of being double agents (not that obviousness is a dealbreaking reason). The Sentry would have had to be switched sometime after the Sentry storyline of New Avengers (I'm still thinking no). Mrs. Marvel is also very obvious, whereas I'm too happy with Ares' character development (especially in Incredible Herc) to want him to be a Skrull. And I'll be really pissed if it's Iron Man. So yeah, my final verdict is The Wasp.

Certainty: 60%


The Skrull in the Avengers Initiative: The very, very obvious choice is Yellowjacket. After all, he was replaced by a Skrull (Hulkling) at the end of Civil War. Has he learned his lesson since? Bendis had stated quite a while ago that he had never liked Hank Pym. At the same time, however, people were sure Bendis was going to kill him off in Avengers: Disassembled yet he's still around, so you never know. But is this why he kept him around? And if the Wasp is a Skrull, it would make sense that the two would have been turned together, sometime after they decided to go off on their own to France, I would assume. As much as I'd hope to be surprised, I figure not every reveal will be completely shocking, and for this one I'm inclined to go with Yellowjacket.

Certainty: 75%


The Skrull in the New Avengers: Echo. Echo, Echo, Echo. Last week's New Avengers, which had her and Wolverine fighting a Skrull who is trying to take her over, just damned her even more in my eyes. "But Aaron," you might say. "She was the one who killed Electra and revealed her to be Skrull in the first place. What about that?" What about that? Exposing Electra was the moment that totally ripped apart any semblance of trust the Marvel Super-Heroes had built for each other since the end of Civil War. She threw the Super-Heroes in disarray, so that come invasion time, they'd be easy pickings. "And what about the fact that the Skrull tried to replace her last week? It wouldn't have tried if she was already a Skrull." My response to that is that it wasn't trying to replace her. It was putting on a show for Wolverine. If Wolverine hadn't of been there, I'd be inclined to agree, but he was there. It's like he said: "If I was a Skrull... you'd be the one I'd go after. You're the one with the least about a' ties. The least history." I agree. She would be the first target... so why wait until right now?

My opinion? The whole thing was a ploy so that she'd gain Wolverine's trust. I'm guessing she was replaced after being killed by Skrullectra in Japan. The "resurrection" was just a show, by then Echo had been replaced. Everything after that - the fight, the murder of Skrullectra - was planned from the beginning. The only thing nagging at me is that the Skrull report in the trailer wouldn't have reported that replacing her was a "failure". Maybe there's something I'm missing, or maybe the teaser's just a teaser, and not fully canon. Either way, my money is on Echo.

Certainty: 95%


The Skrull in the Fantastic Four: This one's the toughest one for me. The popular vote seems to be with Sue Storm, who could have been abducted after leaving Reed in Civil War. Reed Richards would be cool, but I think that poses way too many problems. I'm going to go with the second-most obvious choice, The Human Torch.

Certainty: Um, about 25%.


And there you have it. I probably won't be proven right/wrong for a while, but remember: you heard it here first-ish.

P.S: If my first two predictions are correct, would you call this a Skrull Fuc- ... nevermind.