Holding my breath

I picked up a copy of the next big Marvel event, Secret Invasion. In case you haven’t heard, this is a storyline revolving around the idea that many of our favorite heroes and villains may, in fact, be well-hidden Skrulls.

I approach this storyline with great trepidation. This has the potential to be nothing more than one of these.

I’ll try not to spoil anything, but if you don’t like wild speculations that may or may not be based in canon, I’d suggest not clicking the “More” button.

Brian Michael Bendis seems to have begun planting seeds as early as three years ago, with Secret War. Marvel’s Editor-in-Chief, Joe Quesada, spent a good many pages at the end of Secret Invasion 1 explaining that this event has its roots as far back as the Kree-Skrull war, within fiction, and explaining that there are Easter Eggs all over the place in the last few years’ worth of stories.

My greatest fear is that the series will be delayed just enough that the final issue will come out in early April of next year, simply proclaiming “APRIL FOOL! Boy, oh, boy! We had you going for a year.”

Honestly, I really pray that this isn’t a poorly contrived mechanism to roll our favorite (and recently grown/changed/developed) heroes back to the 1970s, á la Brand New Day.

Here’s a brief list of the worst possible things that could happen.

O hai lol. So, Spider-Man. Remember how you were a clone, and then you weren’t.

Well, now it turns out you really are a clone, and it was Ben Reilly who married MJ, but had that subsequently erased from the timeline. Moreover, Ben Reilly was really a Skrull, and that’s how they did it in the first place.

Wolverine. Or Logan. Or James Howlett. You know that guy? And how he recently got all his memories back.

Turns out you really didn’t get your memories back, ol’ chum. You were really a Skrull sleeper agent for the last 30 years. The memories he just recovered were subliminal implants, just in case anyone really got poking around in Logan’s head. It’d be suspicious not to have any memories at all. Wouldn’t it?

Captain America was murdered.

Steve Rogers has been in hiding with Nick Fury for three years. Cap has been a Life Model Decoy for that entire time. Rather than have that discovered, Steve and Nick came up with the ultimate Conspiracy Theorist’s nightmare, where Steve Rogers assassinates Captain America. Unfortunately, Sharon Carter was a Skrull, and she got to the LMD first.

(On second thought, this one would be kinda cool.)

Tony Stark is a recovering alcoholic and a douchebag.

Skrulls don’t like bourbon. Tony’s still an alcoholic and still a prick.

Galactus is a Skrull.

Thor killed the Asgardians and proved his godhood by resurrecting not only himself, but all of Asgard.

Thor’s a Skrull, and this is how we explain his changing from Donald Blake to the Thunderer.

After all this, the one Retcon I’m most afraid of is this: After the Skrulls successfully replaced Galactus by figuring out how to fake the Power Cosmic, they set their sights on other Cosmic Beings.  The Jean Grey we all know and love, the Jeannie who can’t sit still in her grave for more than ten minutes, was one of myriad Skrull agents.  This means that the real Jean is coming back, in full phoenix-y wrath and glory.  Even better!  Let’s say that this one isn’t even her, now.  Somehow the Skrulls  accidentally captured Madelyn Pryor, so it’s Maddie who’s coming back, instead of Jean!

I really don’t want any of this to pass.  This is all just the Pessimist’s view, though.  If Brian Michael Bendis is really the writer he’s cracked up to be, and if he’s really done all the seeding and preparation that Quesada says he has, then this ought to be a rocket of a book.

So, whenever I’m feeling unsure, I’ll just keep telling myself,

“He loves you.”