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Secret Invasion #4

Jul 2008
Brian Michael Bendis, Leinil Francis Yu

Secret Invasion #4 cover

Story Name:

(no title given)


Synopsis

Secret Invasion #4 synopsis by Rob Johnson
Rating: 4 stars
We see flashes of events:- Mr Fantastic being tortured by Skrulls. The Skrull armada above Earth. Abigail Brand and other SWORD agents floating in space in gel life-preservers near the wreck of the Peak. Sentry returning to Earth from Saturn. Ms Marvel returning to New York from the Savage Land.

She lands in the middle of the fight in Times Square where Nick Fury and his new Howling Commandos are taking on a horde of Super-Skrulls after they defeated the Young Avengers and the Initiative trainees last issue. Fury has a very big gun. Daisy Johnson uses her Quake powers. Slingshot/Yo Yo Rodriguez zaps around rescuing downed heroes (we see Annex, Gauntlet, Red 9, Sunstreak and Wiccan). Druid casts his spells, Hellfire uses his fiery chain, Phobos uses fear to make Skrulls fight each other, and Stonewall just hits them.

When all the heroes are rescued Fury's team prepare to leave. Despite the fact that he must have seen MsM fighting Skrulls too, he takes no chances and shoots her. Then Druid teleports them away.

Carol Danvers is left swamped by a sea of Skrulls. And the last thing she sees is that Yellowjacket is with them.

During all this we've been hearing a monologue from Spider-Woman, who revealed herself to Tony Stark last issue as the Skrull Queen. She claims that the Invasion has already succeeded, as promised by their prophecies. They have taken the Earth as humans have taken land from other humans. There may be pockets of resistance but it is futile. Especially as the humans don't know who to trust (this bit over NF shooting MsM).

Now we continue that monologue in the Savage Land where 'Spider-Woman' has been talking to Iron Man. But we see that Black Widow is listening in. The Queen continues from last issue to tell Stark that he's really a Skrull under deep conditioning - their best agent.

Natasha Romanoff is about to intervene when she's interrupted by the old-style Beast and Phoenix. She shoots them and they revert to Skrulls. We also see the 2 versions of Wonder Man fighting. (So the real WM must have got out of the cave that Beast left him in.)

By the time BW does get into the ruined Mutate base where Stark was trying to build an Iron Man armour that wouldn't be affected by the Skrull virus, the Skrull Queen has gone. Tony himself is still weakened by the virus, so Tasha gives him a shot of adrenaline and tries to persuade him he's not a Skrull. Queenie was just playing with him for revenge. In the end she just asks him whether he feels like want to kill Skrulls. When he answers yes she suggests they just go with that.

There's another interruption while Widow shoots Wolverine. When he turns out to be the real 1 she apologises but says he'll heal, and sends him after Spider-Woman.

BW and TS plan the fight back. Tony says they need the help of Reed Richards.

Back in space Abigail Brand has reached a Skrull ship (as seen in her story in SI: Who Do You Trust), and she breaks in. Finding a room with viewscreens she sees various scenes we've already seen, plus the Young Avengers' Vision being killed and the hole to the Negative Zone where the top of the Baxter Building used to be. It turns out this is the ship with Mr Fantastic on board. But she's spotted by 2 Skrulls.

Another scene change to the SHIELD helicarrier downed in the Bermuda triangle. The Skrull Jarvis asked Maria Hill last issue to surrender on behalf of the human race. He says they organised her leadership of SHIELD. When she points out that he's surrounded by armed SHIELD Agents, they all turn out to be Skrulls too.

In Brooklyn Hood has gathered his gang of supervillains. He says it's time they helped fight the aliens, because letting them take Earth would be bad for business.

The final scene is of Super-Skrulls threatening the populace in Central Park. Then a thunderbolt strikes and we see the silhouette of Thor. And the Bucky Captain America is watching too.


 

Review / Commentaries


Secret Invasion #4 Review by (August 23, 2016)
Some of the stuff at the end of my comments last issue technically happened after the end of #3. There is some more stuff here that the Marvel Chronology Project Forum puts before the beginning of this issue.

Captain Britain And MI13 #1-2 Britain's MI13 has its own Skrull John, who used to impersonate John Lennon. As Skrulls attack London, he, Pete Wisdom, Captain Britain and Spitfire try to stop Skrulls invading Avalon through the Siege Perilous. They fail and CB is killed. Black Knight is fighting in London and sees Dr Faiza Hussein develop powers. The Skrulls gather various mystic objects from Avalon and merge them into a demonic totem of their own.
Iron Man (2005) #34(p9:4-22)-35 War Machine scans news of the Invasion (including CB fighting in London). He follows the fleeing Skrull warship (from earlier in the issue) down to a battle in Russia where Winter Guard are defending a nuclear weapons store. WM helps them (against the wishes of their political masters) defeat the Skrulls. In the middle of the battle he is captured by Skrulls and we learn the extent of his cyborgisation. Needless to say he escapes and returns to the fight.

Now we get to tie-ins to #4 itself:-

SI: Front Line #3 (p1-3) Ben Urich see Ms Marvel landing in the battle of Times Square.

Ms. Marvel (2006) #28-30(p1-21) MsM fights back against the Skrulls (with Yellowjacket no longer among them). But then she faces and defeats a giant-size Super-Skrull. Agent Sum from her Lightning Storm team helps save civilians. (They can't shelter in Avengers Tower because it's in lockdown.) After fighting more Skrulls MsM takes Sum and his bus-load of civilians to the Raft prison. There they find a savage ultra-Skrull slaughtering guards and inmates alike. MsM fights it, and sees that it also kills other Skrulls - it's totally out of control. When she kills it she discovers that it has a tattoo 'Hydra Prime 001'. (I don't think this is ever explained or followed up. But the Skrulls infiltrated Hydra, eg the ones who allow Veranke to replace Spider-Woman in New Avengers #42.)

There's stuff that the MCP Forum puts in the middle of #4:-

SI: Runaways/Young Avengers #3 Skrull Xavin of the Runaways recalls being trained by Commander Chrell and not being good at using multiple powers simultaneously. Now he and Speed and Wiccan of the YAv are trying to save Hulkling from Chrell. Xavin thinks Hulkling should find a way to broadcast a message to the Skrull invaders. As prophesied saviour of both Skrulls and Kree he might convince them that the invasion of Earth is wrong. But before they can get to a TV transmitter they are captured by Skrull assassin X'iv and delivered to Chrell, who has captured the other Runaways including Xavin's lover Karolina. But a fight breaks out. While X'iv takes on the rest, Karolina and Xavin attack Chrell. Hulkling defeats X'iv. Chrell is losing too a tries to go nova, but Xavin kills him by concentrating on just 1 power. The YA send the Runaways to safety before returning to the general fight against the Invasion.

SI: Home Invasion #4(p11-13) The evacuation subway train Kinsey and Ethan are on is attacked by a Super-Skrull. They escape with a woman named Monica who turns out to be Monica Rambeau/Pulsar and leaves them to join the fight.
SI:FL#3(p5-22)-#4(p2-14) Vincent Crane and his daughter Melanie are making their way with others down the emergency stairs of the locked-down Avengers Tower when they are attacked by a cannibal Skrull, until Melanie is the only 1 left. The insane Skrull then attacks her but she dodges and he falls through a window.
Officer Bill Dawson is trapped in a bus with a load of civilians. He goes out to attract the attention of the nearby Super-Skrulls, telling the others to escape while they're distracted. The Skrulls leave him after beating him up. But Lisa Carter comes back to help Bill to Avengers Tower just as the cannibal Skrull comes hurtling down. They find a cellphone in the alien's burst-open stomach, and an icon on it opens the locked doors and lots of people rush out.
Ben Urich meets Jonathan Bryant and others in a subway. Urich and Bryant lead them through a tunnel to Grand Central Station, but they are stopped beneath Avengers Tower by a street gang 'guarding' their turf. Bryant gets shot and everybody is robbed. But when the gang has gone that cellphone opens the door from the subway into the Tower.
Bill and Lisa enter the Tower and meet Phil and the others carrying Jonathan up from below. Then the doors all close again, and Melanie comes running down the stairs shouting about the monster. But Phil persuades them, even Melanie, that going up to the top to the Avengers' HQ would be the best course of action, especially for wounded Jonathan.

Now we're back with stuff that ties in to #4 directly:-

New Av #41(p4-22) Spider-Man who got separated by dinosaur from the other Avengers in the Savage Land is found by Ka-Zar and Shanna. They reveal how SHIELD Agents in the SL in NAv#5-6 were Skrulls led by (1 of the several) Skrull-Val de Fontaine. (Which is strange because the ones the NAv met were led by Yelena Belova who seemed to be working for Hydra. But then Skrulls have infiltrated Hydra as mentioned above.) Then the past-Captain America pops in.
NAv#43(p1-8) Cap fights off KZ, Shanna and Zabu the sabertooth, but a Savage Land native gets him with a blow dart. He reverts to Skrull form but still believes he's Cap. Suspicious of Spidey too they scratch him to check he bleeds red.
NAv#43(p23) As Skrull-Cap dies Spidey & co hear Black Widow shooting at Phoenix, Beast and Wolverine, and head that way.
SI:WDYT#1/2 Floating in space in an emergency lifegel (after the Peak satellite was destroyed in #1) Abigail Brand reviews her previous interactions with Skrulls in SWORD, and realises they have been cryptically hinting at their infiltration all along. She makes her way to a Skrull warship, as seen in this issue.


> Secret Invasion comic book info and issue index

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Leinil Francis Yu
Mark Morales
Laura Martin
Gabriele Dell'Otto (Cover Penciler)
Gabriele Dell'Otto (Cover Inker)
Gabriele Dell'Otto (Cover Colorist)


Characters

Listed in alphabetical order. All stories.

Black Widow
Black Widow

(Natasha Romanoff)
Iron Man
Iron Man

(Anthony Stark)
Mr. Fantastic
Mr. Fantastic

(Reed Richards)
Nick Fury
Nick Fury

(Nicholas Fury)
Sentry
Sentry

(Robert Reynolds)
Thor
Thor

(Odinson)
Wiccan
Wiccan

(William Kaplan)
Wolverine
Wolverine

(James Howlett)
Wonder Man
Wonder Man

(Simon Williams)
Yellowjacket
Yellowjacket

(Hank Pym)


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