Stories in ongoing series had been leading into Secret Invasion for months before issue #1 of the actual event series hit the stands, so by the time it arrived, we all knew what it was about.
It’s a Brian Michael Bendis joint so of COURSE it starts with a flashback, reminding us how much the skrulls hate us and why. (Their homeworld was destroyed so they targeted Earth to replace it.)
We then see Tony Stark with Hank Pym and Reed Richards, showing them the Elektra skrull body delivered to Tony by Spider-Woman. Tony tells them about the invasion, but doesn’t share everything he knows. Because he’s Tony. He’s a dick.
All of this is to make sure Secret Invasion is a self-contained story. Avid Marvel readers know all this already.
The first issue of the SI series focuses on a skrull spacecraft crash-landing in the Savage Land.
Tony brings his Avengers out to investigate, but the New Avengers find out from Spider-Woman (who is a double-agent, serving on both Tony’s “Mighty” team and Luke Cage’s “New” team, steal a quintet, and go visit for themselves.
Their jet gets eaten by a T-Rex. Wolverine is aboard, so this counts as yet another “X-Men crashing planes” instance. See the tag below. It’s one of my favorite tropes. X-Men are terrible pilots.
Inevitably, both Avengers team end up at the skrull ship and talk smack to each other. They fight, and we learn that Jarvis is a skrull who sabotaged Tony’s armor.
Meanwhile, Dum-Dum is a skrull and blows up SWORD’s base and brings down the helicarrier (again).
I think this is the first time I’ve used both my X-Men crashing planes and my helicarrier crashing tags at the same time!
As if all that wasn’t enough, the original Captain Marvel returns and attacks Thunderbolt Mountain, SWORD’s base is destroyed, Marvel Boy escapes his containment cube…
…Reed is “killed” so that the skrulls can open up the portal to the Negative Zone, and a whole mess of heroes jump out of the crashed skrull ship…
That’s all just issue #1.
Note: I’ve character tagged all the characters as they appear, unless it’s very obvious that they’re skrulls (like the ones who pop out of the spaceship at the end). It’s best to tag this way in order to keep the suspense.
English (US) · 