Secret Wars on Infinite Earths: The Comic Book Fight Club

SKRULLS versus WOLVERINE

Eve of Destruction (Marvel)
Where: X-Men #90 When: July 1999
Why: Alan Davis & Terry Kavanagh How: Alan Davis

The Story So Far...
When a trans-dimensional being called Ejulp recruits the X-Men to defend his domain from the unstoppable Juggernaut -- he inadvertently flings them through time & space to a long time ago on a distant planet!

Confusion abounds as the X-Men encounter fallen comrades, erstwhile allies, and even versions of themselves -- but this is no ordinary product of time travel. They are in the domain of the shape-shifting Skrulls -- and the lost world of Tarnax IV!

They are inadvertently deposited on a training moon orbiting the Skrull Throneworld as the great Devourer of Worlds Galactus approaches! Now the X-Men race to change history to save the lives of untold Skrulls -- and themselves! They just have to convince the Skrulls to stop trying to kill them!

Tale of the Tape...
Strength: Abomination 6 (Invincible)
Intelligence: Green Goblin 5 (Professor)
Speed: Captain Britain 4 (Olympian)
Stamina: Wolverine 6 (Generator)
Agility: Wolverine 3 (Acrobat)
Fighting: Wolverine 6 (Warrior)
Energy: Havok 5 (Lasers)
Total: Captain Britain 29 (Super)

Skrulls specialize in covert infiltration and subterfuge, but what good is a disguise when your opponent can sniff a fake out from a mile away?

Wolverine already knows he's knee-deep in shape-shifters, so he's on alert to suspect even the most convincing doppelganger, but these particular Skrulls aren't just copying the appearance of other powerful figures!

Skrull science is capable of bestowing copied super-powers, technology, and specialist training upon their agents. There are several well-known super-powered Skrulls, chief among them: Kl'rt the Super-Skrull and Paibok the Power Skrull.

Wolverine's up against engineered spies in training, so he at least won't have to worry about seasoned, multi-powered super-heavyweights like Super-Skrull. He does, however, have some powerful imitators to contend with.

The Skrull spies are patterned after: Captain Britain, Havok, Green Goblin, Medusa, and Abomination.

This is the Captain Britain who stands toe-to-toe with Juggernaut, and we all know Abomination as the arch-nemesis of Hulk. Wolverine is no stranger to tangling with those adversaries as well, but usually he only has to contend with one of them. This pairing of powerhouses alone poses a significant challenge!

Add the abilities/arsenal of Havok and Green Goblin for some extra ranged fire power, while Medusa's Inhuman prehensile hair locks down the mutant's mobility, and he's running out of options real fast!

Wolverine's best bet may be immediate surrender to a berzerker barrage to mercilessly wield his adamantium claws against the alien menace.

Animalistic ruthlessness has been the equalizer in his outnumbered battles against The Hellfire Club, Lady Deathstrike and her cyborg Reavers, The Hand, and even The Fantastic Four! Will it make the difference again? Let's find out...

The Tape: Skrulls Ranking: Wolverine (#5)

What Went Down...

Familiar faces surround, but he isn't amongst friends. Wolverine, claws out, fights for his life in an arena designated "Stage-Earth". Only it has nothing to do with Earth. It's just another lie. A testing ground for Skrull spies to hone the skills they've stolen from Earth's heroes and villains.

He throws himself through the crowd -- leading claws on his left hand slashing at a face imitating the mask of the Green Goblin, while his right hand trails behind, having already raked against an imitation Captain Britain.

They might not be the genuine articles, but each of these doppelgangers shares the might of the people they imitate. They're still training, but they're dangerous.

His mutant healing factor is already working to stitch pierced flesh back together when a thick shock of hair wraps around Wolverine's torso!

His instincts are almost as sharp as his claws. A single slash is all that's needed to separate the attacking Skrull from her living, prehensile Medusa hair!

One threat quelled gives way to another. A Skrull with the rampaging strength of The Abomination puts an end to Wolverine's stand -- driving him into the ground!

The crushing slam of Abomination's fist leaves the X-Man dazed & confused!

He can hardly process what he's seeing as another hand grabs Abomination by the wrist and hoists him over head.

A head with another familiar face. One that hits a little too close to home.

John Proudstar -- a comrade at arms who perished by Wolverine's side. A short-lived X-Man, accompanied by Shadowcat. Reinforcements!

Blasts of energy stream towards the phony Havok, Green Goblin, and Captain Britain, as Skrulls with the faces of other deceased heroes -- Adam Warlock and Captain Marvel -- come charging to the rescue!

Mar-Vell kicks Green Goblin in the face while blasting Havok with cosmic power, as Adam Warlock directs a full mental energy bolt to subdue Captain Britain!

They're Skrulls. Each and every one of them. Empowered with super-normal abilities taken from well-known counterparts, but there's not much use for infiltrating society with a dead man's face. Spies who can't hide in plain sight.

The genuine Shadowcat helps untangle Wolverine from Medusa's hair. Thunderbird makes sure the Abomination Skrull has been slammed unconscious, while Warlock drops Captain Britain next to the other bodies.

The Hammer...

It looked like Wolverine was on the ropes, but we'll never know if he could've turned it around on his own. Kitty Pryde showed up with Thunderbird, Adam Warlock, and Captain Marvel Skrulls to make the big save!

There's a whole lot more Skrull on Mutant action in this issue, with the rest of the X-Men battling elsewhere, and our unlikely quintet sticking together to fight towards an exit.

I kinda like the idea of deep-cover Skrulls whose imitation is engineered to be so complete and convincing that it's permanent.

Taking away the common ability to shape-shift is a pretty heavy-duty fate for a Skrull, and the predicament it leaves agents in, whose double has very publicly met their demise, is kinda interesting. Not that it stopped later iterations once Marvel Comics truly fulfilled a revolving door of death.

I suppose these permanently altered Skrulls become a mutant caste in a vaguely analogous fashion to our X-Men. Thematic consideration that bridges the gap between these two groups -- even if Wolverine remains guarded as he receives help from his apparent saviors, who are further ostracized by their correct belief that the X-Men are trying to warn the Skrulls of impending doom.

Wolvie's canny enough to know you can never let your guard down when dealing with Skrulls, and indeed, the next time we see him -- on a hijacked Skrull ship as the X-Men are emerging from "cryo-stasis" on the way back to present-day Earth -- he has been replaced by a Skrull doppelganger. Shades of an Alien 3 fast-one.

As I've mentioned in the past: 1999 was the first real down period for my comics reading, but the significance of this story extends in both directions, continuing into the mildly interesting reveal that the real Wolverine has become Apocalypse's Horseman of Death, and backwards to 1983's Fantastic Four #257, when Nova led Galactus to feast upon Tarnax IV - the Skrull Throneworld.

If you really wanted to do some mental gymnastics, you could further weave this episode into the contemporary significance of Secret Invasion, which continued to reckon with the destruction of Tarnax IV, and led to multi-powered Skrulls created after its own retro-active fiction - an encounter with The Illuminati.

We might reason the Secret Invasion super Skrulls are all part of the same program that created the permanently altered spies seen today, destined for obsolescence. It can be debated if a second Mar-Vell Skrull appearing during that event supports this theory, or challenges it. It might've been nice if it were the same Skrull, but this one appears to die later this issue, and they went with a more recognized blonde version of Mar-Vell for the 2007 "return".

Thinking this much about Skrulls in relation to the X-Men is kind of an odd fit, and I wonder how it all came about. Even taking previous space adventures into account - returning to a then-sixteen year old issue of FF is quite a leap.

Maybe it speaks to the slight chaos of Marvel at the turn of the millennium. A time that sometimes felt like creative freefall as the content of comics negotiated a transition from familiar styles and subject matter, to slightly new approaches.

X-Men #90 feels more consistent with the slightly old-fashioned vein that ran through Marvel into 2001 and the space-centric Maximum Security event. It butts up against a grounding of the X-Men, with deeper investment in their natural habitat of frictious co-existence between mutants & humans, and the coming of Grant Morrison's New X-Men. Both fuelled by the X-Men movie in 2000.

Amusing that the next most prominent X/ET encounter that comes to mind is the Shi'ar Imperial conflict in New X-Men, 2002. Something about that Great British diet of sci-fi keeping the space classics in the minds of Morrison, and Alan Davis?

The presence of Captain Britain feels like a quirk of Davis' dual role as plotter & penciler. I wonder if he may also be the key to the entire Skrull affair. I certainly enjoyed his brief time on the first three issues of Fantastic Four (Vol.3), introducing the Kirby-inspired Iconoclast, and revisiting the classic Super-Apes & Red Ghost. Perhaps Galactus and Skrulls were unfinished business.

Davis has a pretty safe & soft style, and it's pleasant here in the colourful world of classically-tinged X-Men. I don't particularly love this issue or time period, but it's fairly inoffensive, and I hope to explore more in the future.

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Winners: Thunderbird, Warlock, and Mar-Vell Skrulls (w/ Wolverine & Shadowcat)
#364 (new) Thunderbird (Skrull)
#365 (new) Adam Warlock (Skrull)
#366 (new) Captain Marvel (Skrull)
#5 (--) Wolverine [+1 assist]
#126 (--) Shadowcat [+1 assist]
#1014 (new) Captain Britain (Skrull)
#1015 (new) Havok (Skrull)
#1016 (new) Green Goblin (Skrull)
#1017 (new) Abomination (Skrull)
#1018 (new) Medusa (Skrull)