This cover is based on Avengers Annual 2. This month in tie-ins, the FF one wrapped up, with Ben, Johnny & the kids making it back to Manhattan with help from Negative Zone prison inmate the Tinkerer. Johnny & Lyja kinda patched things up, but she stayed in the Negative Zone, unwilling to be part of the invasion anymore. Elsewhere, a 3-issue tie in Black Panther began, wherein the might of the Wakandas soundly thwarted any hope of a Skrull invasion there, and it was prrrretty cool. And also, this series’ obligatory Frontline tie-in spun up.
I think Secret Invasion is the last event to get one. And behind this weird cover lurk exactly 2 pages with Spider-Man in them. The book is written by Brian Reed, with art by “GG Studios,” featuring penciler Marco Castiello. And, after an intro page establishing Ben Urich is interviewing a guy as part of his coverage of the Skrull invasion…
Every Spider-Man on that 2nd page is unmistakably swiped from John Romita, Jr. And while the Spidey on the previous page is obviously more McFarlane-based, Menace on both pages is clearly a Romita face, too. Pretty sure the Spidey on top of page 2 is swiped from PPSM 15. Well Ben’s covering the invasion and all, but I’m not covering his book. With that out of the way, we can move on to New Avengers 43. And it’s the team from NA 41, continuing its story. So this is weird, right? NA 40 & 42 are following Queen Veranke’s infiltration of Spider-Woman’s life by Bendis & Cheung, while 41 & 43 are Spider-Man, Ka-Zar and so on by Benids & Tan. Why not run these things in a more straightforward order? Well, anyway, that means we’re back to a standoff between Spidey, Ka-Zar, Shanna & Zabu vs. the Captain America Skrull. Spider-Man explains/nervously babbles that even though he wishes this guy was Cap, Cap is dead. Cap says he has no time for Spider-Man’s Skrull antics, and asks Ka-Zar for a way back to the US, but Ka-Zar also tells him he’s dead. Cap simply walks away, saying he doesn’t have time for this, but Shanna tells him to stop.
Why “thwap?”
Some of Ka-Zar & Shanna’s Savage Land buddies hidden in the treeline have tranq’d the Skrull, who falls to the ground, starts foaming at the mouth, reveals his Skrull face, and start repeating the phrases we’ve learned are part of the ritual when they become their target. Shanna puts a knife to Spider-Man’s throat, still assuming he’s a Skrull, and Ka-Zar slashes one of their darts across his shoulder, annoying him, but not turning him into a Skrull. Skrull-Cap keeps softly repeating his code words and begins to weep.
So then we go through his transformation, which really kinda feels like spinning the wheels a little. We’ve already seen this ritual twice, and that was on major players replaced by Skrulls, not this obvious fake-out guy. But, upon changing, his mind resists, and he’s put to sleep so they can work on him some more. We find out that the Skrulls used memories from the guys they captured to fake memories for the people they didn’t, and we see a sequence of altered memories. We see how this Skrull was not just made to think he’s the real Cap, but made to think he was captured, some of his fellow Avengers were killed, and he was tortured by Skrulls who wanted his access codes to the SHIELD Helicarrier.
An interesting move by Bendis, making us feel sorry for that guy. He’s got a lot of angles on this thing.