The further I get into this era, the more conflicted I am about what to cover. I’m making up the rules as I go. Spider-Man’s not in this comic. But it follows up on stuff we saw in the Avengers books while setting the scene for Secret Invasion. Which, in my memory, Spider-Man is in a lot, but not terribly important to. How much time should I really give it on a Spider-Man-themed blog? I guess it’s a good thing no one cares and I can just kinda do whatever. But I kinda feel like I have to read each issue related to this event and then decide if it warrants a post or not. Just a bit awkward. Well, anyway, this is the last issue of a mini exploring the history of the Illuminati group. Each issue inserted a never-before-seen adventure into some point in the past, and now it concludes right in the lead up to this event. At the helm are Bendis and his new friend, Brian Reed, who worked on the USM video game and parlayed that into a comics writing career for awhile. On the boards is Jim Cheung, inked by Mark Morales and colored by Justin Ponsor. As you could guess from the cover, we’re picking up the thread of the Elektra Skrull. This issue opens with Iron Man looking at a body bag at the site where the Illuminati used to meet before it all went south. And then Dr. Strange appears in astral form.
Strange is looking extra old.
Skrullektra gets a full splash reveal, which seems a bit wasteful. If you’re reading this, you almost certainly saw the previous comics about this topic, and also, she’s on the cover. Tony and Strange bring the others up to speed about this situation before Tony says he’s been unable to locate the real Elektra, and he thinks they might be at war with the Skrulls, and he thinks it might be the Illuminati’s fault.
Tony is referring to the first issue of this mini, a previously unseen event wherein these jokers went to Skrullos after the Kree/Skrull War to re-pick that fight and it didn’t go too well.
Uh-oh! It’s hard to overstate how exciting the run up to this event was. Literally anyone could be a Skrull! You, the reader know it, more and more of the heroes know it, but there’s nothing anyone can do about it. That is SUCH a strong setup. The Skrull detonates the building and the whole area, with out heroes barely surviving, before revealing his true form and declaring that this world has been taken from them.
2 more Skrulls appear. Like the first one, they’re wearing suits that evoke various different Marvel heroes, and seem to have an assortment of powers. One of them even has a Thor hammer. Once upon a time, the Skrulls were able to imbue the Super-Skrull with the powers of the Fantastic Four. Now it seems they’ve gone into mass production on that notion. Which, again, is a dynamite revelation. In desperation, Tony mentally tells Charles to link with Strange and teleport everyone but tony out on his mark, then re-blows the whole place up.
Not a good place to be for the good guys. Really, no event has ever had a stronger lead-in. We got a couple more preludes before we get into it…