Secret Invasion Recap

Here’s a Secret Invasion recap to help give you a background on the upcoming Marvel Studios produced series coming to Disney+. The book was written by Brian Michael Bendis and artist Leinil Francis Yu which came out back in 2008.

This story starts with Tony Stark, Hank Pym and Reed Richards talking about the reveal that the Hand leader Elektra was replaced by a Skrull; this imposter was killed by Echo and the New Avengers in Japan and was later given to him by Spider-Woman Jessica Drew.

Meanwhile, SHIELD is also in disarray with the recent departure of Nick Fury and the taking over of Maria Hill as the director of SHIELD while in space SWORD is also busy with a bogey. During this time, a space craft crash lands on Earth.

Tony gets the call from SHIELD and calls his own Mighty Avengers team which includes Spider-Woman who has defected to their side aka the Pro-Registration heroes led by Tony Stark. Before leaving though, he tips the New Avengers thru their leader Luke Cage.

Later the New Avengers invade the Avengers Tower and incapacitate Black Widow to steal their Quinjet and beat them to the Savage Land where the Skrull ship crashlanded. The Mighty Avengers follow soon.

In the Savage Land, the two Avengers teams meet and they argue as to who has jurisdiction over the Skrull ship.

While these two Avengers are fighting the Skrulls begin their move starting with long-time SHIELD personnel Dum Dum Dugan csetting a bomb off inside the SWORD orbital station known as the Peak.

On Earth, Edwin Jarvis, the Avengers’ long-time butler also launches an alien virus that affects everything on Earth including Iron Man’s armor, sending Tony Stark into a state of shock and the Mighty Avengers leaderless.

In the maximum security prison known as The Cube, all hail breaks loose and the “warden” Marvel Boy (Noh-Varr aka The Protector) cuts his loses and ditches the prison leaving the guards to fend for themselves.

In Thunderbolts Mountain, the Norman Osborn-led supervillain team gets a surprise attack from former Kree warrior Captain Marvel…

Back in New York, a Skrull infiltrates the Baxter Building and sets off an energy blast that sucks in a majority of the building endangering the lives of Sue Storm and Reed Richards’ kids as well as Human Torch and the Thing of the Fantastic Four.

In space, the members of SWORD and SHIELD are helpless as a Skrull armada begins descending to Earth.

And Reed Richards gets taken out by Hank Pym, who was also a Skrull and was looking to intercept Reed Richards before he finds a way to develop technology to detect Skrulls.

Back in the Savage Land, the heroes are surprised to see who’s inside the Skrull ship.

Interestingly enough there are some people from the Skrull ship that resemble members of both the Mighty Avengers and the New Avengers including Wolverine, Iron Man, Wonder Man, Hawkeye and Luke Cage.

With the distrust already blooming, the gathered heroes and Skrull imposters fight.

The Skrulls make sure to target the big hitters in the field namely The Sentry. So the Skrull Vision takes him on and messes up his mind by transforming into The Void, The Sentry’s evil side and causing him to split the scene.

The fight gets ended abruptly with the appearance of a T-Rex which scatters everybody.

 

Wolverine and Luke Cage encounter a dead Spider-Man as well as Bobbi Morse aka Mockingbird; a hero that was already considered dead at this point time. Clint Barton decides to save her from being killed by Wolverine and they reconnect.

Back on Earth the Skrull armada has landed with the ships beaming down hordes of Skrulls augmented with the powers of different superheroes.

In Secret Invasion # 3 things get worse…

The Thunderbolts gets their asses handed to them by Skrull Captain Marvel, but Norman Osborn has begun poisoning his mind and thereby stopping the carnage with his base and team. In Camp Hammond, the Initiative gets called in to fight the Skrulls including former Young Avengers member Cassie Lang aka Stature.

In New York, the Young Avengers are the first to respond and fight the Skrull invaders.

In the Savage Land, Echo spots Spider-Woman and tells her that she’s not a Skrull only for her former teammate to knock her out. Jessica Drew then goes to Tony Stark who was busy salvaging his armor. She reveals that Tony Stark was actually a Skrull infiltrator and that his mind was tampered so he never knew he was actually a Skrull throwing off the billionaire from his game.

In New York again, the Initiative joins the Young Avengers in fighting the Skrulls but they are soundly beaten. One of the first heroes to be killed by the Skrulls is Vision.

However, before the Skrulls can claim the win, the ground quakes and a new set of fighters make an appearance, Nick Fury and his Secret Warriors aka Caterpillars.

In Secret Invasion # 4 things become a little bit complicated.

In space, the Skrulls are studying Reed Richards, presumably brought onboard by Skrull Hank Pym.

In New York, Carol Danvers (still Ms Marvel at this time) reaches New York to see the damage caused by the Skrulls. She gets a surprise attack from aerial Skrulls who knock her down to the middle of Times Square.

Danvers lands right smack in the middle of the fight with the heroes. Nick Fury sees Ms Marvel but rather than bring her along to his secret base, he shoots her back to the Skrull invaders.

Back in the Savage Land, Black Widow is taking her time and eavsdropping on the conversation between Spider-Woman and Tony Stark. She hears that Tony could be a Skrull infiltrator and is deciding her next step.

In space, Abigail Brand manages to get inside the Skrull ship…

Back on Earth, the villains led by The Hood watch as the world is taken over by aliens and decides to join the fight.

Also in New York, two of the former big three of the Avengers have also joined the fight namely Thor and Bucky Barnes as Captain America!

In Secret Invasion # 5, more players join the fight against the takeover.

Norman Osborn successfully convinces the Skrull Captain Marvel to fight his creators and then assembles the Thunderbolts to prepare them for battle.

Meanwhile, Skrulls disguised as world leaders are convincing the people to embrace the Skrulls with faces like Tony Stark, Paris Hilton, Reed Richards, Doctor Doom, Steve Jobs and more.

Back in space, Brand has managed to infiltrate the Skrulls and kill most of the crew and is also able to rescue Reed Richards.

Before they can escape though, Skrull Captain Marvel returns and wreaks havok on the Skrull armada.

Reed and Brand are still able to escape.

On Earth Maria Hill is also threatened with death by the SHIELD agents and Jarvis. When they execute her, it turns out it was a LMD and she blows up the Hellicarrier with the Skrulls.

Back in the Savage Land, Tony recovers, Nat meets with Wolverine and eventually with Ka-Zar and Shanna the She-Devil. There’s still a lot of paranoia between the heroes.

But Reed Richards arrives and uses his new machine to find out which in the area are Skrulls and which ones arent.

This includes Bobbi Morse aka Mockingbird. Clint eventually kills Skrull Mockingbird and vows to get rid of all the Skrulls.

In Secret Invasion # 6 we start off with Noh-Varr meeting Skrull Captain Marvel, who is on the brink of death. At this time Marvel was trying to put Noh-Varr in the position of becoming the new Captain Marvel but we all know that didn’t happen.

There’s also a briefing with the US President and we get to see how different communities and countries fought off the Skrulls like the X-Men still based in San Francisco at the time, Wakanda and the Inhumans in Attilan.

Queen Veranke, the Skrull queen and leader of the invasion returns to her army after almost getting herself killed by the Black Widow.

At this point they are teasing that they have a secret weapon to use against the heroes and on Earth if they lose this invasion.

Back in New York, Fury and his gang of Initiative members, Secret Warriors and Young Avengers return to the city to take down more Skrulls endangering the lives of human beings.

They get summoned by thunder to Central Park where Thor is calling his allies to battle. And at that point he gets to meet the “new” Captain America Bucky Barnes.

The combined forces of the heroes and villains are also gathered and its Tony Stark who gets to say…

The battle continues with Secret Invasion # 7 where the Skrulls start dropping like flies at the combined forces of the Avengers, the Thunderbolts, the Secret Warriors, the Hood and his villains and the Young Avengers. During the battle, the Skrulls activate their dirty trick.

 

There’s also a subplot about Jessica Jones wanting to join the fight after watching the TV report; leaving her baby to Jarvis.

They turned Janet Van Dyne aka The Wasp into a dirty bomb hurting both the heroes and the villains. Turns out Skrull Hank Pym gave Janet a new serum that can make her grow but along with that serum, they placed something to poison her when the need arises.

Plus they also have an inside man in the form of Edward Jarvis, the Avengers’ long time butler, who was also replaced by a Skrull. Skrull Jarvis then changes form and kidnaps Danielle Cage; the daughter of Luke Cage and Jessica Jones.

In the heat of the battle, some of the Avengers went on killing mode with Hawkeye/ Ronin aiming to kill Queen Veranke while Wolverine opts to do melee combat against the Skrull queen.

In Secret Invasion # 8 still by Brian Michael Bendis and Leinil Francis Yu, we see Thor making the decision to get rid of his friend and founding Avengers member.

Thor summons a tornado to sweep the Giant sized Wasp away from people.

As Janet vaporizes, Miss Marvel aka Carol Danvers notices that Veranke is back once more…

Wolverine tries to land the killing blow but her head gets blown up not by Wolverine but by Norman Osborn.

With the Skrull armada down, the transport ships are also retrieved which reveals some big surprises including a not-so-dead Mockingbird.

Evan the abducted Spider-Woman (Jessica Drew) is also among the people inside the transport.

In the end, SHIELD has been given to Norman Osborn who rebrands it to HAMMER; firing Maria Hill and getting Victoria Hand. He also jump starts the Dark Avengers and was also instrumental in the destruction of Asgard in the story Siege. But before all of this, by the end of Secret Invasion, we get this surprise. The introduction of the superhero Cabal.

This consists of Doctor Doom, Namor, The Hood, Loki, Emma Frost and Osborn.

Check out my other major storyline recap, the Civil War recap from Mark Millar and Steve McNiven.

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