Three way Skrull fudge
What George Eliot could teach Marvel about effective storytelling
I am, in general, a defender of Marvel. I think She-Hulk could have been amazing. I can see the value in Quantumania. I know my ultimate universe from my multiverse. I am such a fan of the organisation that I have experienced the story of Secret Invasion three times. None were quite satisfactory, and the ways in which they left me wanting more had me thinking, oddly, about Middlemarch. Let me explain.
The story of secret invasion is simple. The earth has been infiltrated by a race of shape-shifting aliens called the Skrulls. These creatures are impersonating politicians, the military, and, crucially for the plot, superheroes. At some point the Skrulls reveal themselves, confront the earth’s defenders, and are defeated. This story was first told in the Marvel comics in 2008, and this year on Disney + TV1.
I’m not going to dwell on the TV series, because it was just bad. Others have said more, and better, about the missed opportunities of this ‘paranoid thriller without the paranoia’2. I want to talk about the 2008 comic series, which has passed into legend as one of the highpoints of the Marvel comic universe.
There are, on Marvel’s excellent ‘Unlimited’ app3, two ways to experience the Secret Invasion story. One is the 8-issue ‘core’ series, which tells the linear story of the invasion, the culminating battle in New York, and the unsettling aftermath. The other is the ‘complete event’. Since the Skrulls have infiltrated all levels of human society, and also sent an armada of spaceships, their story intersects with multiple other streams of Marvel storytelling at the time. The result is a 87 issue epic. And it is a magnificent mess.
The story intersects across 24 different series within the Marvel Universe. So within the overall arc, we go from the cunningly conceived defence of Wakanda, to the Guardians of the Galaxy pretty much splitting up over some Skrull shenanigans. Some of the best stories, though, were around lesser known characters. Front Line is a great series, chronicling the attempts of perfectly ordinary people to just- get out of the way of all the flying rubble, and avoid the Skrulls for long enough just to survive. The Initiative follows the disintegration of a rather utopian attempt to place a superhero team in every US state (a rather nationalistic focus maybe, but hey, we have Captain Britain and MI134). This attempt fails due to Skrull infiltration at every level, and the series captures the peril and paranoia of having a fifth column within your comrades better than most.
The stories that work do so partly because of the verve of the writing and art (Hercules is particularly spectacular). Partly, they work because of the interlocking nature- there is a pleasure in seeing the same events from multiple perspectives that goes beyond mere ‘fan service’. That’s the aspect that made me think of George Eliot, and Middlemarch.
OK, quick detour. Middlemarch is a fairly long novel about a fictional midlands town in the early 19th century. There is no Skrull equivalent, but the rural economy and traditions are definitely under attack from new science, technology and ideas. I kind of read it out of curiosity, and it was great- the way its overlapping stories evoked a whole universe within this small town was amazing. But the other way that Middlemarch grabbed me, and Marvel seems to struggle with, is in putting its characters in genuine jeopardy.
When I say jeopardy, I don’t mean that anyone dies in a firefight. The twin spectres that loom over Middlemarch are heartbreak and disappointment (with a side order of disgrace). In the end, no-one quite gets what they want, but they endure in a way that is touchingly human and familiar.
This does happen in Marvel- there is loss and grief aplenty. But the main characters have impregnable plot armour. Tony Stark ends Secret Invasion disgraced and on the run, but obviously we know he’ll be fine. For genuine stakes we need to look to minor characters. Let’s talk about Crusader.
Honestly I don’t even remember what powers he has. He’s a Skrull, sent to join with the infiltration of The Initiative. The nobility and camaraderie he finds convinces him that the invasion is wrong, and he fights valiantly on the human side throughout the conflict. After the final battle, he is unmasked as a Skrull and, without a word, shot. It’s a tiny moment at the end of an obscure series. But it’s a real indicator of one kind of lost storytelling opportunity in Marvel.
I like to tell myself that my favourite bits of fantastical fiction is when it tells us indirectly about ourselves- maybe that’s true, or maybe I just like hot people doing cool stuff. But the obvious parallel between the attitude of ‘the only good Skrull is a dead Skrull’ and the racism of war seems obvious even to my cloth ears. Peaceful Skrulls pop up every so often, and actually this is one area where the TV show opened up some more interesting space, only to get distracted by explosions and dumb face-offs. In Middlemarch, the characters are crushed by social and economic systems, but also by other people’s prejudice. The Skrulls could be holding a mirror up to us, if Marvel wanted. But we need bad guys, I guess.
This brings me to the other way that Marvel lets down the Skrulls. Stories about shape-shifters are scary. The person you are talking to might not be who they look like. The comrade hunkering down in cover with you might be biding their time to shoot you in the head. The lover in your bed might transform any minute and kill you. Or not transform, but kill you anyway.
There is a bit of this in Secret Invasion, especially at the beginning. But with very few exceptions, the Skrulls aren’t allowed to be too scary. Each Skrull only impersonates one human. Once unmasked, they generally remain in Skrull form and fight ‘fair’. In the final battle, the Skrulls basically abandon their main tactical advantage in favour of ‘super-skrulls’ who have grafted superhero powers onto themselves with predictably doomed results. The narrative reason for this of course is that the Skrulls need to be beatable in a visually spectacular way. And it’s fun at the time. But looking back I do wish that one of the times they have told this story, they had been a bit braver, and more cunning.
None of this is to say that Secret Invasion isn’t worth reading. It mainly is (apart from the Punisher War Journal- Jeez that’s bad). The way it has set up Norman Osborn (yes, that guy) and the Dark Avengers makes me want to continue down Marvel’s twisty paths. And the Unlimited subscription remains stunning value for almost unlimited storytelling. I just wish, sometimes, they would take the training wheels off.
Seriously, Captain Britain is great- all of them!