Random Happenstance

Skrullduggery Week, Day Three: Warning: Skrull Detector may cause cancer, mutations, bad mutations, seizures, intestinal cramping...


One of the very fair complaints about all this Skrull business is, how come Mr. Fantastic/Dr. Strange/Wolverine weren't able to tell? (Through science, magic, and Skrull-stink, respectively.) Well, in Mr. Fantastic and Dr. Strange's case, I suppose they wouldn't necessarily scan everyone, every time they see them, to determine if a Skrull (or other shapechanger) has replaced someone. Wait, that makes sense to me, but I don't live in a universe with Skrulls, Dire Wraiths, Mystique, Nightmare, Dormammu, the Chameleon, the Infinity War dopplegangers, Life Model Decoys, the Super-Adaptoid, Mysterio, Machinesmith, the Brute, the Jackal, Proteus, Morph, the Impossible Man, image inducers, the Space Phantom, that Hobgoblin that was in the Imperial Guard; ye gods, I'm surprised more characters aren't replaced by duplicates or imposters, then the imposters are replaced...

(Then there's the future time-travel versions, alternate reality versions, zombie alternate reality versions...identical cousins...I know I'm forgetting some.)

So, scanning everyone, all the time, to make sure they're not an alien/robot/psychotic naked mutant in disguise; is probably not an unreasonable precaution. Maybe we'll see the return of scanners like Rom's: making them gun-shaped is completely optional, however. But even so, that's not going to work.

Strictly speaking, this isn't really in continuity, but as we saw the other day, the Recorder is able to spot a Skrull on sight. And he can do it without red lights or invasive probes, simply by noting changes in temperature. (And by the way, I really wish my Hercules action figure had come with a Recorder pack-in and Bob Layton issue, instead of an Annihilus wing and nothing.)

But, when the Warskrulls turned up in Uncanny X-Men (way back when there was only 1 X-Men title a month!) Wolverine would be able to smell them out, which I think he did at one point; or Professor Xavier would be able to read a Skrull's mind. Heck, if Rogue touched one she'd get Skrull powers, so there's three team members right there that aren't fooled by Skrulls. The Skrulls (and the writers) had to amp up their shape-changing abilities, so they would cover scent, mental scanning, blah blah blah; bringing the Skrulls game up to the level of magic.

Oh, and the difference between Skrulls and WarSkrulls? Um, Chris Claremont. No, really, that's pretty much it.

There's probably also some logical, in-story reason for anti-Skrull scans to not work. I'd just say something like every scan is the equivalent of like 70 chest x-rays.

Rom picture from Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe Deluxe Edition #11. Sue shows us the way in Fantastic Four #367, "By Reed...Betrayed!" Gah, I think that title's been used more than once. Written by Tom DeFalco, pencils by Paul Ryan, inks by Ivy and Kryssing.