#thor?

Since there’s no current ruler for him to be a perfect twin of, we’re not doing the obvious riff.

Dezan wonders that any Skrull would bust him out of jail considering his CRIMES.

Whatever Dezan’s crimes (which we do learn by the end of the story), Raksor isn’t thrilled at having to turn to Dezan but desperate times and measures.

Meanwhile, over at the other half of the Andromeda Galaxy, the Avengers decompress from the recent battle of Nebula and talk about what a big ship Thanos’ big ship is.

Hercules asks what became of Firelord after he stormed off, stormed right back in, and then got exploded.

Actually cool General Zedrao explains that Firelord was blasted away by the Sanctuary II’s weapons and hit a moon but the Skrulls have rescued him and have put him in a tube of healing juice to heal him up.

Which General Zedrao is only doing because Firelord was standing near the Avengers when the Avengers and Skrulls formed an alliance. Despite Firelord being a hated herald of Galactus when Galactus eating the Skrull throneworld is what caused the empire to implode in a series of power grabs and vacuums.

That’s how civil the Skrulls can be, under General Zedrao. For his part, Firelord refused to work with the Skrulls at all and flew off in a huff. He only flew back in a huff because Nebula destroyed Xandar just cause.

Captain Marvel apologizes that Nebula got away but Starfox vows that he will bring Nebula to justice.

Wasp: “Starfox! Don’t make promises we can’t keep!”

Hah.

As Black Knight says, they have no idea where in the entire universe Nebula was sent. And at some point the Avengers have to go home. They’re Earth’s Mightiest Heroes so they have to spend a majority of their time actually on Earth. Union rules.

Starfox persists that surely there’s some way to track her down and General Zedrao actually has an idea along those lines.

General Zedrao: “A sensor grid of intergalactic range was housed on the old Imperial power asteroid. Perhaps it could be used to home in on the wild energies used to transport Nebula and her aides!”

Plus, General Zedrao could arrange safe passage to the asteroid.

Starfox insists that the Avengers check out this potential lead but Captain America goes ‘well jan you’re in charge’

Wasp: “Well... I guess it’s worth a try. After all, if we’ve come this far -- !”

So Starfox’s dad’s ship and a Skrull escort saucer take off towards the power asteroid. And while Starfox grumpily stares at the controls, still angry that he let Nebula get away just because she got him flatfooted by claiming to be Thanos’ granddaughter, Black Knight gushes about the power asteroid.

Because he was a pretty good physicist before he took up being man in armor hitting things with sword in the past times for a pastime. So based on the schematics he’s pretty sure that the power asteroid has a transdimensional energy siphon going on.

Which is neat.

Although it makes me wonder if people from other dimensions are ever going to show up mad that someone is siphoning all their power.

Back in the day, the power asteroid was used to charge high-energy capacitor crystals and to broadcast power to the Skrull Throneworld, before Galactus went and made a snack of it.

The pilot of the Skrull escort saucer pulls away to get ready to warp through subspace and Starfox asks what he’s doing.

And this is a random Skrull who is not happy to be on this assignment at all.

Random Skrull not happy to be on this assignment: @#%$@# Earthers! If I weren’t under orders, I’d lead you into a black hole! You might’ve helped the armada today, but I haven’t forgotten who your kind cost us a decisive victory over the Kree!

He’s lucky he thought that instead of saying it.

Not that the Avengers would get punchy for it. Well, Hercules might but the others would have gotten him to refrain.

But General Zedrao seems the sort to frown on that kind of unprofessionalism.

Also, get some context, my dude. The Avengers only got involved in the war because the Skrulls and the Kree decided to start shit on Earth.

The Skrulls themselves tried to get the Avengers arrested before the Avengers even knew there was a space war in space.

Stop poking the hornet nest, everyone in space.

Anyway, Starfox’s dad’s ship follows the Skrull saucer through subspace hyperdrive and arrive to quite a weird sight.

BIPLANES AND BLIMPS

IN SPAAAACE!

It turns out that Skrulls have their subcultures the same way that humans do. Although... I’m not sure what the closest comparison to this particular thing would be?

There’s a Skrull colony Kral who decided that they would LARP Earth America 1930s society 24/7. That would be The Thing that they base their entire culture on.

(Until a run of Black Panther where the subculture got a counter culture in a group of Skrulls that decided they’d rather LARP Earth America Civil Rights movement)

So basically you have a Gangster Planet of aliens pretending to be gangsters. Its very original series Star Trek, or my vague idea of Star Trek.

Since they all shapeshift humans all the time, the rest of the Skrull empire doesn’t really like them.

Random Skrull not happy to be on this assignment: “They tend to be a bit eccentric.”

Anyway, hence space biplanes and space zeppelins.

These Skrulls are super committed to the bit.

Except insofar as it pertains to not using advanced technology.

Despite being Earth LARPers, when they see the Avengers disembark from Starfox’s dad’s ship, they’re like ‘holy crap earthers, ice ‘em!’ and they try to ice ‘em.

Captain Marvel just zaps past them as electricity to make their guns too zappy to hold.

A Skrull cosplaying a gangster decides he doesn’t like “wise-mouth dames” and tries to sap her in the back of the head but Monica is cautious so she was standing around in her hologram form so the idiot falls right through her.

And then Wasp shoots him so hard his cosplay slips.

Y’know, these Kral Skrulls are some self-hating Skrulls.

Earlier, one of the space biplane pilots called the Skrull who was unhappy to be escorting the Avengers a frog-face, and boss of this casino blimp Floyd Donahue here tells the Skrull Wasp zapped that he looks stupid in green.

Not to mention that whole ‘stay in human form 24/7′ thing.

I guess that’s just a thing you can do when you’re a shapeshifter.

Anyway, Wasp is less than pleased with the welcoming committee and so is unhappy Skrull, formally known as Major Syrro, who grouses that this all could have been avoided if the Donahue’s men had just let him display his status code.

He further grouses that he’s on a mission to escort the Avengers to the power asteroid and this is all an annoying delay.

When Donahue hears that the Avengers helped beat Nebula, he decides that maybe he and the Avengers could help each other.

While Donahue goes to check on a special guest, the Avengers take in the casino blimp because it really is a space casino blimp.

Which Hercules is thrilled by.

Black Knight is amused that it looks like every gangster film he’s seen, making it more of an anachronism than himself. And Cap is like ‘yeah this reminds me of my childhood’ because he’s actually from the era of Earth America that the Skrulls are copying.

And Starfox is annoyed with the Avengers for not being 100% focused on the mission even though they’re having to sit on their thumbs for a second and there’s not really a point to being grim.

Oh, Starfox. You used to want to be the party guy.

Donahue lets the Avengers in to meet his special guest and its that masked Skrull from the opening bit, Prince Dezan.

Hi again, Prince Dezan.

Prince Dezan is the late Emperor Dorrek’s younger brother.

Major Syrro is aghast that Donahue is harboring a traitor to his own kind who he describes as the most dangerous Skrull in all the galaxy, sent to forever jail when his un-Skrull activities were uncovered.

Prince Dezan: “I won’t deny that much of what your escort says is true. But there is another Skrull at large who is far more dangerous than I. And he has in his grasp a weapon which could destroy all that remains of the empire!”

Well.

I’m not too attached to the Skrull empire as a political and military organization. I guess I don’t want huge swathes of the Skrull population to die. They’re going to be doing enough of that during the Annihilation War.

Prince Dezan Explains It All.

Back in his younger days, pre-forever jail and mask, he and two other Skrulls Zabyk and Myrn formed one of those disaffected youth groups talking all about how the old people just don’t understand and we’re going to fix all the problems with society, man.

Dezan and Zabyk had a falling out. And then Dezan got thrown in forever jail when his radical proclivities were discovered.

Zabyk fled to the fringes of the Skrull Empire and formed a new even more radical organization than three youths talking over drinks. And Myrn’s part in the drinking club for disaffected youth was never discovered and he became both disillusioned and one of the empire’s greatest scientists.

Myrn was put in charge of the power asteroid and unfortunately got a front row seat to Galactus eating the Skrull throneworld.

As one does, he went a little insane.

There was chaos after the Skrull capital vanished overnight and Zabyk’s group took advantage of that to seize the power asteroid and there discovered his ol’ pal Myrn, being a little insane.

Zabyk: “It’s only the old order that’s dead, Myrn. The empire will live on, but it will be an empire to my liking! Capturing this power station was just a start!”

Myrn: “No, Zabyk, this station is the key! My research here has yielded remarkable discoveries! I have begun to harness the energy of this complex into the creation of the ultimate weapon! My weapon could bring universal change... overnight! Yes!”

When a scientist that has gone a little insane due to watching the end of the world starts talking about an ultimate weapon, that’s usually a red flag. But Zabyk is intrigued.

Raksor (who is apparently an Established Skrull with prior appearances) from the prison break opening was also on the power asteroid and overheard this conversation.

He heard the Ultimate Weapon proposal and it shocked him enough that he resorted to freeing the traitorous Prince Dezan from forever jail.

Major Syrro complains that Raksor should have brought the news to the armada instead of breaking out Prince Dezan but Raksor couldn’t contact the armada because General Zedrao had sealed off the planetoid base to wait for the civil warring to blow over.

Huh. I guess not playing politics can have downsides.

Also, this sure is a lot of Skrulls talking to each other.

Where do the Avengers come in?

Here’s where the Avengers come in.

Raksor mentions that the power asteroid is fortified enough to hold off the armada. Makes sense. It supplied the power to the Skrull throneworld. You wouldn’t want it to be easy to subvert.

So the best solution is for a small commando force to gain entry into the power asteroid station.

‘Hey,’ says Starfox. ‘The Avengers are like a small commando force!’ and volunteers the Avengers for the mission.

Captain America: “Hold it, Starfox! We need a little planning before we rush into anything -- and there is a chain of command!”

Wasp: “Yes, I don’t recall appointing you group spokesman!”

Starfox apologizes but now that he’s been told to simmer down, Wasp and Cap admit that the idea has merit.

After all, they need to use the power asteroid too, to try to find Nebula, so why not deal with this if they’re going there anyway?

So an hour later, the Avengers transfer over from the Big Casino space blimp in a space biplane Spirit of Coolidge to the space power asteroid.

I dig that giant transmission dish.

That’s how you know its a classy power asteroid.

The Spirit of Coolidge identifies itself and says its here with a crate full of power stones that need to be charged.

Since Zabyk and his gang are putting on a business-as-usual facade until the Ultimate Weapon is ready, the Spirit of Coolidge is permitted to land.

But when the Zabyk’s crew is scanning the crate the Spirit of Coolidge brought, Black Knight OH YEAHs right out of it.

And the crew from the Spirit of Coolidge also throw fists and reveal themselves as the Avengers dressed up 30s style.

Awfully convenient that there’s a known group of human cosplaying Skrulls out in the Empire so that Zabyk’s crew didn’t blink when a bunch of humans showed up.

While unboxed Black Knight and Wasp and de-30s’d the rest of the Avengers beat up the Skrulls in the docking bay, Captain Marvel fried the monitor systems for this part of the power asteroid with a dose of infrared.

So the Skrulls in the rest of the asteroid won’t see the Avengers coming, but they’ll bound to send some people to investigate why the monitors aren’t working.

Wasp tells Monica that that’s okay beating up Skrulls is well within the Avengers’ skillset and sends her ahead to find the Ultimate Weapon.

We get another logical limitation to Monica’s way past cool powers. She could zip around at lightspeed and traverse the base in a flash. But she can’t search very well at that speed in close quarters because everything turns into a blur.

If it were outside, it’d be a different story. Or the vastness of space, that’d be good too.

But since she is putting around at sub-sonic speeds, she takes the time to blow out the defense systems along her path, in case the Avengers have to come down the corridor.

Several kilometers across the power asteroid, Zabyk is having a really bad day.

A bunch of Earther superbeings are storming his facility and punching people, there’s a weird electromagnetic energy frying all his systems, a star cruiser just docked without giving identity codes and it wasn’t detected until it had docked because of all the damage to the monitors.

Myrn tells Zabyk not to worry though because the hyperwave bomb’s powering sequence has already been started and all that needs to be done is to trigger the bombardment switch.

Oh boy I hate this.

Okay. So.

The hyperwave bomb activation switch is next to the dimensional power core. And has tons of radiation leakage.

Instead of building the activation switch anywhere else, Myrn just builds a special insulated armor that you have to. OOZE into.

And then solidfy around a bunch of components. And then just exist like that for a while.

Has Skrull shapeshifting gone too far? Yes. Yes it has.

How do their organs work?

Anyway, now that Zabyk has the armor and told that the on switch for the hyperwave bomb is incredibly user friendly, Zabyk kills his old chum Myrn.

What a bad friend.

Elsewhere, the Avengers run along yet more corridors when a heavy door bursts open with a THOOM

HEY ITS OUR GOOD PAL THOR!

Now its a party!

And he’s here with... the Colonizers of Rigel. Now that’s a name that’s not aged well.

Thor says he’s also here to help fight Zabyk.

Not sure what he was doing over in his solo book that led him into this plot. Thor’s in the Simonson run at this time and I don’t remember any Skrull related adventures. Apparently around this same time, he was handling post Surtur related business, like rescuing a bunch of wrongfully claimed mortal souls from Hela.

This must be before that though. His face gets heavily scarred during that story and he wears a piece of his cape over his face until he can grow a nice beard.

Meanwhile, Captain Marvel still sub-sonic nyooming around the power asteroid. She finds the most heavily secured area on the asteroid and immediately decides that if the Skrulls want to keep everyone out, she should go in.

Proving once again how amazingly overpowered Captain Marvel is if written with a little imagination, she easily bypasses the triple-thick blast doors by using the fiber optics in the walls. And even when there’s a frequency barrier on the fiber optics, she bypasses that as well since she can turn into the entire electromagnetic spectrum.

If I convey nothing else, Monica Rambeau’s powerset is rad.

Back over at the Avengers running through corridors, Captain America indulges in a little running small talk.

Captain America: “Too bad that Goliath is stuck back at Avengers Mansion on monitor duty -- eh, Thor?”

Thor: “‘Tis just as well. With his great height, he would be hard pressed to travel these corridors.”

Wrong answer.

I do love that the Skrulls at least tried to lead the Avengers into a trap by imitating the one Avenger who wasn’t on the team but was likely to just be out in space.

If you have the Skrulls in something and they’re not doing a shapeshift, then why not use the Badoon?

Anyway, despite losing the element of surprise, the Skrulls try to attack the Avengers anyway.

Captain America, while jump kicking two Skrulls in the face at the same time: “Sorry, boys -- but an ambush that’s expected rarely works!”

Starfox finds to his surprise that Skrulls have enough of a pleasure center in their brains for him to do his Starfox thing and tickle their fancy from inside their brains.

Why would you be surprised by that?

Anyway, the Skrull that he mind zaps doesn’t know where Zabyk is so Prince Dezan tries with another of the failed ambushers. But he doesn’t get further than shocking the guy that Prince Dezan is out and about before the wall KRUNGs open and out pops a She-Hulk.

Reasonably, Starfox assumes that this is another Skrull trick and tries to punch She-Hulk.

But he bounces off an invisible force field.

I never get tired of watching Starfox bounce off invisible force fields.

The other three Fantastic Four emerge just after She-Hulk and reasonably enough they assume that the Avengers are a Skrull trick.

Although Sue notes that Hercules is exerting a lot of pressure on the invisible force field for an ordinary Skrull.

Traditionally, this would be the time for a misunderstanding fight.

But this is a slightly smarter Avengers team. Wasp is willing to entertain the notion that maybe these really are the Fantastic Four.

Captain America takes that ball and runs with it.

Captain America: “If you’re really Reed Richards, how are things at the Baxter Building?”

Mr. Fantastic: “The real Captain America knows that the Baxter Building was destroyed.”

Captain America: “Right... Blown up in orbit! You’ve been staying at Avengers Mansion since then.”

Now, the misunderstanding fight has its place in the comics book but we’re most of the way through the issue. There’s other stuff to handle. The Fantastic Four and Avengers can fight some other time when cooler heads don’t prevail.

So what are the Fantastic Four doing here?

Well, over in Fantastic Four Annual #19, one of the civil warring planetary governors decides that what will really prove that she deserves to be Empress is if she destroys the Fantastic Four.

Unfortunately for her and fortunately for Fantastic fans, Reed basically deduces the entire political climate just from knowing that Galactus ate the throneworld and that Skrulls are dicks, and figures out that this is a scheme.

After Reed plays along with the governor long enough to capture her, he learns from her that this wasn’t JUST a grasp for power, the governor hoped to get the Skrulls to unite behind her before Zabyk pulled off his own, much more dangerous scheme.

So the Fantastic Four head off to the power asteroid and they were that second ship that docked with the asteroid.

Slightly fun fact: from the point where the Avengers and Fantastic Four meet up, the lines are almost identical between the two annuals because John Byrne drew both. Inking and coloring is different and the Avengers Annual has a page or two that the Fantastic Four Annual doesn’t.

Mr. Fantastic is about to tell Cap the exposition he heard from Myrn when Zabyk pops up on the big screen to yell at the Avengers and Fantastic Four.

Zabyk: “I, Zabyk, shall soon unleash upon an unsuspecting galaxy the power of my hyperwave bomb! The power that will make me master of the universe!!”

You don’t look like any He-Man I’ve ever seen, dude.

Prince Dezan protests how Zabyk has betrayed their super best friend sedition group by becoming such a dick about it and Zabyk only belatedly realizes that Dezan is Dezan.

In fairness, Dezan has been human cosplaying this whole time like a Kralian.

While Zabyk boasts about how he killed Myrn so he couldn’t turn on him and now Myrn’s invention will make sure anyone that tries to oppose him will be eliminated.

I notice that nobody was actually revealed what the hyperwave bomb actually does.

It seems like maybe a bunch of the cast knows from discussions off-panel but the audience is in the dark. I have thoughts on why it was written this way but I’ll share them later on.

Anyway, Captain Marvel has found her way into the main control room. Captain America spots her on the video screen and orders her to burn out the machine.

She zaps into the machine just as Mr. Fantastic tries to protest the order.

Inside the machine Captain Marvel has a trippy experience because the hyperwave bomb is tied into the power asteroid’s main power core which draws power from another dimension.

Which makes it similar to a super-advanced version of the energy disruptor that gave her her powers.

There’s so much power building in the dimensional interface that she feels like she’s being pulled apart and realizes that if the hyperwave bomb isn’t able to release all this energy build-up, it could doom the universe.

Dammit, Myrn!

So a micro-second later, before Mr. Fantastic even finishes his warning, Captain Marvel zaps back out of the machine and then zaps to where the Avengers and Fantastic Four are to tell them that she didn’t stop the machine.

Zabyk doesn’t really know what to make of all this and decides that it was a weird distraction and just goes ahead and hits the on switch.

And things get trippy again.

The entire power asteroid starts rumbling and shaking as the massive broadcast dish sends out an energy pulse through space and subspace, sweeping across the entire galaxy.

Every Skrull in existence (sans the Super Skrull because he’s stuck as radiation in the Oort Cloud at the time) starts glowing with black light as the hyperwave  bomb affects them.

And I have to say, I’m impressed by that Skrull spy who was assigned to pretend to be furniture or an art piece indefinitely. Now they’re stuck like that forever.

The story held off on what the hyperwave bomb did until it had already happened.

And here’s what it does: it stabilizes the genetic code of all Skrulls so they can’t shapeshift anymore.

And I think that’s why the story played coy with it. Because there’s more tension if the reader assumes that the bomb is going to blow up the universe or something. If it just stops the Skrulls from shapeshifting, eh it doesn’t really matter if the heroes fail to stop it.

AND THEY DO!

The Avengers and Fantastic Four may as well have not shown up for all it mattered! They beat up some of Zabyk’s goon minions but Myrn screwed over Zabyk from the start. The hyperwave bomb affected Zabyk even in the “insulated” armor.

And what a weird narrative decision for the Skrulls to have their shapeshifting removed. That’s their iconic thing!

They’ve lost their throneworld, their emperor, the unity of their empire and now their species gimmick? Geez, the Skrulls are getting kicked while they’re down.

Not what my first thought would be as a path forward for the Skrull as a concept but Englehart’s Silver Surfer run gets some good material out of it.

It only lasts a couple years before it starts getting undone though.

A Skrull character named S’Byll is introduced in 1988 and for reasons, she can give Skrulls back their shapeshifting by touching them.

Eventually off-panel all Skrulls can shapeshift again despite the logistical hurdles against her touching every Skrull in such a short time period.

Maybe she. Rubbed her hands on a bunch of napkins and sent them out throughout the galaxy?

Whatever.

Anyway, Prince Dezan reflexively turned back into his true form of The Most Handsome (And Thus Ugliest Skrull) right when the hyperwave bomb went off

Seriously look at this dork.

He actually sort of predicts the more modern Skrull designs which lose the gonk and look more like Star Trek budget version of Skrulls.

Like Dezan doesn’t look too far off from Veranke and nobody mentioned that she was also repulsive when they were exiling her for being a religious extremist asshole.

Despite being the Ugliest Skrull, Dezan lucked out compared to Zabyk who is now fused with the armor since he had to shapeshift and solidify around a bunch of the internal mechanisms.

According to Marvel wiki, he doesn’t have any further appearances beyond these two annuals so for all we know, he’s stuck in there forever.

Sucks to be him.

Was this entire hyperwave bomb something Myrn made up to punk specifically Zabyk?

Probably not.

Prince Dezan: “So, poor mad Myrn accomplished what we never could -- he has permanently changed Skrull society! Before, if the true-faces of our birthlings were unappealing, we could change them... or be coerced into changing them. Our faces, our forms could be changed at will. Now, that choice is gone. All Skrulls are trapped forever in the form they were in when the bomb went off. What chaos will befall us... now that we will all be so different?”

Captain America: “Being different is not a weakness, prince. My people have an ideal.. a belief in equality of the mind, of the soul... equality, not sameness. Our nation has embraced all different sizes, shapes, and colors of people -- and because of that, I think, we’ve grown ever stronger in our pursuit of liberty... and of peace!”

Prince Dezan, looking manic: “Peace and liberty, eh? Those are lofty goals. I would hope that my race could one day achieve such goals. Perhaps, there is yet hope.”

Compare the panel from the Avengers Annual

To the one from the Fantastic Four Annual

Not sure why Avengers Annual Prince Dezan looks like he’s a secret villain.

And the weird thing is that he’s not.

His crime that he was sent to forever jail for?

“He wanted to reverse millennia of warfare and subjugation. He was the greatest Skrull outcast of all... he wanted peace.”

Anyway, as the Avengers blast off from the power asteroid, one of them point out that Zabyk’s plan was completely stupid from the word go.

“Even if he had retained his shape-changing abilities, he’d be the most hated Skrull in the empire for what he’d done -- not the best candidate for emperor!”

Weird flex for the comic to point out that the plot is even dumber than it first appears.

Really, this plot would make more sense if nobody knew what the hyperwave bomb did except Myrn until it went off.

Major Syrro apparently reported on everything that happened to General Zedrao and the general was surprisingly calm at the news that all shape-shifting is gone forever, probably contemplating the discord thats going to hit all the soldiers under his command as the lack of shape-shifting sinks in.

And the excuse for all of this plot - to try to find a lead on Nebula (did you forget? I did too) has been rendered moot. The hyperwave bomb energy wave obliterated any traces the Avengers could have tried to follow.

So I guess the Avengers won’t be finding Nebula anytime soon. But I vaguely remember that she comes up again in an Avengers issue guest-starring Spider-Man so she’ll be back with an even wilder scheme.

Nothing for the Avengers but to return to Earth and to... Secret Wars II.

Maybe they should look for Nebula longer??