User blog:Nausiated/Project 11/61: The Skrulls and Why Retconning Isn't Always a Bad Thing.

For those who have been following my progress in Project 11/61 you'll note I have taken on the herculean task of creating an expanded history of the Skrulls. This has been one mean undertaking. Since their first appearance in they have appeared in 200+ comics (As a race and exclusively to Earth-616, but many many more when you count specific characters).

I am sure when Stan Lee and Jack Kirby first created these characters January 1962 they had no idea that they would become an integral part of the history of the Marvel Universe. Keep in mind that at the time having people fighting far out monsters or invaders from outer space was common place and the Skrull were likely a toss away villain of the month much in the same way other silly aliens from the 60s era Marvel Comics were, like the Toad Men, or the Metal Master, the Celery Men, or the Ovoids. Just some wacky alien that was invading Earth, and playing into the Cold War hysteria that was big at the time.

The Skrulls however went from a generic "little green men" into recurring villains they soon became a regular recurring foe for the Fantastic Four. Granted they weren't that original, Super-Skrull was basically a villain that had had all the powers of the Fantastic Four, while the Slave Masters of Kral IV were basically a rip off of the original Star Trek episode "A Piece of the Action" (that episode aired a full year before the comics featuring the gangster inspired Skrulls of Kral).

It wasn't until Roy Thomas came on board and started writing Captain Marvel back in the 60s where he took the Skrulls and made them mortal enemies with the Kree, then came up with the whole blamed Kree/Skrull War did things really start to heat up.

At the end of the day I am just reaching the final part of Skrullian history and am in the middle of Secret Invasion. In reading it, I see how Brian Michael Bendis took the basic principal of the Skrulls and made it a centuries long metaphor for the dangers of religious extremism. Bendis weaved the entire Secret Invasion plot line into four long years of cleverly crafted story telling. At the end of the day there was a LOT of retconning, going back and explaining a lot of things, expanding on established cannon and creating new extensions to the mythos.

At the end of the day, I hear a lot of complaints from people when they go back and retcon things, but after reading Secret Invasion, it's not always a bad thing.