There's a new Secret Invasion brewing in Marvel Comics, a sequel to the classic 2008 event which has been adapted into an upcoming Disney Plus MCU streaming series.
(Here's how to read the original Secret Invasion event in order).
Written by Ryan North with art from Francesco Mobili and Jordie Bellaire, and letterer Joe Caramagna, November 2's Secret Invasion #1 sets up a somewhat smaller mystery to start, but one which could have massive ramifications on the Marvel Universe going forward.
Spoilers ahead for Secret Invasion #1
Secret Invasion #1 centers around a meeting between Nick Fury and Maria Hill, head of the bare-bones version of SHIELD that currently exists in the Marvel Universe. In the meeting, Fury recounts a recent visit he paid to the family of a former SHIELD agent, who claimed that the recently deceased husband and father was a Skrull.
In the flashback showing Fury's encounter with the family, the agent's wife and children show Fury his corpse, which is in human form - meaning he couldn't have been a Skrull, as they revert to their natural form when they die.
Fury tells Maria Hill that the agent's widow was delusional, looking for a way to reconcile her husband's recent behavior and apparent suicide, and that, after first trying to convince her that her husband wasn't a Skrull, he allowed the agent's wife to keep the illusion seemingly born of her grief.
However, when Maria Hill utters her part of a code phrase she and Fury came up with to know if the other had ever been replaced by a Skrull, Fury fails - and the flashback sequence which is interspersed with the conversation between Hill and Fury shows that the agent's 'family' were, in fact, Skrull infiltrators, who kidnapped the real Fury.
Hill has the false Fury in her office taken into custody, while also directing her agents in tracking down several other Skrull duplicates of Fury in other government agencies. Once her secret is revealed, the first Fury Skrull warns Maria Hill that they have infiltrators even in superhero teams - something Hill dismisses as a scare tactic when she debriefs the Avengers on the capture of the Fury Skrulls.
Though the Avengers take Hill at her word, one Avenger sneaks away to a unisex bathroom - transforming back into a Skrull, and revealing that someone currently among the Avengers has secretly been replaced.
And we don't know who.
And it could be anyone.
Secret Invasion #2 goes on sale December 7.
The original Secret Invasion is one of the best Marvel Comics events of all time.
