Tag Archives: Chitauri

Comics classic: The Avengers Kree-Skrull War

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When fandom realized, a few years ago, that Marvel was planning an “Avengers” movie, half of those who thought about it said it would be a huge hit and half said it couldn’t be done.

And all of them said the plot should cover the Kree-Skrull War.

Well,  now that we’re on the other side of a billion dollars in box office receipts and great critical and fan reception, we know that it was doable, especially with Joss Whedon in the director’s chair.

But what about those Krees and Skrulls?

For those of us reading comics back in the day, the Kree-Skrull war was everything that was great about Marvel Comics, especially compared to DC.

Marvel had, by the time Avengers 89 came out in June 1971, spent nearly a decade building a universe that included not only costume-clad superheroes like the Avengers and the Fantastic Four but also more “cosmic” creatures like Captain Marvel, a Kree warrior come to Earth, and the Skrulls, alien invaders and shape-shifting imposters who fought the FF.

Writer Roy Thomas and artists Sal Buscema, Neal Adams and John Buscema gave us, over the course of eight monthly issues, a nice introduction to the larger universe outside Earth’s atmosphere and outside the influence of its “everyday” heroes.

Although Thor, Captain America, Iron Man and lesser-known Avengers like Scarlet Witch, Vision and Black Panther were the kings of New York superherodom, they were pitted here against alien menaces. While some of the storyline was large in scope – including space battles – other moments were (literally) small scale: One of the most famous sequences came in Avengers 93, when Ant-Man shrinks to microscopic size and goes inside the Vision to effect repairs on the android Avenger. The overall series plotline is almost ridiculously complicated and involves everything from the Fantastic Four to Skrulls masquerading as cows.

Because comics of the time were rarely planned out months in advance as “big events” are now, it was extraordinary that Thomas and company took the better part of a year to tell this story. DC comics was still, at this point, doing “one and done” stories. For all of us elementary school kids out there, the Kree-Skrull War series re-emphasized how different – and how much better – Marvel was.

So we didn’t get a Kree-Skrull war in the “Avengers” movie, although we did get a dose of Marvel’s cosmic characters. Particularly when Thanos shows up in the credits.

And of course, the Skrulls figured into the “Avengers” movie as the Chitauri, a disguised version of our favorite galactic marauders.

So maybe we’re inching toward a big-screen version of the classic comic storyline.

In the meantime, we can enjoy the original, which has been reprinted as a trade paperback a few years ago. The full-color paperback really emphasizes the artistry of Adams, one of my favorites.

 

Iron Patriot another villain for ‘Iron Man 3?’

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Here’s another one of those “how many months until this movie comes out?” posts.

The Internet was all abuzz in the past couple of days with news and speculation about “Iron Man 3,” the first post-“Avengers” Marvel movie, coming out in May 2013.

First there were reports that Ben Kingsley was indeed playing Iron Man’s best-known villain, the Mandarin, who was referenced in the earlier “Iron Man” movies.

Then today spy photos from the set made their way online and seem to show a familiar, Iron Man-style figure … wearing a very familiar red-white-and-blue color scheme.

First thought, of course, was that Tony Stark had built a suit of armor for his newfound pal Captain America.

But since the actor in the suit was revealed to be James Badge Dale, who had already been announced as a bad guy for “Iron Man 3,” speculation soon centered on the comic book character Iron Patriot.

There’s a big catch, however: In the comics, Iron Patriot was the name assumed by Norman Osborn after he absconded with some of Tony Stark’s tech. And Norman Osborn, of course, is the Green Goblin from the Spider-Man comics.

Beginning in 2009, Osborn wore the Iron Patriot suit occasionally in the comics, especially when he formed his own “Dark Avengers” boy band to battle the real Avengers.

Since Osborn is part of the “Spider-Man” movie universe and not available for use in Marvel-produced movies, we can assume that Norman Osborn is not making an appearance. That must mean that Marvel is using some Spider-Man-adjacent characters and elements — the suit, but not the guy inside it — just as they stretched the boundaries of the strict movie universe division of Marvel properties by making the alien army in “The Avengers” the Chitauri rather than the Skrulls. The Skrulls are part of the “Fantastic Four” movie universe and not open to use by Marvel in its “Avengers” universe. But the Chitauri, the modern-day version of the Skrulls, were okay for use in Joss Whedon’s movie.

Director Shane Black was expected to do some very interesting things with “Iron Man 3” even before we heard this news. That he’s continuing the expansion of the Marvel movie universe makes me look forward to the movie even more.

Just one proviso: With Mandarin and Iron Patriot and who knows who else, please, Marvel, don’t make the same mistake as the 1990s “Batman” movies and give us a ridiculous super-villain team-up with too many bad guys. Please.