Review of New Avengers 40 (4 stars)

Overall rating: 4 out of 5 stars

To anyone waiting for the Skrull’s side of the story: this is it. In this issue, we find out why the Skrull’s are invading, and how they are doing it. There is also a massive Skrull reveal on the last page, which I will discuss at the end. If you do not want to know who it is, DO NOT READ THE LAST PARAGRAPH.

The story starts with an argument between King Dorrek, arrogant ruler of the Skrull empire, and the religious Princess Veranke, who is trying to convince the king to listen to the words of the “prophet.” He ignores her and banishes her for her “dangerous ways.” The king then orders his “priests of science” to begin processing the data gathered from the Illuminati to design the perfect human infiltration. The first progress shown is a successful clone of Reed Richards, which is soon killed by the king.

The story then jumps to several years later, when Galactus has destroyed the throne world of the empire, and the empire itself lies in ruins. Now, many of the Skrulls turn their allegiance to the long exiled Princess Veranke, claiming the prophecies were true. She reunites the empire with a common goal: to take Earth as their own. The scientists reinvigorate their infiltration efforts, and we finally see that they have developed undetectable technology: as long as the Skrull stays completely human, they can remain hidden; Elektra was the prototype for this test. The queen puts together an infiltration force, and insists on being a part of it. She decides she wants to become the individual who can do the most damage.

MASSIVE SPOILERS: She is Spider-Woman. I won’t lie, Spider-Woman has been acting suspiciously lately (see here and here), but this seems to imply that Veranke has been Spider-Woman since before New Avengers 1, if this is true, then it does surprise me, because so many of her actions in the early issues seemed genuine. Did Hydra ever really return Spider-Woman’s powers? Because they seem to think they did. Wherever the real Jessica is, does she have her powers back? And, perhaps most importantly, why would Veranke reveal the knowledge of the invasion to Tony? I must say, now I am utterly confused, and I can’t wait for the rest of Secret Invasion to flesh out the whole story.

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-LOTRKing