The Skrulls

Skrulls History: In the early days of The Fantastic Four's career, four Skrull warriors came to Earth and impersonated the fledgling super-team, committing crimes and turning mankind against the heroes. The real Fantastic Four were taken into custody, but escaped and captured their Skrull duplicates. The Fantastic Four then turned the tables and travelled to the Skrull mothership, claiming to be the Skrull agents. Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic frightened off the Skrull commander with panels of monsters from Strange Tales and Journey Into Mystery comic books (see The Crab-Clawed Creatures and The Gi-Ants) (claiming the monsters were among Earth's defenses) then returned to Earth and hypnotized three of the FF-Skrulls, making them think they were cows (the fourth Skrull apparently escaped and would return years later impersonating politician H. Warren Craddock (as seen in Avengers # 92)).

The Skrull race would return on many more occasions to menace the Earth, next sending The Super-Skrull with all of the combined powers of the Fantastic Four (introduced in Fantastic Four # 18).

Height: Variable
Demonstrated Powers: The Skrulls were a race of shape-shifters, able to change their size, shape, and color at will; although they could mimic the Fantastic Four's appearances, they had to rely on artificial means to mimic their powers.

Equipment:

Electronic detonator - used by Thing-Skrull to demolish off-shore oil-rig tower
Gravity pack and thermal bomb - used by Torch-Skrull to melt statue
Spaceship - resembled water tower atop building

Comment: Fantastic Four # 2 is the first appearance of the Skrulls, however, chronologically earlier appearances by the Skrulls can be seen in:

1. Avengers (vol. 1) # 133 (where it was revealed that a million years ago, the Skrulls were indirectly responsible for the Kree-built “blue city” on Earth's moon (first seen in Fantastic Four # 13)).

2. Fantastic Four # 91 (where it was revealed that a Skrull slaver-ship came to Earth in the 1930's, captured an escaped criminal, took him to the Skrull planet of Kral, and the Skrull inhabitants of Kral adopted a “Gangster” lifestyle)
And on a related topic, Reed Richards battled the monstrous alien Gormuu prior to becoming Mr. Fantastic (see Fantastic Four # 271). Gormuu said he was from the planet “Kraalo”; could “Kraalo” be another name for “Kral”, and was Gormuu actually a mutated Skrull?

3. Citizen V and the V-Battalion # 2 (where it was mentioned that in 1952, members of the V-Battalion recovered the wreckage of a crashed Skrull spacecraft).

4. Marvel Premiere #'s 35, 36, and 37 (The 3-D Man series, set in 1958) where one Skrull, Zirksu/Diabolik, impersonated Vice-President Richard M. Nixon.

5. Marvel: The Lost Generation miniseries (where it was revealed that a Skrull spaceship crashed in 1947 near Roswell, New Mexico, the two Skrull survivors became the superhero Effigy and the supervillain Chimera, and a Skrull invasion fleet had been repelled by The First Line, forgotten heroes of an earlier heroic age.)

It was while examing the crashed Skrull spaceship that Dr. Schreiber was temporarily mutated into a monster in Marvel: The Lost Generation #2.

It was was also seen in Marvel: The Lost Generation # 11 that Ben Grimm and Reed Richards encountered a Skrull while they were in college, years before they received their super-powers and formed the Fantastic Four; this story was basically a retconned retelling of the story “Why Won't They Believe Me?” from Amazing Adult Fantasy # 7 (art by Steve Ditko) changing the original alien (a Martian) into a Skrull.

Comment: The Dire Wraiths (introduced in ROM: Spaceknight # 1) were revealed to be a magically-based offshoot of the Skrull race in ROM: Spaceknight # 50.

Comment: The Skrull race has lost its ability to shape-shift as a result of the detonation of the Hyper-Wave Bomb (as seen in Avengers Annual # 14 and Fantastic Four Annual # 19).

It has been theorized that the Skrulls may have visited (or been brought to) Earth in prehistoric times. Many of the Mole Man's monsters have been found to have brain patterns very close to that of the modern day Skrulls.

Could these ancient Skrulls have visited Earth and ended up being enslaved by the likes of the Deviants, Lemurians or ancient Atlanteans?

Mr. Fantastic has proven that Skrulls are very weak minded and easy to hypnotize. Could these Skrulls have been forced to shape shift into giant monsters - to do their masters bidding - forgotten their true form, and be the forefathers of some of our favorite Marvel monsters?

Skrulls are the Deviant race from their planet. The Eternal and Normal branches were wiped out by them long ago. The Dire-Wraiths are another branch of the Deviant Skrulls.

The Monster Island monsters are Earth Deviant so likely it is the Celestial altering their genetic code in similar ways that makes them similar.

If you're mentioning chronologically earlier Skrull appearances in later comics, you must include the Skrulls bringing the Kree and Cotati to Earth's moon in Archaeozoic times (Avengers #133-135).

Given that the Skrull Deviants are trying to wipe out the similarly-metamorphic Xartans, I firmly believe the latter are all that's left of the Skrull Eternals (who were probably never very numerous, anyway). After all, the Xartans have a more-advanced form of shape-changing power, including the ability to duplicate other super-powers! On the other hand, the Skrulls who wanted to establish trade with either the Kree or the Cotati (but not both) were probably the Normals.

You would think, however, that such an advanced spacefaring race would realize that the term “fifth quadrant” is oxymoronic (emphasis on the moronic). There are only FOUR quadrants to a circle!

Further to the Skrulls and Roswell, in the little seen Blackwulf series, it was revealed that
the last non-Deviant Skrull crashed there in 1947.

Other Skrull appearances
a fb in Citizen V1#2 which shows an as yet otherwise untold story involing the V-Battaion AND Rom#50 (origin of Dire Wraiths), as well as Captain America Annual#7 (origin of Shaper of Worlds). Untold Tales of Captain Marvel#1.

I loved reading the story that introduced the 3-D Man and how his test plane was intercepted by the Skrulls. I think these charactors are great. They pop up and fight the Kree, they visit earth, etc. etc.

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