This is a review of the Super Skrull miniseries, written by Javier Grillo-Marxuach with art by Gregory Titus, which appears in the Annihilation Omnibus. You can read my reviews of Drax the Destroyer, Nova, and The Silver Surfer here, here, and here.
Short summary: the Marvel universe is being invaded by The Annihilation Wave, a space armada hailing from the Negative Zone led by Annihilus, a beaucoup powerful bug warlord. Will the Marvel universe survive? What do you think?
First, some background: The Super Skrull, aka Kl’rt, is a Fantastic Four villain who has been around since the 1960’s. I believe he was featured in the 1967 Hanna-Barbera Fantastic Four cartoon! Kl’rt is super strong, can absorb almost limitless amounts of energy, can project invisible force fields, and has a malleable molecular structure. He’s also totally ruthless, can shape change into anything he wants, and has hypnotic abilities to boot.
If you think it makes no sense that he’d lose to the Fantastic Four 97,654 times, you would be correct. Apparently, the Fantastic Four are stronger because they fight together as a family, which is comic book logic at its finest. Since the Super Skrull is a popular villain, the powers-that-be at Marvel keep on bringing him back.
In this miniseries, the Super Skrull wants to stop something called The Death Star – er, Harvester of Sorrow, a living world-destroying weapon which is scything through the Skrull Empire like a hot knife through butter. Kl’rt is fanatically loyal to the Skrull Empire, but the Skrull Empire no longer exists. Now it’s just a collection of warlords.
The Super Skrull pleads for aid with one of those warlords, who laughs at him. Because of his past failures, Kl’rt is viewed as a joke by his fellow Skrulls and is openly jeered. This is not smart, as many Skrulls discover moments before they die.
An angry Kl’rt kills scores of his countrymen, but is hopelessly outgunned. He’s rescued from certain death by R’kin, a scrappy Skrull youth who idolizes him. If Kl’rt was a hero, he and young R’kin would bond and perhaps he’d mentor the youth!
The thing is, Kl’rt isn’t a hero. He is a supervillain who uses any means at his disposal (torture, murder, mutilation, etc.) to get what he wants, leaving behind a trail of broken, twisted, charred – you get the idea. Annihilation as a whole features characters who range from morally gray (reborn Drax) to black (Super Skrull) to mass murderers (old Drax) to genocidal (Silver Surfer). Nova is the only uninteresting protagonist of the bunch, because he’s a dyed-in-the wool goody-two-shoes.
Anyway, the Super Skrull and R’kin travel to the Negative Zone. They pick up a hardscrabble army on a prison planet, as well as a virus bioweapon to destroy the Harvester of Sorrow. There’s even a hint of romance between Kl’rt and living robot Praxagora, which is bizarre as they are totally different life forms, but love conquers all boundaries! Alas, they are betrayed.
Instead of killing the Super Skrull, his enemies haul him into the Harvester of Sorrow. Would you bring someone who can absorb/expel almost limitless amounts of energy into your living bio-weapon? Anyone with a functioning brain knows what happens next.
Super Skrull is my favorite Annihilation miniseries. Partly that’s because it is a self-contained storyline with a beginning and an end. Partly it’s because of the Super Skrull himself, who is a character with a short but very intense shelf life. Sometimes it’s fun to watch a villain romp, but you don’t want him to overstay his welcome, and this miniseries doesn’t do that. Recommended for lovers of space opera comics and obscure Marvel characters.
Abandoned Places 
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