Captain Marvel is all about the Kree-Skrull War

Two planets, both alike in dignity, in the fair Milky Way galaxy, where we lay our scene.

The Kree-Skrull War is finally happening in the MCU, after being so briefly mentioned in 2014’s Guardians of the Galaxy, and here’s what you need to know about how that all went down in the comics.

In Captain Marvel, Carol Danvers and her various Earth allies are dealing with a threat from two sides: the Skrulls and the Kree. But while the Kree have shown up in the Marvel Cinematic Universe sporadically over the years, this marks the first ever appearance of the Skrulls.

The Kree and Skrulls are two different extraterrestrial races in the Marvel universe, both created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. Each had his first appearance in a comic book Fantastic Four; the Skrulls of Fantastic Four # 2 of 1962 and the Kree 1967 of Fantastic Four # 65.

Originally, the Skrulls were a race willing to share its technology with other extraterrestrials and using their power of metamorphosis to facilitate relationships whenever they encountered a new breed. Finally, they visited the Kree home world of Hala, where the Kree murdered Skrull delegates and stole their technology. A few decades later, the Kree inverted engineering discoveries made it the technological equivalent of the Skrulls.

As a result, the Skrull culture was forced to become as vicious as their enemies, leading to an almost endless war. The Skrull created the very first cosmic cube (it did not go well) and the Kree created Supreme Intelligence, a cybercranical supercomputer that made all their decisions for them (that did not go well, finally).

But everything really changed when the Kree-Skrull war reached the planet Earth.

What if? No. 28, Marvel Comics (1981).

Mark Gruenwald, Ron Wilson, Bruce Patterson / Marvel Comics

ATTACHED TO EARTH

It was the Kree who discovered the human race thousands of years before modern times. They began experimenting with various species, including Homo sapiens, both to transform them into a source of infantry and to find a way to avoid their own evolutionary stagnation. The experiments resulted in the creation of the overpowering Inhumans, but Supreme Intelligence ordered that all these experiences be destroyed after predicting that the Kree would eventually be destroyed by their own creations. The Inhumans escaped the Kree massacre and then formed various societies hidden across the Earth; the only thing that really matters is the Atillan royal family, but we'll come back to that later.

The skrulls became aware of the Earth much later than the Kree, deciding it was worth conquering after finding it by chance in the 1950s. Various scouts were sent to infiltrate the Earth - which is easy enough to do when you can change shape in anyone. But neither side realized that the planet had a lot of superheroes until it was too late.

These achievements came to the hands of the Fantastic Four. The Four killed the Kree military leader, Ronan, the accuser, when he came to Earth to kill the inhuman royal family. In another incident, Mr. Fantastic hypnotized Skrull's infiltrators by metamorphosing into believing they were mere cows.

From Fantastic Four # 2, Marvel Comics (1961).

Stan Lee, Jack Kirby / Marvel Comics

Once it turned out that the Earth had its own superpowers, the planet became more important to the Kree and Skrulls. The heroes of the Earth did not intentionally choose a camp, but still favored the Kree, so to speak. A Kree soldier named Mar-vell, who had initially infiltrated the Earth to determine if it would pose a threat to his people, became one of his many protectors when he was hiding, even joining the ranks of the Avengers.

While working on Earth as Captain Marvel's hero, Mar-vell came into contact with two important characters: the first was Rick Jones, a former Hulk sidekick who frequently traded with Mar-vell in the area. negative for a few hours. The second was Air Force officer Carol Danvers, the future Ms. (and later captain) Marvel.

Mar-vell's presence on Earth eventually led to a ridiculous and beautiful war between Kree and Skrull as part of an epic comic event. The story told that Ant Man was turned into a caveman and that Vision was attacked by the Skrull cows. Captured and taken into the Skrull's empire, Mar-vell, with the help of Supreme Intelligence and the new power of his friend Rick Jones, the Destiny Force - a source of energy where you realize you're worthy of this name - put an end to the war. . A crowd killed the skull posing as the xenophobic senator who incited the conflict in first place, and the Marvel Illuminati tell the Kree and Skrull to move away from the Earth. This is normally where things end well, but that was not the case at all and things got worse.

From Infinity Gauntlet # 1, Marvel Comics (1991).

Jim Starlin, George Perez / Marvel Comics

After the end of the first war between Kree and Skrull, neither race was able to leave the cycle of conflict. The two races struggled in the chaos of Thanos' decimation of half of the universe, which led the respective empires to decline even further after the restoration of this universe. The Kree entered the war with the Shi'ar, which devastated their empire and led to their surrender, and Ronan then killed the Supreme Intelligence and took control of Kree. But not for long, after Ultron isolated Kree space from the rest of the universe.

If the Kree were in bad shape, the Skrulls got the end of the deal even more raw. For a moment, they lost their ability to change their shape. Shortly after, Galactus destroyed their world of thrones. Billions of lives and the Skrull royal family were lost. There are only a few hundred Skrulls factions left, and they fall into a civil war, fighting for the best way to regain their footing in the past. Then Annihilus and his wave of Annihilation made the Skrull empire one of their first targets. The war was over, essentially, because the two empires were badly off.

And then came the secret invasion.

Excerpt from Secret Invasion # 1, Marvel Comics (2008).

Brian Michael Bendis, Leinil Yu / Marvel Comics

WHO CAN YOU TRUST?

From the early to mid-2000s, it seemed like the Skrulls were about to lose their temper, but that would change. After the Galactus attack, a new Skrull queen, Veranke, took the throne. Like the rest of her race, she believed that the Earth belonged to them religiously and rightly. Thus, thanks to previous observations that the Skrulls have made heroes of the Earth, she found the perfect way to conquer the Earth: Conquer the planet from the inside using their most powerful heroes.

Veranke was on the front lines of the Infiltration in the form of Spider-Woman, posing as a member of the New Avengers throughout their creation and the superhero war. Using SHIELD form agents, the Skrulls destabilized the superhero community and sowed mistrust, almost all defeated them and invaded the Earth. Once again, they found themselves defeated by the genius of Reed Richards, who built a device capable of detecting the shapeshifters. You can guess the story from there: the Skrulls are defeated, Veranke is killed by Norman Osborn, the heroes who were impersonated are rescued. SHIELD was dissolved by the President due to the numerous infiltrators that were in their ranks.

WOW, THAT’S ... A LOT. WHAT DOES ALL THIS HAVE TO DO WITH CAROL?

Even if you take away Carol’s involvement in the war between the two races, her connection to the Kree is deeper than originally thought. The recent miniseries The Life of Captain Marvel, by Margaret Stohl, Carlos Pacheco, and Marcio Menyz, revealed that Carol has been a Kree-Human hybrid since the day she was born.

Her mother Marie is actually a Kree Captain named Mari-Ell, who landed on Earth decades ago and went into hiding with Joe Danvers. Later on, the two had Carol — her Kree name being Car-Ell, which means “Champion.” Instead of gaining her powers from having her DNA mixed with Mar-vell’s during an explosion, as we’d thought for many years, that explosion ended up jumpstarting her innate Kree abilities. Carol learned all of this when a Kree Kleaner (not a typo) finally came hunting for Marie, to punish her for deserting. The Danvers women briefly used their cosmic powers side by side to defeat the Kleaner.

Right now, Carol being part Kree all along seems to be the one tangible connection that can be made between the comics version of Carol and the one to be played by Brie Larson. Not all of this will make it into Captain Marvel proper, but when the film says that the war has been going on for a long time, they aren’t kidding. Comics are eternal, and it seems likely that at some point, the spark of war will ignite between these two powerful races again.

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