Nick Peron

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New Avengers #32

Nick Peron

The Trust

Credits

The New Avengers — Luke Cage, Spider-Man (Peter Parker), Wolverine (Logan), Spider-Woman (Jessica Drew), Iron Fist (Danny Rand), Ronin (Clint Barton), Echo (Maya Lopez), and Doctor (Stephen) Strange — are returning to the United States after making a startling discovery in Japan. While fighting the Hand, they discovered that their leader Elektra was actually a Skrull in disguise. Flying the body back home with them, Spider-Man cuts through the silence to ask the question that nobody seems to be talking about. Why would a Skrull want to come all the way to Earth and take control of the Hand.

Logan responds with the obvious: The reason why nobody is talking is because none of them can be sure that there isn’t a Skrull hiding among them either.[1] He tells the others that his mutant senses couldn’t even detect the deception. He then puts forward the idea that this must be part of a larger plan and everyone from SHIELD, Hydra, the Avengers, X-Men, and the White House could be compromised.[2]

To really drive home why they can’t even trust each other, Logan points it all out: Clint Barton suddenly turning up alive and becoming Ronin, Spider-Woman being a double agent spying for both SHIELD and Hydra, Echo being an assassin for the Kingpin before turning over a new leaf, the death of Captain America, Spider-Man revealing his identity to the public, Luke Cage marrying and having a kid and becoming an Avenger, as well as the fact that both he and Doctor Strange were not front and center during the recent superhero civil war.[3]

The confirms to Luke that his conspiracy theory about someone pulling the strings around them is valid. The next question is what to do about the dead Skrull they have in their possession. Spider-Woman wants them to give it to Iron Man (Tony Stark) the current Director of SHIELD. Not just because he is the top cop in the world, but also because how he deals with this revelation will tell them if he is a Skrull or not.[4] This idea is shot down as well as proposals to take it to the media or the government.[5][6]

When the rest of the team wonders what the Skrulls want, Clint explains that they want to take over the Earth for themselves, particularly since they lost their home world. They have tried many times and have failed in the past.[7]

Suddenly, a powerful storm cuts off their ability to land in New York City. Moments later, the systems aboard Danny’s plane cut out and they enter free fall.[8] While everyone tries their best to brace for impact, Wolverine throws Jessica out of the plane since she is the only one who can fly and live to tell what they discovered in case the rest of the team dies. The plane crashes hard, and when Spider-Woman arrives she quickly finds the Skrull corpse on the ground. As she picks it up, Wolverine emerges from the wreckage and tells her not to run off with it. She then takes him out with a powerful venom blast and does just that![9]

Recurring Characters

New Avengers (Luke Cage, Spider-Man, Wolverine, “Spider-Woman”, Iron Fist, Ronin, Echo, Doctor Strange), Pagon (corpse)

Continuity Notes

  1. This is of course leading up to the Secret Invasion event and I’m just going to get all the Skrull stuff out of the way all at once, if you don’t mind:

    • The New Avengers discovered that “Elektra” was a Skrull last issue. Mighty Avengers #16 reveals that this Skrull is named Pagon and that she took the place of the real Elektra prior to the events of New Avengers #1.

    • Among the New Avengers there is only one Skrull: Spider-Woman, as we’ll learn in Secret Invasion #3. Per New Avengers #42, she took the place of the real Jessica Jones in Giant-Size Spider-Woman #1.

    • The reason why they cannot detect the Skrulls is because, just after the Kree/Skrull War (Avengers #89-97) a team of heroes calling themselves the Illuminati got captured and were examined by the Skrull empire. This allowed the alien invaders to eventually find a way of masking their true identities to virtually all forms of detection. See New Avengers: Illuminati .

  2. Wolverine’s theory holds some weight here. The Skrulls have are responsible for the breakout at the Raft (New Avengers #1-2) and posed as a SHIELD team that was illegal mining of Vibranium in the Savage Land (New Avengers #3-6), as well as infiltrating Hydra (New Avengers #11-13).

  3. There is a lot of a lot to be said here so I’m going to break it down all nice an easy for you per character:

    • Ronin: Wolverine mentions how he died and came back to life. Clint was killed when the Scarlet Witch went mad in Avengers #500-503. Not long afterwards, he was resurrected during the Witch’s reality warp in House of M #1-8. He was confirmed to be alive in New Avengers #26. As we saw in issue #29, Clint decided to take on the Ronin identity because he no longer wanted to be Hawkeye.

    • Spider-Woman: He mentions that her parents were Hydra agents which was what we were led to believe in Spider-Woman: Origin #1-5, but there are contradictions to this (check out my index for those issues). It is also mentioned how she was working as a double agent for both SHIELD and Hydra. See Giant-Size Spider-Woman #1 and New Avengers #14. It is also mentioned here that Nick Fury went AWOL, that was following the events of Secret War #1-5.

    • Echo started off as an assassin for the Hand in Daredevil (vol. 2) #9. She turned over a new leaf following Daredevil (vol. 2) #15 and later helped the New Avengers with the Hand in Japan as seen in New Avengers #11-13 and 27-31.

    • He also mentions the events of Civil War #1-7 that saw the passage of the Super Human Registration Act. This caused a divide in the superhero community with Captain America opposing the new law until he realized that the general public supported it and surrendered. Cap was later seemingly assassinated in Captain America (vol. 5) #25. However, he was just banished to a time loop and will return in Captain America: Reborn #1-6.

    • Logan makes mention as to how Spider-Man revealed his secret identity to the world during that event. This specifically happened in Civil War #2. However, Peter will put this genie back in the bottle in Amazing Spider-Man #545.

    • About Luke Cage he mentions how he had a child and got married. He discovered that he got his fling Jessica Jones pregnant in Alias #28. Luke then manned up and started a serious relationship with her. Their daughter was born in The Pulse #13. The couple then got married in New Avengers Annual #1.

    • Wolverine also points out how Doctor Strange was absent during Civil War. This is because Stephen was a contentious objector and removed himself from the conflict as seen in Civil War #6.

    • Wolverine wasn’t involved in the battle proper himself because he was busy hunting down Nitro in an effort to bring him to justice. See Wolverine (vol. 3) #42-47.

  4. After supporting the SHRA, Iron Man became the new Director of SHIELD following New Avengers #25. Although Stark is suspected of being a Skrull, we learn that he is not in Secret Invasion #1-8.

  5. The heroes discuss the “first time” aliens landed on Earth in the 1930s. This is by no means the first visitation by aliens on Earth. The earliest recorded incident of extraterrestrials visiting Earth happened roughly four billion years in the past when the first Celestial came to Earth and seeded it with the potential for life, as will be revealed in Avengers (vol. 8) #26. Not sure what incident from the 1930s they are talking about, but the earliest published alien encounter was when the original Human Torch encountered aliens claiming to be from Mars in Marvel Mystery Comics #3, which took place in 1939.

  6. They also mention Area 51, which is a top secret military base in Nevada that is a favorite McGuffin of alien conspiracy theorists IRL. It is particularly associated with an alleged alien crash in Roswell, New Mexico in 1947. In real life this was actually a top secret weather balloon. No claims of extraterrestrial visitors has ever been proven. That said, in the Marvel Universe the Roswell Incident did happen and the alien that was recovered from the crash and taken to Area 51 was the last surviving “Prime” Skrull, as told in Blackwolf #2.

  7. Clint is not wrong, the Skrulls have been trying to conquer the Earth for centuries. The first modern attempt was early on in the Modern Age in Fantastic Four #2. The earliest recorded record of Skrulls on Earth dates back to the Spanish Inquisition as told in Europa #0. The Skrull throne world of Tarnax IV was devoured by Galactus back in Fantastic Four #256. However, their actual home world was the planet Skrullos, per Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe #10, however they have long abandoned that inhospitable world.

  8. Next issue we’ll learn that Danny’s plane crapped out due to an attack on New York by Ultron that is taking place in Mighty Avengers #1-6.

  9. Spider-Woman ends up going to Iron Man’s Mighty Avengers, as we’ll see in Mighty Avengers #7.