WARNING: The following article contains possible spoilers for Meet the Skrulls #1 by Robbie Thompson and Niko Henrichon, on sale Wednesday, March 6.
General audiences will be introduced to Marvel's shape-shifting alien race known as the Skrulls when Captain Marvel arrives in theaters later this week. Even though readers of the comics are well-aware of their existence, the publisher intends to piggyback off of the renewed interest in the characters in a new miniseries also debuting this week, Meet the Skrulls by writer Robbie Thompson and artist Niko Henrichon.
Marvel teased the miniseries back in November with a pair of Twitter posts, with the first displaying what should have been a typical all-American family with two parents and two children alongside the tagline, "Meet the Warners." The second post revealed the family to be Skrulls while unveiling the title's name, launch date and creative team.
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The synopsis for Meet the Skrulls sounds a lot like a follow-up to the 2008-2009 event Secret Invasion, with the father an employee of Tony Stark, the mother working for a local senator and the children enrolled at Stamford High School, all in an attempt to pave the way for a Skrull invasion of Earth. While a Secret Invasion II could very well be in the future, a preview for Wednesday's Meet the Skrulls #1 subtlely reveals the miniseries may be the next building block in the return of another fan-favorite Marvel franchise: the Ultimate Universe.
Meet The Ultimate Universe Skrulls
The preview of Meet the Skrulls #1 begins with a man in a trenchcoat, hat and sunglasses whistling a tune while he goes about his day. However, he does find the time to walk through a park, where he attacks a father and mother from behind as they leisurely stroll with their young son. The only words the boy can get out are, "How... how did you find us?" before he's attacked as well by the stranger's electrified gauntlets on his hands.
There is enough intrigue in these opening pages to whet the reader's appetite, but there was something more important we noticed: every person's speech and word balloons used the same uppercase-and-lowercase pattern Marvel introduced for its Ultimate Universe. For a little more background, a typical Marvel comic has everyone's words appear in all capital letters. "I AM THOR, GOD OF THUNDER," for example. In the Ultimate Universe, the words would appear as, "I am Thor, God of Thunder."
The mysterious man and the boy both speak as if they are either currently in the Ultimate Universe or are from there. Other characters in the preview use this speech pattern as well. Of course, the Ultimate Universe and the rest of the multiverse were destroyed in the second Secret Wars event, but writer Brian Michael Bendis' revealed the Ultimate Universe (or a different version of it) still exists in the finale of Spider-Men II. Bendis would go on to say he revived the Ultimate Universe in large part because of the fans who supported it for over a decade. Since Bendis had decided to sign an exclusive agreement with DC, he looked at his final work for Marvel and wanted to leave a happy little coda to the imprint he helped launch in 2001.
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Though there haven't been any additional clues to when and where the Ultimate Universe will appear next, Marvel's Senior Vice President Tom Brevoort did confirm the publisher still has plans to reintroduce the Ultimate Universe during the 'Next Big Thing' panel at last year's C2E2.
“We’ll be vague and mysterious... there are always plans," Brevoort responded when asked about its status by a fan. Then he said Marvel isn't ready yet to reveal where that will show up, though it could be on a page without much fanfare, similar to how Bendis dropped it into Spider-Men II.
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One last nugget connecting the dots to Meet the Skrulls' reintroducing the Ultimate Universe may also lie with the mysterious man's reference to a "Project Blossom." The simple response is he's some type of agent working for a top-secret organization. However, writer Donny Cates debuted a "Project Oversight" in Venom #7, which also included an Ultimate Universe refugee in the Marvel Prime Universe, the Maker.
Last month Cates responded to a fan who wanted the writer to spearhead a new Ultimate Universe with, "I'm so down."
This could very well be an innocent response to one fan's wish fulfillment, but it could also be a tease for Cate's involvement with the Ultimate Universe. After all, this wouldn't be the first staple from the past that he's had a hand in reviving after he spearheaded the relaunch of the Marvel Knights lineup for its 20th anniversary. To borrow a phrase from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, "It's all connected."
KEEP READING: Marvel’s Ultimate Universe Deserves a Revival