Don't Eat Skrull Burgers: A Brief History Of 'Skrull Kill Krew,' The Wackiest Skrull Story

The Fantastic Four #2 was published back when you could buy a comic for just 10 cents, though today it'll run you at least $2,300 plus shipping. First-appearances tend to be landmark issues, even when the debut in question is that of a species rather than a single character. Spoiler alert: the story ends with Reed Richards, AKA Mr. Fantastic, hypnotizing three invading Skrulls into spending the rest of their lives as cows, which is pretty dark all things considered. It was meant to be a one-and-done, though the folks behind Skrull Kill Krew decided to take advantage of the premise more than three decades later in response to the U.K.'s Mad Cow Disease epidemic, because why the hell not?

How did the Fantastic Four come to turn the Skrulls into cows, though? Well, the Stan Lee/Jack Kirby second issue begins with Marvel's first family behaving very un-first-family-like, committing petty crimes that range from Sue Storm stealing diamonds, to The Thing punching underwater research facilities, to The Human Torch melting a really expensive marble statue that was being unveiled after its sculptor had worked on it for five whole years ("It's the Human Torch! He's Going To – Oh No! No!!" the sculptor exclaims). As you might have guessed, per the M.O. the Skrulls continue to employ nearly 50 years later, these weren't actually the Fantastic Four.

While the Skrulls would eventually go on to replicate the Fantastic Four's powers in 1963 (The Super Skrull, Kl'rt, has all their powers combined), Lee and Kirby made sure to specify that these particular Skrulls could only shapeshift, and had to devise other ways to turn invisible or fly while set on fire. Their solutions were shrinking and jetpacks respectively; keep in mind, these were the early days of Marvel comics before things got really crazy.

Strange Tales and Journey Into Mystery, which would go on to introduce Thor and Doctor Strange in the following years, were still fictional books within the Fantastic Four's universe. Imagine that. A pre-crossover Marvel. In fact, the Fantastic Four thwart the Skrulls' invasion by pretending to be the very Skrulls impersonating them in the first place, and by reporting to the Skrull leader with pictures of monsters from Strange Tales and Journey, warning him that Earth is filled with Gods and monsters and is not to be meddled with — a warning that earns Reed a medal of bravery! The ploy was, at the time, a ridiculous ruse, though one that feels prophetic since any Skrull invasion today would, in fact, have to encounter a whole universe of fantastical characters.

Reed and his family return to Earth and confront the remorseful Skrull trio, who are so sorry for doing crimes that they claim to no longer want to be Skrulls to begin with. Reed obliges them and hypnotizes them into becoming cows — it's worth noting that we never see this hypnosis; for all we know, Reed could've had telekinetic powers back then — making the Skrulls forget their identities and leaving them to graze peacefully out in the pasture. That's pretty disturbing for a children's comic, especially since the topic wouldn't resurface until 1995, though when it did, it was hardly taken seriously. Don't worry. That's a good thing.

"Shag off, chocolate drop!" screams Moonstomp, in denial. "I'm white, all right? I'm bloody white and I'll faggin' murder any-body who says different!" he continues, to which Ryder responds: "Sure you're white. White like Spike Lee and Bill Cosby, right? White like Malcolm X."

Hey, whatever, it was the '90s, and in true '90s fashion, the fifth and final issue is a ludicrously violent pièce de résistance. The story culminates in a white suburban American town populated by Skrulls in disguise, only it turns out, none of these Skrulls know they're actually Skrulls. As far as they're aware, they're just regular humans living regular human lives, unknowingly waiting to be activated by a specific phrase spoken by their Skrull leader.

From an ethical standpoint, that makes for a potentially riveting debate on memory, intent and how one ought to approach the potential for crime when it seems like a certainty — are these Skrulls not functionally innocent men, women and children? — but Skrull Kill Krew decides to forego the debate entirely and instead has Ryder, Moonstomp and their compatriots mercilessly slaughter the Skrull-humans while yelling one-liners like "”Phone Home' huh? Your call has been disconnected!"

Holy shit.

Skull Kill Krew preys on white suburban fears in rather direct and un-critical fashion, despite its attempts to contextualize itself through a phantom black perspective on American politics, separate from any actual race or class struggle or commentary on violence; in fact, it revels in bloodshed. It's most certainly not the kind of story that would be published today, let alone adapted for the big screen, but having come out over 20 years ago, it also exists at enough of a distance to be enjoyable as a depraved artifact of a bygone era, attempting to both exploit and parody the guns-and-muscles comic book fad of the moment. That said, it's also one of the funniest comics to be published at the time, when most stories were concerned with taking themselves uber-seriously.

Again, the whole story takes place because Skrulls were turned into cows by the Fantastic Four in 1961 and a handful of creators in the '90s decided to resurrect that minor detail and turn it into a flimsy political backdrop for an alien shoot-em-up. Now that's a good time.