Every Wednesday we take turns to delve into our trusty longboxes, pluck out a dusty back issue at random, and give you our thoughts. We’ll also try and place it in the context of the time it was originally published.

With Captain Marvel now out as a Skrull, I thought I’d give the back-issues another going over to see just how planned Secret Invasion is. This week, I’m going as recent as “Dusting Off” has ever been, with a comic barely a year old – Civil War: The Return.

I think it’s fair to say that fandom’s reaction to this comic was “not favourable”.

Here’s what I said about it back in February ‘07:

There’s a lot to complain about. The totally uninteresting way in which the character is brought back – he fell into a hole in space, and here he is – the way it takes great pains to sidestep rather than properly deal with the classic “Death of” story, and worst of all, the complete misuse of the character as the Jailer of the Negative Zone prison. As much as I look forward to a new Captain Marvel series, I can’t help feel that this isn’t the best start for it.

Still, the question: Was Skrull-Vell planned? There are some arguments in favour - the fact that he’s a 70s hero, for instance. You’ll remember in Secret Invasion #1, a whole bunch of 70s heroes crash-land on earth. Some, if not all of those are bound to be Skrulls, and from their reaction to seeing the 00’s heroes, they’re likely to be brainwashed sleeper-Skrulls, as in the case of Captain Marvel. Admittedly, they could’ve come up with this idea post-Marv’s return, but it fits a little too well, especially given that Secret Invasion is ostensibly spinning out of events of the Kree-Skrull War – a 70s crossover itself, which Marv was present for.

There are other things that support the claim – Marv’s appearance and role in Civil War served very little purpose in an already crowded storyline, and was then widely ignored until his appearance in his own miniseries which turned out to be a Secret Invasion prologue. Marvel don’t always make the best decisions, but one thing they’re good at is making sure that when someone comes back from the dead, they’ve got a good story behind it. Marv’s return was an uncharacteristically pointless resurrection.

Things against the claim – well, there’s the actual content of Civil War: The Return, for instance. I’ve been over the entire story with a fine-tooth comb and there’s not even the slightest suggestion that the people behind the story knew he was a Skrull. Nothing in the text remotely hints at it. A valid choice, yes, but not one that supports the idea that it was planned in advance. There is one example of discontinuity – the Marv of The Return doesn’t appear to have the amnesia that the Marv of the Captain Marvel mini does.

There’s also a definite possibility that the negative reaction to Civil War: The Return could’ve caused Marvel to shift gears on bringing the character back (though it’s fair to say, people weren’t so upset with the idea of the return so much as the execution.)

On the “could go either way” front, we can look to a Paul Jenkins Newsarama interview, conducted at the time:

NRAMA: So – this “Return” is a return of an older character?
PJ: All I’ll say is that scenarios had to be discussed and a solution found. The character that’s coming back has a big connection not only to the Marvel Universe, but to the Marvel Universe that we’ve yet to discover, which is in large part, trapped in the Sentry’s memories.

Notice how Jenkins side-steps the question of whether an older character is returning – after all, this Captain Marvel is a “new” Skrull character. The connection to the Sentry is more interesting. It’s either an aborted story for the “real” Captain Marvel, or it’s a hint that something in Secret Invasion is going to involve the Sentry’s backstory somehow. The cryptic reference to the “Marvel Universe we’ve yet to discover” could easily be a reference to the Skrull invasion, which could easily be tied in with the Sentry’s past somehow – we only know the “Sentryless” version of the Kree-Skrull War, for instance. Did Reynolds play some role in it?

Unfortunately, the evidence is ultimately still vague, and the jury’s still out. If you think you’ve got anything to add on the subject, please do so now.

Tags: Captain Marvel, Civil War, Paul Jenkins, secret invasion, Tom Raney
Publisher: Dusting Off, Marvel