The MCU's Skrulls Have A Lot To Learn From Their Comic Book Counterparts

The following post contains spoilers for the first episode of "Secret Invasion."

In 2019's "Captain Marvel," the Marvel Cinematic Universe was introduced to the Skrulls, a reptilian humanoid species that can shapeshift into anyone they like. Though comic book fans were expecting the Skrulls to be the villains and the Kree, another alien race, to be the heroes, it all got flipped on its head. Talos (Ben Mendelsohn), one of the main Skrulls, was merely trying to reunite his family and look for another home for his persecuted species. By the time we get to the post-credits scene in "Spider-Man: Far From Home," Talos and his wife Soren (Sharon Blynn) are impersonating Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson). It's not nefarious. They're allowing him to do other things up on a space station. 

The Skrulls are back in the new Disney+ series "Secret Invasion," but they're not all on the side of good this time around. A splinter group led by Gravik (Kingsley Ben-Adair) is trying to take over Earth for the Skrulls. Can Nick Fury stop them in time? 

We're learning a lot more about the MCU version of the Skrulls in the series, but how do they compare to their comic-book counterparts? What abilities do they have in each iteration? Did a certain moment(s) in the trailer give us a glimpse of a Super Skrull? Let's do a dive.

In the comics, the Skrulls have quite an origin story. They were first introduced in "Fantastic Four" #2 in 1962 (though there is an earlier retroactive introduction in 1961). Their species came to be when the Celestials messed with the DNA of creatures on their home planet, creating the Eternals, the Prime, and the Deviants. The ones we see most in the comics are the Deviants who can shapeshift, but that's not information we have in the MCU. 

Skrulls can shift into anyone or anything in the comics — though they haven't shifted into any inanimate objects in the MCU that we know about. They cannot imitate superhero powers if they pick a super person to shapeshift into. They live a long time in both the comics and the MCU, as Talos mentions in the Disney+ series. They can imitate DNA, voice, and even clothing. One time in the comics, Reed Richards from the Fantastic Four beat them and made them turn themselves into cows. Some of the Skrulls in the comics can even create wings for themselves to fly with. There are some comic book Skrulls who have telepathy as well. When they are killed, Skrulls return to their own form in both the comics and the MCU. 

One thing specific to the comics (so far) is the Super Skrull. The first one was Kl'rt, who underwent some procedures to give him the power to imitate the abilities of superheroes. Kl'rt wasn't the only Super Skrull in the comics, but they're not very common. They can even be mutants.

Some Skrulls can also stretch their bodies into different shapes, but that hasn't been seen in the MCU ... until now. 

Up to this point, we believed the MCU Skrulls couldn't take over superpowers (as Brie Larson's Carol Danvers demonstrates when she fires a proton blast for Fury to prove she's human), and though we haven't seen that yet in the series, the trailer gives some major teases of what might be coming. 

MCU Skrulls don't appear to have telepathy, but they might be able to mimic superpowers soon. In one shot, Gravik looks at a large device that he later fights Fury in. There is purple lighting, so if magic is involved, it's probably evil, going by color symbolism in the MCU. We also see Emilia Clarke's G'iah looking at glowing beds with bodies in them, and if we draw conclusions, we might assume that Gravik is using a device to create a group of Super Skrulls to mimic the Avengers. 

There is another shot where Gravik twists his arm into a long ribbon. We're not sure yet if that's a Super Skrull power here or if that will even be a term used in the show, but it's not something we've seen from the MCU Skrull before. Is he making Skrull super soldiers? Stay tuned for all the updates as the show releases new episodes. 

"Secret Invasion" is currently streaming weekly on Disney+.