Captain Marvel’s Skrull Twist Makes Them BETTER Than The Comics

Warning: SPOILERS for Captain Marvel.

The massive box office of Captain Marvel confirms it's a hit for the MCU, but it may be the Skrulls of the movie that end up the biggest winners. After years of being painted as villains in the comics, General Talos and his shapeshifters are finally getting some justice.

Based on the marketing for the movie, the roles of the alien races seemed clearly in line with the comics: Carol Danvers and the Kree = good. Green and pointy-eared Skrulls = bad. How can you ever trust a shapeshifter, right? But by now, Captain Marvel's biggest twist is known by most fans: the Skrulls are the victims of the Kree, hunted down as refugees to complete a cosmic genocide. One that Carol Danvers of Earth has been fighting from the wrong side.

Don't let anyone tell you it's changing the Captain Marvel comic history, either. Because the revelation that the universe is wrong about the Skrulls may be a surprise, but thanks to Marvel Comics, it's one long, long overdue. Thank goodness the movie did the right thing.

This Page: How The SKRULLS Created The Kree
Page 2: Captain Marvel Gets Justice For The Skrulls

Skrulls Didn't Start The War With The Kree

Since the first thing that an investigating comic book fan would learn about the Skrulls is the same description given to Carol by Yon-Rogg, the twist is going to seem like a retcon, or a change made for the movies. In fact, those viewing Captain Marvel with an unfairly critical eye could claim it as a defiance of the Marvel source material. But regardless of what the war between the Kree and Skrulls became, it doesn't change the intentions and aggression of how their conflict began. And make no mistake: it was the Kree who shot first, and dedicated themselves to eradicating the Skrulls out of vengeance, not self-preservation or galactic peace-keeping.

In their earliest origin story, the comics described the Skrulls as an intelligent, peaceful empire intent on spreading trade and diplomacy to every new, populated world they encountered. What Yon-Rogg describes as deception - Skrulls adopting the appearance of a native species to infiltrate and gather intelligence - served that purpose, and allowed introductions to run more peacefully. Until they stumbled across the planet Hala, homeworld of the brutal, war-loving, and primitive race dubbed the Kree... and their peaceful, tree-like neighbors the Cotati.

The Kree Were Born From Hatred & Death

To select which race would ally with the Skrulls first, the diplomats issued a challenge to see which species shared their kind, productive, and peaceful nature. Given a year to turn a lifeless moon into a home, the Kree destroyed to create a home (admittedly, an impressive one). But when the Skrulls saw how the Cotati had cultivated life to turn their moon into a garden, the choice was clear.

Proving that they were absolutely not the right culture or society the Skrulls were hoping would add to their multicultural network, the Kree responded by slaughtering the Cotati, as well as the Skrull diplomats who had made first contact. The new Kree was born, and used the technology of the Skrulls to forge their own empire.

Page 2 of 2: Captain Marvel Finally Gets Justice For The Skrulls

Captain Marvel Ending Skrulls Yon-Rogg SR

So, why aren't the Skrulls of Marvel Comics best known as peaceful, unwilling participants in an unjust war? Part of the answer is that by the time the Avengers met the Skrulls in the comic books, they were embroiled in war with the Kree. As a result, neither side has been depicted as particularly heroic, or on the "just" side of the conflict. In the comics, it wasn't until centuries after the event that the Skrulls realized what had even happened. To them, an unknown empire began to attack innocent settlements of Skrulls with technology derived from their own.

They wouldn't have guessed that this empire was formed to slaughter them for a perceived slight, since... who in their right mind would? Whatever happened after that, the Skrulls were forced into. Leap forward even more centuries to the modern setting of Marvel's Universe, and heroes like the Avengers were oblivious enough to assume that both Skrull and Kree were to blame.

Which seems weird, considering the origins of their conflict leave no doubt: the Skrulls didn't want a war, and have been ruined by it, while the Kree were made by it. The other reason comics don't make as big a deal about it? Well... it's just easier to make shapeshifters a cool antagonistic force, willing to "win at any cost."

The MCU Confirms Kree Are The Wrong Side

Thankfully, Captain Marvel prepares for an Avengers crossover by choosing not to simply repeat that franchise's thesis - that "war corrupts all" - and return to the start, and the true, forgotten origins of this galactic feud. If there is a bully in this story, it's the Kree. And if there is an unfairly vilified victim for Carol Danvers to protect in defiance of her superiors, the Skrull are it. Tragically, the movie version of this crisis has shown what would actually have happened if the Skrulls didn't choose to sacrifice their peaceful ways to combat the Kree. They are shown to be at far lower numbers, and in far more dire situations than the comics (at least that's what the audience is told).

In future films, individual Skrulls may not be as peaceful as Talos and his followers. But as a people, the Skrulls of the MCU pay greater tribute to the true origins of their species, even if the film itself doesn't explicitly break it down point by point. That may not be the version of the Skrulls best known to comic fans of the Secret Invasion storyline, for instance, but do a little digging and it seems the movie gets justice for the Skrulls - and shows the Kree for their true, terrible nature - more than Marvel's comics have in years.