Reading the Fantastic Four comics from the start. While the FF are more supporting characters in Secret Invasion, they got their own spinoff miniseries, which filled in gaps in the main series and brought back on of Marvel’s most notorious characters.

The Skrulls have secretly infiltrated the Earth, successfully posing as many of the superheroes. After Elektra was revealed to be a Skrull, they came out of hiding for an all-out attack on New York. This included a Skrull posing as Sue sneaking into the new Baxter Building and opening the door to the negative zone prison, seemingly destroying the top half of the building. Secret Invasion: Fantastic Four offers more detail on the hows and whys of this incident. This one’s written by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, who worked on Marvel Knights: 4, and the artwork is by the always-excellent Barry Kitson.

We begin with Sue in Vancouver, where she’s on a lecture tour. She calls home, where Johnny tells her Reed has run off with Hank Pym on a secret mission. Sue arrives at her hotel to find Reed there, surprising her for some surprise romance. Except this isn’t Reed. It’s a Skrull who subdues Sue with her own force field power.

The we get a longer version of the scene from Secret Invasion, where the Skrull Sue opens the portal. Ben gets Franklin and Valeria to safety while Johnny confronts Skrull Sue. She’s affectionate to him, asking him to forgive her. Then we see the apparent destruction of the New Baxter Building, except turn the page and it’s not destroyed. Instead, the top half of the building is now flying through the Negative Zone.

Ben protects the kids from an attack by giant bugs, while Johnny confronts Skrull Sue. She continues to be affectionate toward him, but he doesn’t buy it. He flames on and is ready for a fight. She tells him that Skrulls have infiltrated all the super-teams and are attacking New York, and she’s brought them to the Negative Zone to protect them. Johnny quizzes Sue on her favorite movie. When she doesn’t know it, she’s revealed as a Skrull. But not just any Skrull – it’s Lyja!

Okay, a quick refresher course on who Lyja is. She’s a Skrull agent sent to infiltrate the FF by impersonating Alicia and getting close to Ben. But then Ben stayed in space after Secret Wars, so Lyja switched things up by romancing Johnny. Somewhere along the way, her feelings for Johnny became real, and they married. But she maintained the Alicia illusion the whole time. Once her secret was revealed, she became an enemy of the FF for a while, then rejoined the team, then almost restarted her romance with Johnny. Her storyline (and several others) were left unfinished during Onslaught and Heroes Reborn, and she disappeared.

Issue #2 begins with a flashback to some (but not all) of Johnny’s past girlfriends. Then he and Lyja fight it out, flying out of the building and into Negative Zone space. She’s mad at him, accusing him of leaving her behind without a second’s thought. Johnny stays focused on the invasion, demanding to know what became of Reed and Sue. Then a police car comes flying at Lyja (through the portal, I assume) and Johnny pushes her out of the way to save her life. Their eyes meet, and they kiss.

Back inside the building, Ben fights more giant bugs and then confronts a big octopus-like alien. Franklin and Valeria help defeat the monster, co-piloting a mech suit Reed had built for them in case of emergency. Johnny and Lyja arrive, and everyone compares notes. None of them have the knowledge to repair Reed’s lab and get back to Earth. Franklin reminds them (and us) about the Negative Zone portal from Civil War. He says there’s got to be a supervillain in there with the smarts to fix the portal.

In issue #3, Ben, Johnny, Lyja, and the kids travel to the prison. Ben and the kids head inside, while Johnny and Lyja finally talk things out. Johnny reminds her (and us) that the last time he saw her, it was when she living as a human woman named Laura Green.

We then get a flashback to Lyja’s life as Laura, living in New York and working in a bookstore. She was happy for a while, until the Skrulls found her. They took her to Queen Veranke, who is now Empress Veranke, the Skrull impersonating Spider-Woman. Veranke convinced Lyja to rejoin the Skrulls’ cause. They restored her laser-fist powers and gave her a high-ranking ministerial post. But she’s not entirely loyal to the Skrulls. Her assignment was to kill Johnny and Ben, but she brought them to the Negative Zone to save them instead.

Inside the jail, Ben and the kids find the Tinkerer and ask for his help. He refuses, saying he’s safer in there from an alien invasion. He also tells them about how he was arrested by S.H.I.E.L.D. during Civil War while taking his grandkids out for ice cream. Franklin and Valeria appeal to his grandfatherly side, and he agrees to help.

Back at the Baxter Building, time passes while the Tinkerer gets to work. Lyja tells Johnny that she’s not going back, and that she will stay in the Negative Zone. She will make a new life for herself there, leaving the affairs of Earth and Skrulls behind. The Tinkerer gets everyone but Lyja back to Earth, but not the building itself. They stand atop the lower part of the wrecked building, looking out over New York in ruins. Ben promises the kids that they’ll find Reed and Sue, while Franklin muses about how nothing will ever be the same again.

To be continued!

Unstable molecule: Reed is only mentioned and not seen in these issues. Remember that during the main Secret Invasion series, he was ambushed by the Hank Pym Skrull and taken into space on one of their ships. 

Fade out: We’re not given any details on what Sue’s lecture tour. The audience is entirely women, so I wonder if it’s part of Miss America, her new charity-based all-female super-team.

Clobberin’ time: There’s a running gag about Ben learning to cook. First he’s making coq au vin for Johnny and the kids, and later he exclaims “Now we’re cooking!” while he fights the giant bugs. I looked it up, and coq au vin is a French stew with chicken braised in red wine.

Flame on: The flashbacks to Johnny’s past girlfriends reveal Johnny’s first kiss, a girl named Hannah Henrickson. There’s also cheerleaders (plural!) as his high school girlfriends. Poor Dorrie Evans doesn’t warrant a mention.

Four and a half: This would appear to be the only appearance of Franklin and Valeria’s co-piloted mech. The Marvel Wiki labels it “Reed’s battle suit,” but doesn’t give it its own entry.

Our gal Val: It seems that Aguirre-Sacasa didn’t get the news that Valeria is a genius, because all dialogue in this series is all toddler-speak. Maybe she’s putting on the toddler act for fear that aliens might be watching.

Fantastic fifth wheel: The flashbacks to Johnny’s past girlfriends also include Crystal, Frankie Raye a.k.a. Nova, and even Namorita.

And then there’s Lyja. While this would appear to be the long-overdue resolution to her storyline, she’ll be back once we get into the whole “Future Foundation” thing.

Trivia time: The two other villains seen inside the Negative Zone prison are Spider-Man’s foe Stegron, and the Faceless Man, a character from back in the Tomb of Dracula days.

Is the Skrull who defeats Sue in Vancouver supposed to be Lyja? He (she?) doesn’t act like it. My guess is this is the Skrull who appeared as the 1960s style Sue stepping out of the Skrull ship in Secret Invasion #1.

Fantastic or frightful? Look, the whole “Alicia is a Skrull” story was a debacle, and it is still disliked by fans all these years later. But it remains a part of Marvel history, and Lyja was part of this series on and off for a good hundred issues or more. So it’s nice to see the character be given some respect after all this time, and giving her a new direction.

Next: And that’s no Skrull.

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