Marvel Unlimited, Marvel’s digital comics subscription service, is currently offering all fans free access to some of Marvel’s most iconic stories from recent years, including now-classic Marvel Comics events and critically acclaimed runs featuring the Avengers, Spider-Man, Black Widow, Captain America, Captain Marvel, and more.
With that in mind, I’ve decided to take a look back at these classic stories and maybe help you decide whether or not you would like to check them out. Our next series finds Earth’s Mightiest Heroes in the middle of an intergalactic battle between two vast alien empires.
Avengers: Kree/Skrull War
Many of Marvel’s most iconic story arcs come from comics from many, many years ago and are remembered as being a bit more grand than they actually were. “Avengers: Kree/Skrull War” is the perfect example of this. While Marvel Unlimited currently has nine issues available in this series, these comics actually see the Avengers take on a wide variety of foes.
The comics start off with Captain Marvel (before Carol Danvers took the moniker) in captivity and being used in experiments. Those experiments are interrupted though by a Kree Sentry, sent by Ronan the Accuser. The Avengers – consisting of Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver, the Vision and Goliath – eventually take on Ronan and the Sentry in a jungle created by Kree technology. Ronan used this tech to turn Hanky Pym and three scientists into neanderthals, who complicate this fight a bit.
After that is settled, the public becomes aware of the alien presence on Earth and calls for Captain Marvel, a Kree, to face justice. The Avengers make call to protect Mar-Vell instead and face the irate public themselves. After some skrulls disguised at Captain America, Thor and Iron Man disband the Avengers, the Vision meets the real versions of these heroes, who quickly undo that decision. They then take on three soldiers in high-tech armored suits known as the Mandroids, meet up with a member of the Inhumans royal family, save the Inhumans from Maximus the Mad and borrow a ship from Nick Fury to take on the Kree who abducted some of their friends.
In other words, there’s a lot happening.
The conflict between the heroes and these two alien races doesn’t really come into full effect until the last two issues in the series. And even then, there really is no actual fight between the Kree and the Skrulls. Instead, the Avengers get between them and take them both on.
It’s almost as if this one stroy arc has about five or six different stories crammed into nine issues and never really lets the big story happen. Still, it’s one of the most memorable stories in Marvel history because it pits two of the most formidable forces in the Marvel Universe, the Kree and the Skrulls, against each other and show just how much of an impact their fight could have.
If you want the old, cartoony style of superheroes, this is the perfect comic arc for you. It features some of Marvel’s most popular heroes and throws villain after villain at them with very little pause in between fights.
It’s also packed with all kinds of classic 70s comic book fun. You know, the most ridiculous things you could possibly think of being thrown into a comic somehow manage to find there way in there. Want a caveman Hanky Pym? He’s in there. Want a group of guys in armored suits called the “Mandroids?” You got it. Want to see Iron Man with built-in roller skates? Believe it or not, you get that too.
You can read “Avengers: Kree/Skrull War” for free now. And be sure to check back as we look back the rest of these classic Marvel Comics stories over the next several weeks.