snap judgments

You’ll have to forgive me, but I have a wicked headcold and could use a little chicken soup/crackpot theory on comic storyline surprises.

So… Black Bolt’s a Skrull.

Yeah. I made that decision long ago when Marvel pulled the latest of its “What will you do, reader? WHAT! WILL! YOU! DO!?” taglines and made us all look at the Marvel rosters for secret squirrels err, Skrulls to figure out who to trust.

At first, I went right for Doctor Strange; an odd lack of protecting the mystic arts, proclaiming that chaos magic didn’t exist, and his running in the opposite direction of Civil War didn’t seem all that trustworthy. It would explain Bendis’s hamhanded handling of the character and be a hell of a thing to find out that the real Sorcerer Supreme got taken out and was chained up in space somewhere so he could run into Annihilation… but that’s nonsense and wishful thinking. A lot of spells have been slung around and Bendis has tried to declare the New Avengers clean… though that could all be a ruse and if I start to think that way I’m going to start dropping titles out of frustration.

Everyone’s going to point to Tony Stark, but that’s just bad storytelling. No, exceptionally bad storytelling.

I figured one of the Illuminati had to be involved and so my vote goes to Black Bolt. He’s silent and doesn’t have to exercise his power everyday, so one could slip under the radar of not having world-shattering hyper-sonics. As part of the Ruling Council, he’s got a great amount of support to figure out how to run Attilan and, as highest in the ruling food chain of the Inhumans, he’s got a pretty good connection into the Marvel Universe as a whole. Who’s going to turn down a visit from the moon nation?

And thanks to the first issue of the Illuminati mini-series, there’s even a good chance for the old switcheroo to take place right under the Illuminati’ noses. I thought that issue was far too A-Team to just slide under the radar and while consecutive issues have never reached that level of A-Team-ness, it’d be nice to get to go back to that issue for that one clue we missed while Tony Stark was stuck dragging Professor Xavier around while firing a gun.

I’ll be honest here, too: another reason why I’m calling Skrull on Black Bolt here is because it would make me feel better. I think the character is a lot better that how he’s been shown in recent books and saying he’s been an impostor is a pleasant if not corny little salve on my bruised fangirl soul. Not to get into a nerd war or anything, but I am very sorry to tell Daniel Way that there is no way that the Hulk could have beaten the monarch of Attilan so easily. Sorry, just doesn’t fly with me when, as base fact, one is a very strong hand-to-hand combatant and the other has the world’s most powerful ranged weapon known to man. The Hulk may have not been this angry before, but Black Bolt can level cities with a whisper. Sans the rest of Attilan, not to mention space physics and all that jazz, Black Bolt still should have been able flay the flesh from Hulk’s bones before he was able to get within arm’s reach. Graphic, I know, but I feel pretty strongly about this and if the reason for this oversight was that it wasn’t actually Black Bolt after all? Like I said, a little salve.

This would also explain the train wreck that was Silent War as Black Bolt seemed to have a heck of a time making the right decision through all of that. Whe, at the end of the tale, Luna goes to Black Bolt in prison and asks for some clue as to how to fix everything, we cut to a black page. Now, perhaps this wasn’t because David Hine hates me personally (which I know he actually doesn’t, please Mr. Hine, I’m not serious), perhaps it was because showing any more would have ruined a reveal that was in the works for months and wouldn’t get played out until this new Secret Invasion. Mr. Hine has said that he has a third part ending for his Kicking the Inhumans in the Nads masterpiece that is still in the works (an idea he’s “pitched“, meaning that all of that was written without a clear ending in mind making me once again nervous for editoral at Marvel) and it’d be neat to see that all of this is going somewhere.

So, yeah. Black Bolt’s a Skrull.   There ya go.