A Few Thoughts on Skrulls

January 19th, 2007

Filed under: Comics, Medicine

Just how much “Skrull-ness” is necessary for shape changing?

The Super-Skrull shows that extensive modifications can take place, yet the Skrull still retains their shape changing power. Hulkling from the Young Avengers — who is half Skrull, half Kree — seems to have the full Skrull shape changing abilities. More recently in Heroes for Hire, Skrull organs1 were transplanted into human villains who then gained the shape changing ability. The comic doesn’t say if the transplants were just random Skrull organs or a specific one tied to shape changing2. Just makes me wonder how much Skrull-ness is required for one to gain (or retain) shape changing powers.

Notes:
1Do Skrulls even have organs? I like the way Ultimate Fantastic Four has suggested that the very elastic Reed Richards no longer has specific organs. It would make sense for Skrulls to have a similar anatomy.

2If there is a specific organ for shape changing in Skrulls, I hereby officially nominate the appendix. The damn thing’s got to be good for something for someone, so it might as well be the Skrulls. It should be called the “Polymorphix” though.

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UPDATE: Apparently even less Skrull-ness is needed that I originally posited. Commentators have pointed out the Skull Kill Krew mini-series, where meat from a Skrull-transformed-into-a-cow granted shape changing ability (to certain people anyway), and Fantastic Four Annual #17, where milk from the Skill-cows also did.

6 Responses to “ A Few Thoughts on Skrulls ”

  1. Chickeninja
    January 20th, 2007 at 9:32 am

    One instance of a Skrull being described as having organs was in anissues of Runaways, where the Skrull character Xavain is able to survive a wound by “shifting [his] organs around”, allowing him to avoid any major organ trauma.

  2. Scott
    January 20th, 2007 at 9:50 am
    Official Comment

    Thanks, I thought I had read that somewhere, but I couldn’t recall which comic.

    Maybe Skrulls are like Swamp Thing and only have organs because they think they need them (referring to the classic “Anatomy Lesson” story from Saga of the Swamp Thing #21)

  3. Ben
    January 20th, 2007 at 10:03 am

    There was one FF annual where people gained shape-changing powers (and, more dubiously, if such a thing can be said in comics, the “warlike Skrull mentality”) from drinking milk lactated by Skrulls who’d been hypnotized into transforming into cows.

    Then there’s the Skrull Kill Krew ….. Skrull DNA appears to be like a virus.

  4. Loren
    January 20th, 2007 at 10:08 am

    Judging by “Skrull Kill Krew,” and the folks who developed shapechanging abilities just from eating Skrull-burgers, I’d say that the necessary threshhold of Skrullness is pretty low.

    Of course, the folks in that series had certain limitations to their shapeshifting, and also developed terminal neurological diseases, so there was a downside.

    This reminds me of the competing portrayals of Kryptonian descendents. Morrison, for one, seems to prefer that Superman’s descendents retain all his powers, and possibly get even more powerful. I’ve always thought John Byrne’s vision from an Elseworlds Annual was more realistic, where a Kryptonian’s descendents get *less* powerful with each generation, as they’ll have a smaller percentage of Kryptonian genes and a lot more human.

  5. Dizzy D
    January 20th, 2007 at 11:37 am

    This reminds me of the competing portrayals of Kryptonian descendents. Morrison, for one, seems to prefer that Superman’s descendents retain all his powers, and possibly get even more powerful. I’ve always thought John Byrne’s vision from an Elseworlds Annual was more realistic, where a Kryptonian’s descendents get *less* powerful with each generation, as they’ll have a smaller percentage of Kryptonian genes and a lot more human.

    In Morrison’s case though, Superman’s descendants are getting more powerful because they haven’t been procreating with regular humans for the most part, but with beings like 5-D Imps and because Superman himself is empowering them by staying within the sun.

  6. Flyndaran
    June 6th, 2009 at 12:31 pm

    Why not the idea that the DNA can only split one way. Either you get all the kryptonian chromosomes or all the human ones.
    Hey it makes sense for the one mule in recent history that procreated with a horse and donkey respectively. Talk about weird offspring.

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