Skrull Appreciation

A couple of weeks ago, ComicMix put up a nice little reminder of just how lame previous Skrull invasions have actually been. But that's not the whole story. "Skrull Takes a Slave" in Fantastic Four #90 from 1968 (reprinted in World's Greatest Comics #72) is a great Skrull story, even if it does end in Tommy guns and fedoras. I lost my issue of World's Greatest a long time ago, but darned if Kirby's grotesque images of the Skrull slaver lurking in a spooky wood straight out of "Young Goodman Brown," preparing to ensnare Ben Grimm for servitude on a gladiatorial prison world aren't permanently etched in my grey matter. Skrulls should be spooky, not silly, as Bendis clearly understands, judging from the last three panels of Secret Invasion #1. I got chills!