X-Men: Secret Invasion by Carey, Nord and Sepulveda

The Skrulls have finally come out into the open to attack and take over the Earth, and the X-Men have decided to defend their home city of San Francisco. The Skrulls aren't expecting them to be there, but they have some defenses against the powers that the X-Men are using against them anyhow. To start with, they set up a Telepathic Barrier that prevents Telepaths from communicating more than a few feet from their bodies, and makes it painful to boot.

They even have plans in place to deal with the teleporters among the heroes defending the city, although the X-Men manage to deal with that one by using a teleporter as a stalking horse and attacking the Skrulls attacking the teleporters. But aside from the X-Men, the humans also trying to defend the city aren't having any luck.

The stolen powers the super-Skrulls have, and the advanced weaponry of the regular Skrulls is no match to guns and rockets. And the Skrulls have started grabbing the regular humans off the streets and interning them in several buildings all over the city. But why? And why are they barricading the humans inside the buildings? What could the Skrulls have up their sleeves?

Their plan is soon revealed: The Skrulls are holding the humans hostage, and threaten to utterly destroy all the buildings at once unless the X-Men and other defenders of the city surrender to the Skrulls. The Teleporters can't get out the sheer numbers of humans before the deadline, leaving the X-Men trapped between a rock and a hard place.

But Scott has had Hank working on a plan to defeat the Skrulls based on their physiology. And Hank has found a way... a very horrible, distasteful way, to win the war in San Francisco in one fell swoop. The question is: does he have the will and stomach to use it? And what will being prepared to use this option say about Scott Summers?

The Book ends with another, earlier story involving the Fantastic Four, Spiderman and Captain America, fighting against Skrulls who have taken on the forms of the X-Men. And along with them is Gladiator of the Shi'ar Imperial Guard, who has come to Earth on the trail of the Skrulls, but attacked the Fantastic Four, thinking *they* were the Skrulls. Can the heroes clear up the confusion and deal with the real Skrulls?

This book was a lot shorter than some of the other "Secret Invasion" books I've seen, or at least it seemed that way, having some fluff and filler as opposed to being 100% main story, but it just seemed to echo the recent trend of supposed heroes being willing to consider actions and ideas that formerly would have been impossible or inconceivable for them. And this is one of them.

Basically, Scott Summers decides to use germ warfare against the Skrulls, and I agree with Hank that such a solution to the problem is decidedly non-heroic, and made me question how much of a hero Scott Summers is. The idea of doing that to anyone should be completely repugnant, along the lines of the joke about a woman who says she would sleep with a man for a million dollars but when asked if she'd do it for $100, she says, "No, what do you think I am?" and he replies, "We already know that- now we're just haggling over the price."

Is using such tactics *ever* heroic? I don't think so, and if you say, "Well it was justified in this instance..." you're telling is it actually *is* okay, as long as the situation is bad enough. But watch that "Bad enough"- such slippery definitions can move very easily. I didn't like the precedent this set about Scott's character. How is he any better than Professor X, who is going around atoning for just this sort of stuff?

The story is taut and well-told, but the plotline about using the whole germ warfare made me physically sick. It wasn't heroic and I found myself disliking Cyclops for being willing to stoop to that level. Not recommended.