Skrull Cows

Gallery

Official Team Name

Skrull Cows

Team Aliases

Skrulls, Cows, Fantastic Four

Status

Active

Identity

Secret

Alignment

Bad

Universe

Earth-616

Base of Operations

King's Crossing, Vermont

Affiliations

Team Leader(s)

An unnamed Captain of a Skrull Mother-ship, The Super-Skrull

Former Members

Mister Fantastic, The Thing, The Human Torch

Allies

The Invisible Girl (Member of the team but escaped before they were turned into Cows)

Enemies

The Fantastic Four, The Avengers

Origin

Origin

Alien Skrulls

Place of Formation

Presumably on their Homeworld

Place of Defunction

A Slaughter-house near King's Crossing

Creators

Stan Lee, Jack Kirby

First appearance

Last appearance

Fantastic Four #2
(January, 1962)

Skrull Kill Krew #2
(October, 1995)

History

Invasion

A quartet of Skrulls posed as the Fantastic Four and publicly wreaked destruction and havoc in order to force the real Fantastic Four to fall out of favor with their government and be eliminated, leaving Earth open for invasion.

On the run from the military, the real Fantastic Four were able to trick the Skrulls into revealing their hideout as well as their master plan. Leaving them subdued, Reed, Sue, Johnny, and Ben traveled to their mother-ship via their Water Tower Ship. There, Reed used clippings from "Strange Tales" and "Journey into Mystery" to fool the scout Captain into believing the planet was too fortified by giant monsters for an invasion to be successful. Pretending to 'sacrifice their lives' so that the mother-ship could return home while leaving him behind, Reed was given the Skrulls' highest medal of bravery before the invasion forces left.

Back on Earth, the government still saw the Fantastic Four as a threat and sent police with them back to the Skrull quartet's hideout. There, three of the four had broken free of their bindings and attacked, shape-shifting into different monsters in front of the police and proving they had been posing as the Fantastic Four. The police chief left the aliens in the care of Mister Fantastic since they couldn't be held in any normal prison anyway^[1].

The remaining fourth member was thought to have been sent home with the invasion fleet, according to Reed^[2], but he had instead gone underground, eventually resurfacing as H. Warren Craddock. The remaining three Skrulls were forced to shift into cows as well as become hypnotized into believing they actually were cows, to live out their days grazing in a pasture outside King's Crossing, Vermont.

Kree-Skrull War

During the Kree-Skrull War, the Super-Skrull returned to Earth, where he used a Skrull Hyper-Beam from space to revive the quartet^[3]. He led them to capture Captain Marvel (a Kree) by laying a trap for him, posing as Carol Danvers and convincing him to hide out in "her friends'" farm upstate (actually the Super-Skrull's ship). At this farm the three former cows captured "Carol" and Mar-Vell and traveled to the Avengers Mansion afterward, where they impersonated Captain America, Iron Man, and Thor, dismissing The Vision, Quicksilver, The Scarlet Witch, and Goliath from the Avengers team. The dismissed Avengers reluctantly left the mansion, and decided to look for "Carol" and Mar-Vell at the farm upstate, where the three Skrulls waited in cow form until The Vision arrived, attacking him and the two mutants as The Human Torch, The Thing, and Mister Fantastic. Pietro and Wanda were captured, and The Vision was damaged. Vision managed to make his way back to the real Cap, Thor, and Iron Man, where he got help and explained what had happened. The four returned to the farm, where the Skrulls were attempting to capture Goliath and Rick Jones, who had been looking for Captain Marvel, and engaged in battle with the three Skrulls posing as Fantastic Four members. While they fought, the Super-Skrull revealed himself and managed to knock out Mar-Vell on his ship, leaving with his captives, Quicksilver, The Scarlet Witch, and Captain Marvel, while remarking that the three Skrulls who were still fighting the Avengers were expendable. The real Avengers were eventually able to subdue the trio, and reported their capture to Reed Richards of the real Fantastic Four^[4].

Skrull Kill Krew

They were eventually turned over to the Alien Activities Commission, who forced them to be turned back into cows and sent to the slaughter-house^[5]. Prior to their deaths, the three (as cows) became mixed in with a King's Crossing farmer's milking herd, and were milked as Dairy cows. Their "milk", which was part of them shape-shifted into milk, caused the people of the town to partially mutate, gaining the Skrulls' shape-shifting abilities and warlike tendencies. Those who drank the "milk" forced others to drink it until the entire town was affected.

Eventually, Sharon Selleck, a friend of the Fantastic Four, was captured there when her car broke down. She had a milk allergy, and was able to resist the effects of the "milk", sneaking out of town to call for help. By the time the Fantastic Four arrived to help her, the town had become a super-efficient farming community, erecting massive manufacturing plants to produce more "milk", and using it to water their local crops. Luckily, before arriving, Mr. Fantastic had recognized the location as where the cow Skrulls had been sent to, and had devised an antidote to the Skrull infection. The entire town was cured and the crops burned. The only lasting effect of the milk was that everyone was in much better health and had not aged in six years^[6].

After they were slaughtered, the meat of their bodies mixed with the rest of the cows, and was sold as hamburger to local food chains. Many people ate the tainted meat, causing some to die and some to become infected by a similar effect as the "milk" their bodies previously produced. Those who became infected received shape-shifting abilities and bad tempers as well as a terminal disease. They banded together and set out to kill as many Skrulls, (the cause of their imminent painful deaths) as they could before they died as the Skrull Kill Krew^[7].

Paraphernalia

Equipment: Anti-Gravity Gear
Transportation: Their personal Water Tower Ship, and the Mother Ship it interacted with.
Weapons: A Concealed Electronic Detonator, and a Low Velocity Thermal Bomb

Notes

• It seems to be a serious lapse in judgment for Reed to assume the escaped impostors went home with the invasion fleet, taking knowledge of what happened to her brothers and the truth behind Earth's defenses. It's likely that the panels were drawn with only three Skrulls remaining, and the story had to be manipulated to account for the fourth.

• It should be noted that the three were forced to be turned back into cows and sent to a slaughter-house by the Alien Activities Commission, who had their escaped original member in charge of it posing as H. Warren Craddock. There is no explanation why the Craddock Skrull signed off on the slaughter of his fellow Skrulls.

• Not all of the "milk" produced by these beings was destroyed or rendered inert. A truck full of containers was seen being delivered to Camp Merl, a US Army Depot^[8].
  

Trivia

• Dorrek VII is related to one of the three who became cows^[9].

• Zogg, an alien from another world met three cows he believed to be Earth's rulers when he first arrived^[10]. It is possible these three cows were, in fact, the Skrull Fantastic Four impostors.

See Also

• 8 Appearances of Skrull Cows (Earth-616)
• 17 Images that include Skrull Cows (Earth-616)
• Team Gallery: Skrull Cows (Earth-616)
• Fan-Art Gallery: Skrull Cows (Earth-616)

Links and References

• Marvunapp's profile of the People of King's Crossing
• Marvunapp's profile of the Skrull Kill Krew
• Marvunapp's profile of H. Warren Craddock
• Damn Dirty Skrulls Flashback: Skrull Kill Krew on Newsarama.com, originally by Troy Brownfield
  

Footnotes