Avengers Endgame: How the Skrull from Captain Marvel could impact Avengers 4 and the MCU

Avengers: Endgame has a decade worth of storytelling to wrap up. With a three hour runtime, the Russo brothers seem poised to give fans the perfect denouement. But the close of Phase Three is not the end of the Avengers, and Phase Four will take the Avengers in a new direction.

What do the Skrull mean for Phase Four?

Though Marvel is notoriously tight-lipped about the direction Phase Four will take, the Skrull could be a major part of it.

Bringing the alien species into the MCU in the latest Captain Marvel movie was a bold move.

The Skrull have a huge impact in the Marvel comic books, spawning their own crossover.

To understand how dangerous they could be, or how helpful depending on your point of view, you have to know what the Skrull are capable of.

AVENGERS ENDGAME: WHY THESE FOUR AVENGERS WILL SACRIFICE THEMSELVES

The Skrulls are, like the Kree, a race of aliens. But that’s where the similarities end.

Making life difficult for everyone, the Skrulls have the ability to shape shift.

And, of course, they’re almost always waging war on other planets and species, including the pro-human alien species, the Krees.

The Skulls come from the planet Skrullos and were originally a mercantile civilization.

As shapeshifters, any time they came across a new species, they simply transformed themselves to resemble them.

They first appeared in Fantastic Four No. 2 back in January 1962.

Throughout Marvel history, the Skrulls have taken up the mantle of archetypal shape-shifting villains.

But Captain Marvel gave them a new backstory, as refugees from the Kree-Skrull war.

MARVEL MOVIE CAMEOS: WILL STAN LEE CAMEO IN OTHER MARVEL MOVIES?

In 2008 Marvel writer Brian Michael Bendis produced Secret Invasion, a Marvel crossover comic illustrated by Lenil Francis Yu, Mark Morales, and Laura Martin.

Secret Invasion’s major plot point was it revealed many Avengers were in fact Skrulls.

Not only were some heroes Skrulls, so were villains – and this means the line between good and evil will be blurred.

Though the cinematic universe has given Skulls a more empathetic and less villainous backstory, the 90s setting of Captain Marvel was a long time ago.

How they have changed, and what they have been forced to do, may prove sinister by the time Phase Four rolls out.

Marvel operates in a very black and white, good versus evil, so the introduction of the Skrull as refugees perhaps-turned aggressors would muddy the waters.

But this could be a good direction for the franchise as it finds its feet without the stalwarts fans love.

Avengers: Endgame is out in UK cinemas on Thursday, April 21, 2019.