Today in our ongoing series on the Squadron Supreme, we present the Skrullian Skymaster, Marvel’s answer to the Martian Manhunter.
Skymax has been a particular challenge, especially when working on Milestones. Sometimes a character is very hard to put a finger on. This can be because they are so widely written about that summing it all up in two entries can be daunting. It can also happen when a character is relatively obscure and not as strongly defined as some others. The Skrullian Skymaster falls into this second category.
Another possible complication I (and others) am having is that milestones seem more difficult to write when you’ve written a few characters. I think it stems from a desire to make a character’s datafile be a clear portrait of the character in question without getting too repetitive. Looking at it, though, these characters are often enough variations on themes so overlap is actually a good thing. It means that there’s an ever-expanding well of good ideas to pull from and it becomes an exercise in getting the pieces to fit together in a satisfying way. There’s some of that going on here.
Anyway, the Skymaster. I jumped at the chance to do another DC analog. It’s natural that DC’s alien master of invisibility and shape-shifting becomes a Skrull when he jumps universes. It’s also a pretty cool fit that The Skrullian Skymaster shares some story elements with Abin Sur, the alien that crashed on Earth and bequeathed his power ring upon the Green Lantern. All it required was the near total obliteration of the Skrulls from the Earth-712 universe. Not a big loss, right? I thought this would make for some fun interactions when he crosses over to Earth-616, where Skrulls are known and feared.
The Skrullian Skymaster can be found on the Marvel Universe wiki here
I don’t think you shared the printer friendly datafile. I’m getting a 403 error.
I updated the link. Try again.
Same error.
Yup. Forgot to hit the all-important “update” button.
I love this. Such a fun variation of J’onn J’onzz.
Remember the good old days when the creative teams used to, y’know, create?
The funny truth is that the Squadron Supreme dates back to the early 70’s, what many would consider to be the “good old days”. The way I see it, the Squadron was a creative way to bring the Justice League into the Marvel Universe without using DC’s established characters. This group was thrown together with such a big wink and nod to The JL that it’s kind of hard to even consider it a rip-off.