OCTOBERFEAST – Skrulls!

[OCTOBERFEAST  is the greatest celebration of the year, a revelry dedicated to pop-culture’s most nutritious Halloween detritus. Plastic screams and artificial sweeteners have never been more bountiful. In the old country, villagers refer to the extended party as  Satan’s Snacktime]

Seeing the blood-red Hallow’s Eve moon begin to wink over the horizon, the OCTOBERFEAST revelers have begun assembling their costumes. The celebrants are still pumpkin-drunk and half-deaf from the cacophony of firecrackers and guitar solos, and they stumble and shout their way through the campgrounds in search of appropriate attire. They all eventually wind up at Rusty Ray’s tent, as he’s opened up the treasure trove of clothes and jewelry he claims his great-great-grandfather stole from the Globe Theatre in 1642.

He’s not lying.

Sammy, a wide-eyed seventeen year old with tremendous acne, excitedly excavates a demon mask. He holds it in front of his face and exclaims, “Come Halloween, ain’t no fools gon’ call me crater-face! Innfakk, I’ma pinch me some titty!”

He’s not lying, either.

By shrouding ourselves in layers of feigned-flesh, we are finally able to live out those furtive fancies that our feeble human frames cannot bear on their own. In those disguised moments, we are not tired or short or cross-eyed or dying of lupus. Instead, we are mutated into manifestations of ideas, archetypal concepts that’re time-tested and universally-recognized.

Ghosts. Witches. Hobos. Pirates. Vampires. Slutty nurses.

When these new personas are adopted, agency reaches an ejaculatory peak, as we are finally providing our own definitions of self. We become beings both defiant of corporeal circumstances and confident in our own prowess. We are free to do as we please, whether that means dancing to the Monster Mash, trick-or-treating around the neighborhood, or attending an orgy.

Disguised, we are not ourselves. And surely you can see that this opens up a world of possibility. But to be fair, this gift of liberation-via-secret identity also comes packaged with a caveat.

What if we’re not the ones wearing the masks? What happens when we find out that friends and loved ones aren’t who they say they are? What if those most adept at obscuring their identities actually want to see us brutally murdered?

What if they want to see the entire planet brutally murdered?

Such is the case with one of the Earth’s most terrifying foes: Skrulls.

The Skrulls first appeared in Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s The Fantastic Four Meet the Skrulls from Outer Space! The 1962 comic starts with Marvel’s First Family absolutely fucking shit up — Ben Grimm attacks an oil rig, Johnny Storm melts a statue, Sue Storm steals some jewelry, and Reed disables a power plant — or so it seems! The truth is that it is not the Fantastic Four behind these terrorist attacks, but members of a changeling alien race known as the Skrulls! The slimy green bastards plan to exploit their shape-shifting abilities to invade the Earth.

Needless to say, the FF ain’t standing for that bullshit. A battle of wits ensues, and Reed Richards’ crew casts the villains from whence they came. It was a hard fought battle that pushed the heroes to the limits of their craftiness, but good prevailed.

Unfortunately, the Skrulls are persistent buggers.

In the forty-nine years since their debut, the Skrulls have shape-shifted their way into countless tales of the 616. A classic example is that of the Kree-Skrull War, which saw an intergalactic, millennia-long war spill into the Earth’s territory, dragging in some of the planet’s mightiest heroes. The story has come to be regarded as a classic, displaying the Skrulls’ true nature as they attempt to commit genocide across the stars.

More recently, the Skrulls have reaffirmed their status as an evil collective through the events of Secret Invasion. This arc sees a number of the most beloved superheroes being revealed as rogue Skrull sleeper-agents. Upon reactivation, these Skrulls start wreaking havoc, sabotaging missions and killing heroes as part of yet another attempt to invade the Earth. While the physical violence they commit is largely effective, the Skrulls’ true strength is their ability to sow the seeds of doubt.

Think about it. How would you feel if someone you worked with for years all of sudden changed into an alien and tried to stab you in the neck? How about if you knew that other coworkers were going to do the same? What would be your frame of mind if potentially everyone you knew — including yourself — might be an agent of interplanetary warfare? What would be the prevailing sentiment?

Without a doubt: paranoia.

Fortunately, the Skrulls have never been wholly successful. With that being said, their shape-shifting ways have instilled a fear into the heart of the Marvel Universe that cannot be assuaged with victories on the battlefield. The fact of the matter is that an individual is never more powerful than when acting as someone else.

So when Halloween comes by in a few days, make sure that you give the ghouls and goblins plenty of candy. In reality you don’t know who’s lurking under the costume, and what powers are granted during the suburban masquerade.

After all, that cute witch could just be a first grader. But she might be a goddamn Skrull.

Hell, there could even be Skrulls here at the OCTOBERFEAST.