New Avengers (Vol. 1) #46

Background

In the past the new Kingpin of crime, The Hood has fought the New Avengers in a bid to establish his dominance. Now that the Skrulls have begun a full scale invasion The Hood has rallied his crew and decided to help, after all it's bad for business if the Skrulls win.

Story Details

One month ago an S.H.I.E.L.D agent is being interrogated by The Hood, he wants to know everything the agent knows about Skrulls. One month and one day ago Madame Masque has been captured by a group of S.H.I.E.L.D agents. They ask her what she knows about The Hood and just as they are about to unmask her The Hood appears and starts to kill all the agents. Madame Masque tells The Hood to stop, and to look at the agents before he kills the last one. The dead agents were actually Skrulls looking to infiltrate The Hoods crew. Back to one month ago and The Hood continues to question the agent, when the other super villains begin to question what The Hood is doing. They decide to leave so Madam Masque shoots the agent in the legs several times and threatens to kill him. The agent then turns into a Skrull and starts to beg for his life. The Hood asks what the Skrulls are doing on Earth. The Skrull replies the planet is theirs according to their ancient writings. Madame Masque asks why replace her? The Skrull tells her they have agents in every super powered group except this new alliance The Hood has formed. The Skrull dies saying that Earth is their planet. The group debate what to do, it is suggested that The Hood use his super natural powers to see if anyone else has been compromised. The Hood agrees and checks the group, he says they are all ok, but suddenly turns and kills The Slug, who then turns into a Skrull. The group then asks what they should do. The Hood tells them to burn the warehouse to the ground including the Skrull bodies. The Hood tells them he's going to figure out what's happening and he'll call them.

Later in private The Hood looks into a mirror and starts to threaten to throw his costume away if whoever is inside of it doesn't help him. His reflection tells him not to do this as it would be a mistake, the reflection then reveals himself to be Dormammu who promises to make The Hood even more powerful.

General Comments

The big reveal in this issue is where The Hoods powers came from. While I'm not convinced Brian K Vaughn had this in mind when The Hood was created it's nice to see The Dread Dormammu return. The idea of the Skrulls having to infiltrate The Hoods crew, (someone needs to name this group) just before the invasion is also interesting.

Overall Rating

4 webs great art – again by Bill Tan and another solid script by Bendis makes this issue worth reading, although it's not required reading for the whole Secret Invasion event.