9-15-08
Who's Got a Secret in Secret Invasion? – Episode #4.1 – Lyja the Skrull
By Bruce! MacIntosh

One of the best things about the Secret Invasion event has been the return of characters who had not been seen for years. In this special Spotlight, we'll take a look at Lyja. This Skrull played a huge part in the Marvel Universe for years and then disappeared for over a decade before returning in the Secret Invasion: Fantastic Four tie-in miniseries. Back in the 90s, she was a spy who married the Human Torch and then reformed to help the Fantastic Four as a hero. She now has returned as a "bad guy", sent to take the team out of commission while the rest of her Evil Empire invades Earth.

In 1991, readers of Marvel's flagship title, the Fantastic Four learned of the Skrull Empire's continuing plots to destroy the Fantastic Four. Skrull General Kalamari suggested infiltrating the team with a shape-shifting recruit, but the Emperor shot down that idea because at that time these aliens could only appear as an Earth hero, but could not duplicate any of their powers. (You have to wonder what FF writer, Tom DeFalco had for lunch that day, because of some of his character names.)

The Skrull Paibok suggested simply duplicating Alicia Masters, the unpowered girlfriend of the Thing. Paibok chose Lyja out of a group of recruits. She wondered whether the mission was Paibok's reward or revenge, since the two previously had a relationship that had ended badly. She simulated Alicia's face, studied her mannerisms, and researched and memorized everything the Skrulls knew about the Fantastic Four and Alicia. They even implanted her with contact lenses that would render her blind, so that she could accurately simulate Alicia's own sightlessness.

When the Fantastic Four was mysteriously transported off planet – along with many of the other heroes – to participate in the Secret Wars, the Skrulls kidnapped Alicia and replaced her with Lyja. She was in for a surprise, however, because when the group returned She-Hulk had replaced The Thing, who had stayed behind. Not to have the Skrulls' plans derailed, that hussy Lyja put the moves on Johnny Storm. He should have known he was going to get "burned", but the Human Torch fell for the replacement Alicia.

In the ultimate twist, however, Lyja also found that she was falling for Johnny. The two were married in a ceremony that the Puppet Master tried to ruin, until he saw how happy the woman he assumed to be his niece Alicia, appeared to be. (FF 300)

The couple were happily married for years, and fortunately for Lyja, her cover was never blown. That is, until one night while the Thing was in the kitchen preparing a midnight snack, he heard noises coming from Reed's laboratory. Lyja was there to destroy Mr. Fantastic's Brain Analyzer before it could reveal her true identity. At first, all Ben saw was a shadow and then Lyja changed shapes to keep him from finding out that Alicia was not who she seemed. He rounded the corner and found only Alicia, who claimed not to have seen nor heard anything.

Ben took a walk and encountered the Puppet Master, who managed to convince The Thing that he sensed that the woman in the Fantastic Four's building was not the true Alicia. The unlikely pair then busted in and blew her cover just as Lyja was trying to convince Johnny that Ben had been hallucinating. The Thing threatened to start wailing on Alicia until she finally revealed her true identity. (FF 357)

Johnny was understandably upset, and refused to believe that he married a Skrull, but the rest of the team managed to prevent him from flame-broiling her. Lyja sincerely professed her love for Johnny and revealed she was carrying his baby. Lyja agreed to help the Fantastic Four locate and rescue the real Alicia, if they could guarantee the Skrull's freedom. Oddly, they gave Lyja one of Sue's old FF uniforms – supposedly to help them distinguish her from the other occupants of the hidden Skrull base housing Alicia.

Once on "War World", Lyja freely blasted away at some Skrulls, until she saw Paibok, now calling himself the "Power-Skrull" (just to add to the "cheese" factor of the story) and imbued with enhanced abilities. Torn between her former Skrull lover and her current "flame" the Human Torch, Lyja hesitated. The delay almost gave Paibok a chance to fire on Johnny in retribution for the indignities he imagined Lyja had suffered at the hands of humans. However, she turned into a giant dragon-like beast and jumped in front of the blast.

Lyja seemingly died in Johnny's arms, and with her last breath professed her love for him and admitted that she was not actually pregnant. The team saved the real Alicia – who had been in suspended animation - but had to abandon Lyja's body. (FF 358)

It was more than a year until readers learned that Lyja had actually survived, and that Paibok planned to exact a full measure of revenge on the Fantastic Four. In a super-villain team-up that never really made sense, Paibok allied with Devos the Destroyer. The pair not only restored Lyja to health, but gave her superpowers: The power of flight and to project lethal energy blasts from her fists. Every good superpower deserves a good code name, but unfortunately Skrulls were not good at this: They named her Lyja the Lazerfist, and her new mission was to exact revenge against her husband and his teammates for abandoning her.

Paibok and Devos attacked Johnny while he was attending Empire State University, and then Lyja joined the fray with her new powers. (Again, she claimed to be pregnant with Johnny's child.) When he had finally had enough, the Torch turned white-hot with his nova flame – incinerating much of Empire State in the process. (FF 371)

Devos and the Skrulls (which will be the name for my new rock band… with my mad Guitar Hero skills) escaped before being torched by the nova heat, but returned to harass Johnny as he was being arrested for destroying the University. His reputation was further marred as he tried to attack the villains hiding in a crowd of innocent bystanders.

Johnny went into hiding and the Secret Defenders were sent out to recapture him. The rest of his teammates tried to defend Johnny against Wolverine, Spider-Man, Hulk and Ghost Rider, and the Fantastic Four was about to lose. That is, until Lyja – who had snuck off Devos' ship – saved her husband from Ghost Rider's deadly attack. (FF 374)

In Fantastic Four #375, the team was taken to the Moon to hang out with Uatu the Watcher and Lyja helped the team. The following issue Johnny returned the favor by saving Lyja from a super-charged Doctor Doom. The couple then reconciled and Lyja agreed to defend Johnny in his trial for destroying Empire State U. That same issue Lyja met Alicia Masters, the woman whom the Skrull had impersonated for years. (FF 376)

Paibok and Devos recruited some new allies - Klaw and Huntara (a future relative of the Richards'), and the group called themselves the Fearsome Foursome. They attacked the Fantastic Four at Johnny's trial (for the destruction of ESU), and Lyja fought along with Sue and Ben. Then Paibok reminded her that the proper birthing of her baby required Lacaroo, a medicine available only on the Skrull Throneworld. She dropped her guard and Johnny repaid Lyja's earlier sacrifice by throwing himself in the path of one of Klaw's sonic blasts. (FF 377)

Despite Johnny's misgivings, Sue invited Lyja to stay at Four Freedoms Plaza (the new Baxter Building) so they could monitor her pregnancy and health. It is at this point that Lyja apparently snapped and went into "stalker mode", which characterized her remaining three years of appearances in the Fantastic Four, and continued to her recent comeback in Secret Invasion: Fantastic Four. She left the Plaza and disguised herself as the young and attractive human female, "Laura Green". Lyja – as Laura – put herself in a position to "bump into" Johnny, and like an idiot he took the bait and started flirting with her. This made her angry, but she never revealed her deception.

Later, (FF 382) Lyja collapsed in front of Johnny, forcing her to reveal that their baby would not be properly born without the Lacaroo medicine only available on the Skrull home world. Luckily the Fearsome Foursome attacked again and captured Sue, Johnny and Lyja. Paibok and his group took off to Throneworld to present their prisoners to the Skrull Empress.

Unfortunately for Paibok, Devos betrayed him as soon as they arrived, using the arsenal of his ship to pummel Throneworld into submission. Naturally, the Empress questioned Paibok's own loyalty for bringing such destruction to the Skrulls, and ordered his own soldiers to kill him. Seeking redemption, Paibok returned to Devos' "Death Cruiser" and confronted him. In the fight the ship's stardrive was damaged and it fell into subspace, and the two combatants disappeared. This was not a good day for "The Power Skrull".

As they escaped the chaotic Throneworld, Sue Richards grabbed a vial of the needed birthing medicine from a Skrull medical facility. (FF 383) Lyja went into labor a few issues later, while the group was underwater with Namor the Sub-Mariner. The Inhuman Triton took her and Johnny to the hospital, where they handed the Lacaroo to a dubious human doctor.

The medicine made Lyja all squishy, and if that wasn't gross enough – the doctor had to fish around to try to find the baby. He found the device that Paibok had implanted to give her powers, and cavalierly tossed it aside. He finally found the baby, which turned out to actually be an egg. (FF 386)

While the happy couple monitored the incubating egg, Johnny considered quitting the team, and stayed back while the rest went on a mission through time. The adventure involved the adult Franklin Richards, who had earlier come to the past, Terminator-style, to prevent his apocalyptian future. (FF 389)

Next, a college student named Raphael Suarez - who had been working at the hospital where Lyja laid her egg - found the implant that the doctor had discarded. The implant flashed and gave Raphael Lyja's former power to fire energy blasts from his fists. He went to FF Plaza for the team's help, but encountered instead the Collector – who was trying to steal Lyja's (unhatched) egg. Lyja discovered that she no longer had her Lazerfist powers, at about the same time Raphael first used his to try to defeat the Collector. Collector examined the egg and concluded it was a fake, and took off.

This inspired Lyja to divulge – once again – that Johnny was not really the egg's "father". She also dropped the bomb that the egg was actually an artificial implant, intended to destroy the Fantastic Four. Johnny was pulled away to an adventure, whereupon the egg finally hatched into a giant, Cyclopean creature called a Sha'Barri. Lyja and Raphael fought the monster, together with the help of Namor and Ant-Man. It was finally defeated when Lyja used her Skrull Shape-shifting abilities to replicate the monster and fight it, uh… tentacle to tentacle. (FF 391)

Lyja later attempted to reconcile with Johnny, but he refused because of all her past duplicity. As if to reinforce his point, Lyja abandoned her natural Skrull appearance with Johnny and continued to stalk him, disguised as the human archeologist Laura Green. (FF 392 – 393)

Still feeling a connection with and responsibility to the team, Lyja (as a Skrull) assisted them in the big "anniversary" issue (FF 400) with a crisis of "Celestial" importance against Aron, the rogue Watcher. (Less Reed Richards, who had been missing for several years.) She again assisted the team again against a group of "Thing" duplicates in Central America, and the Tomorrow Man and Dr. Doom (FF 403 – 406), even though she had long been deprived of her Lazerfist powers and only had the ability to change shape into birds and monsters, (a la Beast Boy of DC's Teen Titans.)

Eventually, as Johnny's "new" relationship with Laura Green blossomed, Ben Grimm started crushing on Lyja. Perpetuating comics' most bizarre love triangle was Lyja's main role in the Fantastic Four, until The Thing caught her answering Johnny's phone call as Laura. She finally came clean with both Ben and Johnny, and things looked promising for the team, until…

The company and comics of Marvel went through big changes in 1996, and the character Lyja apparently got lost in the shuffle. Fantastic Four #415 was a watershed issue, as it promised – but never delivered – the return of the beautiful Skrull to prominence. However, her important assist against the ultimate bad-guy Onslaught and touching reunion with Johnny never led to anything.

Volume One of the World's Greatest Comic Magazine then came to a close after 35 years and 416 issues, as Marvel struggled to rise from the ashes of bankruptcy. The company gave the Fantastic Four's second-longest running penciler – Paul Ryan – the old heave-ho, replacing him with one of "today's hot creators", Jim Lee. The 13-issue experiment that followed was successful, as it brought back the company from ruin, (along with the discontinuation and replacement of other long-running titles, such as Captain America, Iron Man and The Avengers.)

Alternate versions of Lyja appeared in several Marvel series since the conclusion of volume one of Fantastic Four. (Examples are Spider-Girl in 1998, Fantastic Five in 1999, and most recently in a zombie-filled Black Panther story in 2005.) Lyja the Skrull, however, did not return to the "mainstream" Marvel Universe until her recent reunion with Johnny Storm in the Negative Zone, in Secret Invasion: Fantastic Four. Now that that mini-series has concluded, will the Skrull return to stalk the Human Torch again?