Did the ever explain why Reed blew off Nova's message?

[mikekerr3]

Nova sent a message to Reed that the whole Universe was in danger, Reed told no one. Did they ever explain why?

[40yearoldnovafan]

Nova sent a message to Reed that the whole Universe was in danger, Reed told no one. Did they ever explain why?

Not yet, but I think it's going to be dealt with during secret invasion.

[mikekerr3]

Not yet, but I think it's going to be dealt with during secret invasion.

I can't think of anything including the Cw that could have been happening, even if Reed was a Skrull he would have passed that warning.

[XPac]

Not yet, but I think it's going to be dealt with during secret invasion.

That would be ironic since the first person that warned Reed about the Annihilation Wave (who Reed also blew off) was a skrull.

[StoneGold]

I can't think of anything including the Cw that could have been happening, even if Reed was a Skrull he would have passed that warning.

Except we still haven't seen that Reed got the message.

[Cestrian]

I think an editor mentioned somewhere that the skrulls stole it so it never got through to the heroes.

Not entirely sure why they'd do that as you would assume they would want to stop Annihilus from wiping out the earth and all their agents on it on it but hey I'm not a skrull. I'm sure it all makes sense in their heads.

[StoneGold]

I think an editor mentioned somewhere that the skrulls stole it so it never got through to the heroes.

Not entirely sure why they'd do that as you would assume they would want to stop Annihilus from wiping out the earth and all their agents on it on it but hey I'm not a skrull. I'm sure it all makes sense in their heads.

Because if Earth stops the wave, it places them higher in the interstellar community, thus giving them allies for when the Skrulls launch the main part of their invasion.


Or, just because their in a general habit of trying to deny the enemy information. Take your pick.

[Cestrian]

Because if Earth stops the wave, it places them higher in the interstellar community, thus giving them allies for when the Skrulls launch the main part of their invasion.


Or, just because their in a general habit of trying to deny the enemy information. Take your pick.

Well an earthman did stop the wave so...

Those would have to be secondary concerns anyway, the Annihilation wave cut through the skrull empire like a knife through hot butter and were smashing everything else in sight to pieces. If I hear that something like that is coming after me, my first thought isn't going to be to sabotage any attempt at defense on the planet I'm on just in case it makes it trickier to conquer later.

Chances are, if Drax hadn't freed the Surfer (which no-one knew was even a possibilty) then Earth and every skrull on it would have died. That's not really a win for them. I have no idea why they wouldn't want earths defenders to know about this so they could plan a way to stop it.

It's just one of those things you have to accept as not making a lot of sense.

[StoneGold]

Well an earthman did stop the wave so...

Those would have to be secondary concerns anyway, the Annihilation wave cut through the skrull empire like a knife through hot butter and were smashing everything else in sight to pieces. If I hear that something like that is coming after me, my first thought isn't going to be to sabotage any attempt at defense on the planet I'm on just in case it makes it trickier to conquer later.

Chances are, if Drax hadn't freed the Surfer (which no-one knew was even a possibilty) then Earth and every skrull on it would have died. That's not really a win for them. I have no idea why they wouldn't want earths defenders to know about this so they could plan a way to stop it.

It's just one of those things you have to accept as not making a lot of sense.

Except if the Skrulls intercepted the message... how are they going to get it to Reed, then, without giving themselves away? Or, even more simply, they had orders to intercept whatever space-based messages they could and keep them from the humans, regardless of what they said. Orders is orders.

[Cestrian]

Or, even more simply, they had orders to intercept whatever space-based messages they could and keep them from the humans, regardless of what they said. Orders is orders.

Yeah, that one actually works for me. I can see that.

[XPac]

Except if the Skrulls intercepted the message... how are they going to get it to Reed, then, without giving themselves away? Or, even more simply, they had orders to intercept whatever space-based messages they could and keep them from the humans, regardless of what they said. Orders is orders.

Even if the skrulls did give it to Reed, odds are Reed would just ignore it. If he's not going to listen to Super Skrull, he probably won't listen to any of the rest.

[StoneGold]

Yeah, that one actually works for me. I can see that.

And realize, I'm No-Prizing here. But I find it more fun to try and find plausible explanations for stuff than just bitch about the plot holes.

Although I guess it might just be an unexplored plot point still.

[PatchMadripoor]

Except we still haven't seen that Reed got the message.

I was going to say that the Super Skrull interecepted it while he was asking Reed to power up the Negative Zone portal, but that happened before Nova sent the message.

I'm guessing it got intercepted by another Skrull within the FF headquarters....most likely Lyja.

[Abrojo]

No, actually i think most people are forgetting New Avengers #40. Remember the change on the ruling Skrull faction was BECAUSE of the Annihilation wave. If the humans stopped the wave before Skrulls where trashed, then the magic/religious cast wouldnt have been able to retake power.

I would say it would make a ton of sense to have a Skrull from the religious faction intercept the message, let the wave crush the current Skrull government so they could be in power again.

[Baltho08]

Wouldn't have alerting the general public as to the existence of the Annihilation Wave have helped the Skrulls though? I mean, if every hero left Earth to go fight 3 galaxies away, Earth is left unprotected; the heroes that did come back, if any, would then have no chance of taking Earth from the Skrulls after they established a power base there.
Peace.

[StoneGold]

Wouldn't have alerting the general public as to the existence of the Annihilation Wave have helped the Skrulls though? I mean, if every hero left Earth to go fight 3 galaxies away, Earth is left unprotected; the heroes that did come back, if any, would then have no chance of taking Earth from the Skrulls after they established a power base there.
Peace.

We're moving into variable areas here, though. What happens when the heroes come back, which if history has shown, the inevitably will, except now with their buddies the Silver Surfer, Nova, etc. in tow?

Not to mention, knowledge of the Wave would put alien paranoia on high alert. Not the best thing for invading Skrulls.

[The Deadpool]

Why would it bother the Skrulls, since their plan is to infiltrate while looking like humans? Xenophobia would help their plans just like any kind of paranoid thinking would...

Truth is, having all the heroes charge the Wave (and, honestly, most likely die by the dozens) would be immensely helpful.

Also, send a few hidden agents and pick them off while fighting the Wave. War is great cover for assassinations...

Btw, someone mentioned an Earthman beat the Wave. No. GALACTUS beat the Wave. Nova survived long enough to take out a weakened Annihilus, but the Wave had already lost by then... The most an Earthman did was free Silver Surfer...

[Baltho08]

Also, NO ONE on Earth knew that Nova had received an upgrade, and no one knew the Silver Surfer or Galactus were even involved, let alone the other heralds. If Kl'rt didn't report this stuff, then no one knew it. I mean, Tony and Reed didn't know it, so who else could have known? Surely, not the Skrull exiles.
Peace.

[Cestrian]

No, actually i think most people are forgetting New Avengers #40. Remember the change on the ruling Skrull faction was BECAUSE of the Annihilation wave. If the humans stopped the wave before Skrulls where trashed, then the magic/religious cast wouldnt have been able to retake power.

I would say it would make a ton of sense to have a Skrull from the religious faction intercept the message, let the wave crush the current Skrull government so they could be in power again.

But that had all already happened by this point. Nova send the message after every army fighting the wave had been defeated. By this point both the skrulls and the kree were already out of the war and earth was the next target. Reed getting the message wouldn't have meant stopping the wave so much as just stopping the world from being blown up when the wave arrived.

Also, NO ONE on Earth knew that Nova had received an upgrade, and no one knew the Silver Surfer or Galactus were even involved, let alone the other heralds. If Kl'rt didn't report this stuff, then no one knew it. I mean, Tony and Reed didn't know it, so who else could have known? Surely, not the Skrull exiles.


If they read Nova's message they'd know all that. They would also know that Nova hadn't managed not come close to stopping the wave and that earth was it's next target. They would have good reason to be worried about it killing them all and destroying their holy planet.

Even if the skrulls did give it to Reed, odds are Reed would just ignore it.

Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't Nova just record his message on a little computer and throw it at the earth? If so why couldn't the skrulls just intercept it, read it and then put it back once they realised this is a message they wanted to go through? Why do they have to make it obvious that it's come from them?

[StoneGold]

Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't Nova just record his message on a little computer and throw it at the earth? If so why couldn't the skrulls just intercept it, read it and then put it back once they realised this is a message they wanted to go through? Why do they have to make it obvious that it's come from them?

If it's like any other military communication, there's usually some kind of security that can show it's been read already. Now, you can counter saying that the Skrulls can make something that can hide that, but then you start getting into a couple of layers of "buts."

[Abrojo]

Truth is, having all the heroes charge the Wave would be immensely helpful.

The Skrulls where in no shape to invade anything during Annihilation. They where fighting for survival and had no spare resources. We have seen they need a decent spaceforce to support their ground infiltration and they didnt have spares. Also, and this is the biggest thing, you are forgetting: the religious faction took power and decided to invade AFTER the Annihilation War was over, not before or during.

But that had all already happened by this point. Nova send the message after every army fighting the wave had been defeated. By this point both the skrulls and the kree were already out of the war and earth was the next target.

I am not so sure about the timeline, do we know when Nova sent the message specificaly? only reference i can find is him telling Iron Man "hey i sent Reed a message this was happening" in Nova post Annihilation. So far only placement i can think off is during the Wave itself.

Though i think its an interesting question, it is i believe a tad irrelevant to the problem at hand. Because of NA#40 we know the Skrull ruler change occured with the wave already wiped out. So Nova's message was before the ruler change. Therefore the religious Skrull faction wasnt already in power.

The Invasion wasn't happening when Nova sent the message!

So, in my opinion, its either:
a) Reed disregarded it.
b) It never reached Earth.
c) A religious Skrull intercepted to force Skrull trashing and therefore their faction could gain control of the empire. (personal take)
d) Interesting dialogue the writer thought of putting without giving it much importance and never followed upon. In which case i assume we default to A or B.

[Omega Alpha]

No, actually i think most people are forgetting New Avengers #40. Remember the change on the ruling Skrull faction was BECAUSE of the Annihilation wave. If the humans stopped the wave before Skrulls where trashed, then the magic/religious cast wouldnt have been able to retake power.

I would say it would make a ton of sense to have a Skrull from the religious faction intercept the message, let the wave crush the current Skrull government so they could be in power again.

Exactly. This is the one that makes most sense.

[mikekerr3]

Wouldn't have alerting the general public as to the existence of the Annihilation Wave have helped the Skrulls though? I mean, if every hero left Earth to go fight 3 galaxies away, Earth is left unprotected; the heroes that did come back, if any, would then have no chance of taking Earth from the Skrulls after they established a power base there.
Peace.

If Nova and Company fail Earth is dead and all it's people. The Skrull are small potatoes in that contest. The Annillation Wave wanted to Kill everything.

The Skrull lost multiple planets, I doubt that they would sacrifice a good chunk of thier empire for this polluted ball of rock.

The only option i can see are Stone Gold Beucratic one or Reed Richards goofing up an losing the note, Or Reeds stupid math saying the CW was more important.

[mikekerr3]

Exactly. This is the one that makes most sense.

The Wave would have killed all the Skrull and every thing in the Universe. there would have been nothing to take over.

[Abrojo]

The Wave would have killed all the Skrull and every thing in the Universe. there would have been nothing to take over.

True, rationale would have dictated the Kree or someone else also contacted Earth to get all the help they can get. However nobody here works by rationale, pride and other things drive this other people too.

I could well buy that a fanatic religious Skrull would rather die than let the earthmen scum intervene or get in the way of their own rise to power instead of that bastard cast that banished our queen into exile.

[The Deadpool]

The Skrull Empire was pretty much dead and gone by the time the message hit Earth. If they ARE a religious, minor faction who truly believe Earth is theirs by devine right, and were ALREADY IN THE PROCESS OF TAKING OVER BEFORE THE WAVE HIT (which, in case you were wondering, they WERE), then who is or isn't in power at the moment is irrelevant. If they saw an opportunity to speed up their goals (heroes gone for unknown period of time while their agents rise to even more prominent positions of power, and opportunity to assassinate problem heroes without exposing themselves) why WOULDN'T they take it?

[Dorsai]

It wasn't in the Skrull's interest to do anything about the wave.

The Civil War was working to their advantage. Gathering forces from Earth to fight an extra-terrestrial threat would simply reunite all of the heroes. Even worse, it might even unite the villains with the heroes. From the 2nd Sentry mini, we have a pretty good precedent for heroes and villains gathering on a large scale to fight a planetary threat. If they thought Richards alone was bad, how bad would it have been with Richards AND Doom (for example)?

The Annihilation Wave was a forgone conclusion for the Skrulls. They WERE going to lose major parts of their empire and that wasn't going to change. However, changing the status quo on their NEW home would not have been to their advantage.

We know that someone on Earth got the message. K'lrt met with Richards and even used his negative zone portal. I think the question is not so much whether Earth got Nova's message but was the Reed Richards that met with K'lrt a Skrull? If yes, it explains why he helped K'lrt so readily and also explains why he didn't pitch this to Stark as the universe-level threat that it was. If no, then it begs the question of why Richards chose to let the Civil War continue instead of using the Annihilation Wave to reunite the community.

I think the question is not so much why he blew off Nova's message or if he even got his message. I think the real question is why did he blow off K'lrt's warning that was delivered in person.

[Magneto Rocks]

I
The Skrull lost multiple planets, I doubt that they would sacrifice a good chunk of thier empire for this polluted ball of rock.

No, I'd say it's pretty clear they would- this bunch anyway. They're zealots- logic and rationality don't come into play here.

[Cestrian]

It wasn't in the Skrull's interest to do anything about the wave.

The Civil War was working to their advantage. Gathering forces from Earth to fight an extra-terrestrial threat would simply reunite all of the heroes. Even worse, it might even unite the villains with the heroes. From the 2nd Sentry mini, we have a pretty good precedent for heroes and villains gathering on a large scale to fight a planetary threat. If they thought Richards alone was bad, how bad would it have been with Richards AND Doom (for example)?

The Annihilation Wave was a forgone conclusion for the Skrulls. They WERE going to lose major parts of their empire and that wasn't going to change. However, changing the status quo on their NEW home would not have been to their advantage.

Once again, the message wasn't come and help us fight the wave and save the skrull empire. The message was the wave is coming to earth and we haven't been able to stop it, get yourself ready.

Nova sends his log to earth in Annihilation 4 which is after the skrull empire had already been mostly destroyed. That wasn't at stake, the stake was the destruction of the earth (the skrulls sacred planet) and all the troops on it. No-one is suggesting that the skrulls abandon earth to go fight the wave but sabotaging the defense against an army coming to kill you is suicide. You can argue it makes sense for the skrull's to make that decision but you're never going to convince me it was the smart thing to do.

[DMike]

Considering the message being sent happened in the same issue as Drax killing Thanos, then if that What If? Annihilation issue follows the same timeline, then Nova's message would have been sent right before the big Manhattan battle at the end of Civil War (the What If? issue has Nova returning from the failure of Galactus's freedom right in the middle of the big fight, so assuming he got back quickly rather than months later the Earth heroes were preoccupied).

[Abrojo]

If they ARE a religious, minor faction who truly believe Earth is theirs by devine right, and were ALREADY IN THE PROCESS OF TAKING OVER BEFORE THE WAVE HIT (which, in case you were wondering, they WERE),

ehh no, we where clearly shown that they decided on the invasion AFTER the wave. We where shown they only Elektra was replaced as a trial before the wave. You are guessing things that have already been explained clearly.

With the exception of Elektra, the invasion didnt start till after the Wave ended, this is a fact.

[Cestrian]

ehh no, we where clearly shown that they decided on the invasion AFTER the wave. We where shown they only Elektra was replaced as a trial before the wave. You are guessing things that have already been explained clearly.

With the exception of Elektra, the invasion didnt start till after the Wave ended, this is a fact.

I haven't read those comics so I'll take you word for it but if so then it makes the skrulls intercepting the message Nova sent in the issue "Annihilation 4" even more baffling. If they weren't planning on invading them why get involved at all.

The skrull thing isn't a guess by the way, Marvel confirmed it at a con last year. See this thread (http://forums.comicbookresources.com/showthread.php?t=178847) created about it at the time.

[mikekerr3]

Considering the message being sent happened in the same issue as Drax killing Thanos, then if that What If? Annihilation issue follows the same timeline, then Nova's message would have been sent right before the big Manhattan battle at the end of Civil War (the What If? issue has Nova returning from the failure of Galactus's freedom right in the middle of the big fight, so assuming he got back quickly rather than months later the Earth heroes were preoccupied).

Much like a fireman being preoccupied with a smoKing ashtray while the house burns down with people in it.

The Wave made the Cicil was look like two brats arguing over Ice cream, the stakes in the CW were infinitely lower. Jell even Nova 13/14 are for much higher stakes than the CW. Planets and billions were dieing while they fussed over the SHRA.

[Frank]

No, actually i think most people are forgetting New Avengers #40. Remember the change on the ruling Skrull faction was BECAUSE of the Annihilation wave. If the humans stopped the wave before Skrulls where trashed, then the magic/religious cast wouldnt have been able to retake power.

I would say it would make a ton of sense to have a Skrull from the religious faction intercept the message, let the wave crush the current Skrull government so they could be in power again.

I always thought the change in regime was because Galactus destroyed their Planet. There's definitly something I didn't get in Secret Invasion! :biggrin:

[mikekerr3]

I always thought the change in regime was because Galactus destroyed their Planet. There's definitly something I didn't get in Secret Invasion! :biggrin:

The Galactus destroyed one of thier planets the Wave destroyed many. The Empire was crippled and in disarray.

If the wave had not been stopped there would be no Skrull or humans to fight each other.

[pimp1911]

I am glad that the after effects of a cosmic event is causing so much ruckus on earth.

Go Marvel Cosmic......

[Abrojo]

I am glad that the after effects of a cosmic event is causing so much ruckus on earth.

Go Marvel Cosmic......

Yeah i would actually say the amount of consequence is about right. A bit but not too much.