Like most stories, the best comic book events start with a fairly simple premise and blossom outwards from there. Writer Roy Thomas wasnt aware that he was laying the foundation stone for more comic book stories than it would be possible to name here, when he first conceived of the Kree-Skrull war, but well bet dollars to donuts that, these days, hes painfully aware of it every time he picks up a new comic. Essentially, two of Marvels most powerful alien races, The Kree and The Skrulls, went to war and poor old earth was stuck in the middle. The fascinating thing about this story is that it turned several important comic book conventions on their heads. By the time The Kree-Skrull war was published in the early 1970s, readers had witnessed 30-odd years of superheroes saving the world from alien invasions. In fact, theyd grown up safe in the knowledge that the earth was pretty well protected. Whereas the B-movies of the 1950s had promised marauding space armies and super-destructive flying-saucer air strikes, comic books of the same era were much more positive. The earth of the comics was invaded far more frequently in those days, too. However, you could always trust Superman, Batman or The Avengers to repel the invading force by the time the issue was finished. In The Kree-Skrull War, on the other hand, Earth was pitched as a tiny, almost insignificant planet caught in the middle of a terrifying and all encompassing conflict. It was an awesome, not to mention deeply frightening, story premise.