Marvel's Secret Invasion Prose Novel, page 1
CONTENTS
Cover
Novels of the Marvel Universe by Titan Books
Also from Titan and Titan Books
Title Page
Leave us a Review
Copyright
Dedication
Prologue: Tony Stark
One: Abigail Brand
Two: Tony Stark
Three: Danny Rand
Four: Abigail Brand
Five: Tony Stark
Six: Norman Osborn
Seven: Johnny Storm
Eight: Danny Rand
Nine: Reed Richards
Ten: Danny Rand
Eleven: Bob Reynolds
Twelve: Tony Stark
Thirteen: Clint Barton
Fourteen: Teddy Altman
Fifteen: Balkamar
Sixteen: Norman Osborn
Seventeen: Cassie Lang
Eighteen: Veranke
Nineteen: Cassie Lang
Twenty: Carol Danvers
Twenty-One: Natasha Romanoff
Twenty-Two: Abigail Brand
Twenty-Three: Parker Robbins
Twenty-Four: Norman Osborn
Twenty-Five: Nick Fury
Twenty-Six: Abigail Brand
Twenty-Seven: Balkamar
Twenty-Eight: Abigail Brand
Twenty-Nine: Clint Barton
Thirty: Noh-Varr
Thirty-One: Om’Noll
Thirty-Two: Tony Stark
Thirty-Three: Alice Creasy
Thirty-Four: Matthew Chavinsky
Thirty-Five: Om’Noll
Thirty-Six: Thor Odinson
Thirty-Seven: Janet Van Dyne
Thirty-Eight: Peter Parker
Thirty-Nine: Jessica Jones
Forty: Clint Barton
Forty-One: Janet Van Dyne
Forty-Two: Balkamar
Forty-Three: Janet Van Dyne
Forty-Four: Thor Odinson
Forty-Five: Tony Stark
Forty-Six: Jessica Jones
Forty-Seven: Clint Barton
Forty-Eight: Reed Richards
Forty-Nine: Tony Stark
Fifty: Teddy Altman
Fifty-One: Tony Stark
Fifty-Two: Peter Parker
Fifty-Three: Jessica Jones
Epilogue One: Abigail Brand
Epilogue Two: Alice Creasy
About the Author
Also Available from Titan Books
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SECRET INVASION
Print edition ISBN: 9781803362489
E-book edition ISBN: 9781803362502
Published by Titan Books
A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd
144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP
www.titanbooks.com
First edition: September 2023
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead (except for satirical purposes), is entirely coincidental.
FOR MARVEL PUBLISHING
Jeff Youngquist, VP Production and Special Projects
Sarah Singer, Editor, Special Projects
Jeremy West, Manager, Licensed Publishing
Sven Larsen, VP, Licensed Publishing
David Gabriel, SVP of Sales & Marketing, Publishing
C.B. Cebulski, Editor in Chief
© 2023 MARVEL
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
With thanks to the original writers and pencilers:
Brian Michael Bendis & Leinil Francis Yu and Jason Aaron & Jefte Palo, Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa & Barry Kitson, Mike Carey & Cary Nord & Terry Dodson, Matt Fraction & Gabrielle Dell’Otto & Doug Braithwaite, Greg Pak and Fred Van Lente & Rafa Sandoval, Jim Cheung, Leonard Kirk, Brian Reed, Alex Maleev, Khoi Pham and John Romita Jr., Michael Gaydos, David Mack and Billy Tan, Marco Castiello, Adriano Melo, Christopher Yost, Takeshi Miyazawa, Christos Gage & Fernando Blanco and to Tade Thompson and Douglas Wolk.
PROLOGUE
TONY STARK
TONY STARK had never felt more alone.
That was saying a lot. He’d felt pretty damn alone on several occasions in the last year or so, never mind during his excuse for a childhood. He’d felt pretty damn alone when he’d been captured in a war zone. At least then he’d ended up imprisoned with a genius who’d designed the first version of what he’d been working on and improving ever since: the powered cutting-edge-tech armor that made him Iron Man, founding member of the Avengers and the one who usually picked up the tab for all their good works. But even during all those years of being a public hero—one who, eventually, the public came to know by name and to trust—he’d still felt pretty damn alone through all that.
But right now… yeah, this was the nadir. He’d kept fighting for what was right, pushing hard to keep the public onside with the super hero community. Since he’d become Director of S.H.I.E.L.D., the global taskforce that was the official liaison between the political world and the super hero community, he’d pushed through the Superhuman Registration Act, which had been an attempt to hold his fellow heroes accountable, to give them official status and training, to make them more than a bunch of distrusted vigilantes. He’d also spearheaded the plan to send the Hulk off into space to live on a peaceful alien world where “smashing” was, hey, probably just saying hello. Both steps had saved countless lives, those of the everyday peop
But from moment one of all that, Tony’s so-called “friends” had jumped on their high horses.
Steve Rogers had actually led an army against him. Because, it seemed, Steve Rogers, when push came to shove, cared more about getting to be Captain America than about, you know, America. The media had started to call it the Super Hero Civil War. That made it sound much more glamorous than it had been. It had felt more like the end of the world. Tony’s side had won, like they were always going to, because getting the public onside with “I want to wear a flag and beat up whoever I like with no consequences” can only get you so far. But it had been such a hollow victory. Even those he’d been onside with now seemed to be holding him at a slight distance. It had been a bitter business, they seemed to think, and that bitterness now felt like it was being directed at him. These days he was basically in charge of super hero culture, and he was absolutely sure the world was now a safer place because of it, but it had left him… yeah, pretty damn alone.
And of course, Steve had gotten himself arrested, and the bad guys had used that opportunity to… to assassinate him. Steve Rogers was dead. Captain America was dead. Tony closed his eyes at the pain of the thought. His job was to anticipate consequences, to follow chains of cause and effect as far as chaos would allow. He should have seen that coming. That thought haunted him night and day. He opened his eyes again. No. He couldn’t let himself be drawn back into brooding about that, because… because…
Because now, now with what he’d just discovered… well, it was the worst possible time for him to be isolated, and the worst time for there to be no Steve Rogers to annoy the hell out of him, because it turned out the world was being threatened by something else he hadn’t anticipated—and what was coming might be the actual, not metaphorical, end of it.
He sat now, in his Iron Man armor, in a randomly selected empty warehouse belonging to Funtime Inc., a shuttered Stark Enterprises subsidiary. He sat with a body bag at his feet. He sat there waiting to see if anyone would respond to the call he’d sent out.
Energy fluctuation detected, said his armor, matching Dr. Stephen Strange’s projection from the astral plane. Identity confirmed. Occupation: Sorcerer Supreme.
And there he was, Doctor Strange, cape and all, shimmering before him, not quite there, an angry look on his face. Strange was the guy who’d made it his job, solo, to deal with all the threats to the world that came from the brand of extra-dimensional advanced technology that people like Strange liked to call “magic.” He was, justifiably, an arrogant so-and-so, quite akin to Tony himself. They didn’t ever seem to see eye-to-eye as a result. And Strange had become a big part of the alternative or rebel faction of super heroes who still sought to oppose what they probably saw as his evil deeds. Whatever. Tony was incredibly heartened to see him now.
“Whose body is that?” Strange said. So, straight past the hellos.
“I didn’t think you’d show up.”
“Curiosity… got the better of me.”
“Well, of part of you.”
“I’m on the astral plane. I thought it best if there was a barrier between us. All things considered. Now, who is that?”
Tony found he couldn’t help himself. “How is everyone? How are your Avengers?” Because that was what they still felt able to call themselves, the team that Strange had committed himself to, the team the public supported now (according to the polls) but would, as soon as they messed up, quickly come to regard as vigilantes with no official sanction.
Strange sighed. “Please do not start your ‘why are you doing this?’ thing with me—”
“I wasn’t going to. I don’t care about any of that right now.”
His armor beeped to signal an approaching presence. Blackagar Boltagon, it said in his ear. Alias: Black Bolt. Occupation: Monarch of the Inhumans. Identity confirmed. So, it wasn’t going to be just the two of them.
Into the room strode the king of that hidden race of genetically altered people, silent as always. He pointed immediately to the body bag. Strange just shrugged at him, the closest Tony had ever seen the Sorcerer Supreme come to rolling his eyes. Tony had no idea where the Inhumans stood on all he’d achieved. As foreign nationals, the Superhuman Registration Act didn’t apply to them, and they’d never seemed to have any special fondness for the Hulk. Were they even super heroes?
His plan not to say anything until a significant number of his peers had deigned to join him in the flesh then paid off. Inside the room appeared Reed Richards, the leader of the group of scientific adventurers known as the Fantastic Four and, beside him, the halfmutant half-Atlantean Namor, King of Atlantis, both of whom had previously been invisible. Much of what applied to Black Bolt also applied to Namor, with a side order of “foolish humans and their petty conflicts.” Reed, however, had always stood by Tony, because here was a man who valued rationality above all else. He had even stuck to his principles when his rather more, err, feisty, wife, Susan Storm-Richards, had sided with the rebels. Those two were trying to work it out now, and Tony was being a little lax with the rules to let them do that. Which was, hey, corruption, from a certain point of view, but he was pretty sure that was the only time he’d ever given in to the idea of one law for his people, another for the rebels. And it had been about showing mercy to someone on the other side. The fact that Reed, of all people, should join his frenemy Namor in wanting to arrive here stealthily… well, that was what Tony meant about his friends keeping him at arm’s length now. “Tony,” said Reed. Namor just folded his arms.
The door opened and in walked… walked, okay, because he was usually in a wheelchair, but hey, such transformations happened in their line of work… Professor Charles Xavier. Xavier was the visionary who’d anticipated a future of conflict between Homo sapiens and the mutant offshoot of it who called themselves Homo superior. Which was just terrible branding. Such people usually had super-powers, and Xavier had wisely made them into a community of super heroes. And thus, many of them had fallen under the purview of the new laws. But a few months ago, in a terrible event that had been nothing to do with Tony, thank god, one of their own—a former Avenger even—had decimated their ranks, removing the powers of 91.4 percent of all Earth’s mutants. Many of the remainder, under the aegis of Xavier’s “X-Men” project, now lived on an island off San Francisco, which Tony called putting all your eggs in one basket, but hey, whatever suited them. Xavier had always insisted that X-Men live under the local laws, and honestly Tony’s issues were the least of his problems, given that he was currently at odds with those living on that island, but neither had he been returning Tony’s calls lately. “Good day, everyone,” he said now, mild as ever, on the surface.
Tony’s armor confirmed the identities of everyone present… as far as it could.
So, they had all finally decided to join him. These were the individuals who’d taken it upon themselves, before the Civil War, to hold summits about the state of the super hero community. The six of them had sometimes saved the world just on their lonesome. They were the great power brokers of their kind, and Tony felt pathetically grateful that he could still bring them together. Perhaps there was now some hope after all.
“Is… is that Captain America?” said Namor, pointing at the body bag, a look on his face that was schoolboy adulation morphing into fury.
“Of course not,” said Tony, yet again enormously frustrated with what his colleagues believed him to be capable of. He bent to unzip the bag. “This was brought to me. I thought it was worth getting us together again. To show you this.” He stepped back from the bag to let them see what was revealed.
Inside the bag lay the corpse of an alien Skrull, one of a shape-shifting interstellar empire that had occasionally been a thorn in the side of he and his colleagues and, well, Earth. Skrulls could impersonate anyone, really well. And this one, as its costume revealed, had been impersonating Elektra Natchios, the great assassin and occasional right hand of the crimelord known as the Kingpin.
“How the hell did you get that?” said Strange.
Tony had been anticipating that reaction. “Jessica Drew, Spider-Woman, brought it to me. Your ‘Avengers’ found it in Japan. And you didn’t think to tell me?”
Strange had an awkward look on his face. “Given your recent actions, we thought you might be a Skrull.”
“Because my recent actions aren’t, you know, in character?”
