I’ve decided to do things a little different this time - instead of posting Jon’s storyboards for the strip (because I’m lazy), I decided to post the entire email conversation between the TTT writers, so you can see how the strip evolved. Enjoy!

JUSTIN WROTE ON 5/12/08: So I know it’s sort of a foregone conclusion that we’ll do a Secret Invasion TTT, but…it’s a foregone conclusion that we’re going to do a Secret Invasion TTT. I was thinking we might as well strike while the iron is hot and do one closer to when the event is going on. So here’s an idea I had for a framework for the strip.

We start with Spidey and Hulk on the couch and Hulk is holding a bizarre object. Spidey asks him what it is and Hulk announces that he
is, in fact, a Skrull, and he’s infiltrated as the Hulk so that he can take over Megoville. Spidey looks at him for a moment, then says, “Klax, what the hell are you doing?” Hulk looks at Spidey and says, “Vlix? I thought you were supposed to be minding the prisoners.” Spidey says, “No, that was Vlax.” “No, Vlax was supposed to be infiltrating the X-Men,” etc. etc.

Long story short, it turns out that the Skrulls have actually replaced every single person in Megoville, and there is no one left in the town who isn’t a Skrull. (The problem, it seems, is that the Skrull who was supposed to be coordinating everything took on the form of Spider-Woman and hasn’t left his apartment since).

At that point, I was thinking that maybe the Skrulls have stashed all the Megos on the Skrull homeworld, and they’ve just been carrying on living their lives there. So maybe the Skrulls have to secretly invade their own planet to get it back (maybe they have better potato chips and public schools so the Megos don’t want to leave?) or maybe the Megos have infiltrated their society with fake green chins and the Skrulls have to suss out Who They Can Trust.

I just like the idea of a team of Skrulls who’ve totally blown their plan and following them as they try to rescue it.

Thoughts? Sounds like something we might wanna do? Should we wait a few more issues so there’s more distance from the Annihilation two-parter?

ROB BRICKEN WROTE ON 5/14: • At some point, a ship should land with all the little used TTT characters; Thor, Mr. T, Iron Chef, Snowball Ice-Man, etc. The Skrulls are ecstatic that they have someone to secretly invade, until those guys also reveal themselves as Skrulls, a second wave of the invasion.

• Maybe the Skrulls invaded way back in ToyFare issue #19, destroying even the precious little continuity used in TTT?

• If you do decide to wait, might it be funny to suddenly have a Mego Spider-Woman show up in TTT, and everyone act like she’s been part of TTT continuity forever? As she acts completely mysterious and/or clearly someone who does not know Earthling ways? It’d be a pretty good set-up to an actual Invasion TTT.

• Might the Skrulls have plugged are the real Megos into a Matrix, where they lead their exact same lives in a perfect replica of Megoville? I like the idea of the strip ending with Spidey waking from his Matrix pods, seeing hundreds of arguing Skrulls, and immediately going back to sleep in the pods, where all TTTs effectively take place from then on.

JUSTIN WROTE ON 5/14: Regarding Rob’s point on continuity - it actually is in TTT continuity that the Skrulls invaded Megoville and took over the entire town waaaaay back in ToyFare #70 (when Redwing attempted to blow up the town to stop the invasion but Cap stomped on him).

I think it would be funny is we establish that every strip since then (and probably even a few before) we’ve been following Skrulls, while the real Spidey has been sitting in a couch on the Skrull homeworld. Man, that would piss people off.

The idea with the ship full of people is really funny too.

TJ DIETSCH WROTE ON 5/14: There’s gotta be some kind of Super Skrull involved. I think the last issue revealed that there are actually Super Skrulls for every team, so we should have the lamest one of all, whether it be Great Lakes Avengers, Power Pack, The Defenders, X-Treme X-Men, something along those lines.

ALEX KROPINAK WROTE ON 5/14: Skrull Officer: “Okay, Fr’rt, you’re assigned to be our Illuminati Super-Skrull.”

Fr’rt: Sweet!

Skrull Officer: “Aaaand Bc’ch…you’re assigned to some of the left-over subjects: Mojo, Doug Ramsey, and Swarm. Try to come up with something by tomorrow, huh?

Bc’ch: “…F–k…”

Skrull Officer: “Yeah, maybe next time you’ll bring more than a pack of ‘Juicy Fruit’ to our office potluck picnic.”

ADAM TRACEY WROTE ON 5/14: Or maybe a Super Skrull with all crappy powers, or at least the crappy parts of powered individuals. For instance, he’s part-Wolverine so he’s short, part-Sasquatch so he’s hairy, part-Deadpool so he’s got cancer, part-Xavier so he’s bald on top (or in a wheelchair?) and part-Doop so he’s…whatever Doop is.

ROB WROTE ON 5/14: I was trying to imagine what a Super Skrull for the Defenders would be, and between their group obnoxiousness, stupidity, lack of talent and egomania, I pretty much came up with Dane Cook.

RACHEL MOLINO WROTE ON 5/14: I love the idea of all the Megos having been stashed on the Skrull homeworld. The question is (as I think you’ve already pointed out) would you rather that mean that: TTT has been taking place with the real Megos on the Skrullworld this whole time; or that TTT has been composed by Skrulls the whole time? I really think the second option is funnier, and maybe I don’t have a good perception on this, but I don’t see why it would piss many people off. It’s a joke poking fun at the concept of retconning, and I think its brilliant. Especially if we ignore the retcon (or retcon the retcon) and call it out a little in a following TTT.

Now, if you were to make a plot of the Skrulls trying to take back their homeworld from the Megos, I think it would inevitably be a 2-parter.

Rob’s ideas are really great alternatives. I love both the ship of little-used TTT characters who turn out to be Skrulls, and the Matrix-style ending. These are probably even integrate-able with each other, but still, it sounds like a 2-parter, no? (not that we’re trying to avoid one)

JUSTIN WROTE ON 5/14: I think that when the Skrulls discover that the “Skrulls” they’ve been hanging out with all this time have really been Megos in disguise (if we go in that direction), they should get really incensed. “But…that means that everything I’ve done for the past four years hasn’t had any meaning!”

As for the end, we could always just have Dr. Strange magically make it so that it never happened and we really HAVE been reading about the Megos this whole time. Or we could have Bendis suggest that Dr. Strange do that. Or we could have Bendis do that.

ROB WROTE ON 5/14: No no no—you have to leave it as is, meaning Skrulls have been in TTT since issue whatever. Yes, that’ll piss some readers off, and yes, that’s totally hilarious. In fact, I like my Matrix ending, because it’s a slap in the face that all future TTs will effectively not be real as well. HAHAHHAHAHA

I’m drunk.

Justin here again now (in the present). So, as you can see, a lot of what ended up in the final script came out of that initial flurry of emails. (The idea that the real Megos who have been living on the Skrull homeworld are hopelessly lame came out of the finalization meeting, and was basically so fans would never, EVER ask us to make TTT be about the real Megos.) And in the end, it turns out that Rachel was right and I was wrong: I figured fans would be pissed off at the ending, but so far all the feedback we’ve gotten is that this strip was one of fans’ favorites of the year. Which is a much better reaction to get. I GUESS.

So, what did you think of the strip and its genesis?

SORA

Right out of the box, Sora is a very impressive figure. Square Enix captured the look of the video game perfectly from his spikey hair down to those huge yellow shoes. Even more impressive at first glance, though, is the articulation. Even with his super-thin arms, Sora’s got elbow and shoulder joints that allow for a wide range of motion. But my favorite piece of articulation takes place in those giant yellow shoes I mentioned. If you look, the ankle joint is actually incorporated into the tongue of the shoe and when you bend the shoe joint, the back of the shoe stays with the ankle while the rest of the shoe moves. It’s definitely a small aspect of the figure, but I really appreciate that attention to detail.

Aside from the aformentioned joints and the knee joints, the articulation is actually a bit weird once you start posing and playing with the figure. His hips don’t move all that much, maybe because of the crazy MC Hammer pants he’s sporting or maybe he’s just built that way. Also, the mid torso joint doesn’t really seem to do much. It allows you to kind of lean Sora forward just enough so it looks like he might have scoliosis. Speaking of negatives, after only a few minutes of playing with this figure the arm popped right off and it’s not the only appendage to be lost from this series, but more on that later. Luckily Sora’s arm popped right back in.

But, hey, these figures probably aren’t really meant for kids to be playing with, they’re more for collectors and video game fans I would assume. Those fans will be happy with the figure and even happier with the Key Sword Sora’s rocking. Just don’t be too rough on the figure and you should be fine

RIKU

Sora’s pal Riku is actually a far more interesting figures as far as poseability and playability go. His arms are a little thicker and his hip joints do a lot more. Like Sora, he looks like he popped right out of the video game and is ready to kick butt with his dragon wing sword. Of course, not all is perfect with the figure. Almost immediately after taking the figure out of the packaging his head popped off. Like Sora’s arm you can pop it back on, but it doesn’t sit very well. Even for a figure that you’re not necessarily going to play with a lot, that’s not a good sign which is really too bad, because like I said, it’s got more articulation and playability than the other two combined.

Even with that in mind, if your version of Riku has a head that stays in place, this figure should please any Kingdom Hearts fan. I think you’d be hard pressed to find a pose from the game that the figure can’t recreate, though you might lose some arms, legs or heads in the process.

KING MICKEY

I purposely waited to open Mickey last because he was the figure I was most skeptical about. As you can see in the above picture, he’s wearing a Matrix-like long black trench coat that would seemingly inhibit movement. I was surprised to find that his arms are compeltely articulated from the shoulder to the wrist and even his legs have limited range of motion thanks to that coat.

I took it easy on Mickey as far as exercising the joints because I’d feel pretty bad if I broke or beheaded the most famous cartoon in the world. But the head sculpt is dead on and his crown sword looks great. I didn’t mention above how these swords work. They’ve got a tiny hole in the handle and the figures have protruding posts in their palms, so the post slides into the whole give the sword some movement, but otherwise keeping it in place.

Little details like the Mickey ear-shaped hood resting on his back and the tail sticking out through the trench coat make this my favorite figure of the bunch even though he’s got the least playability. I think he’d make an interesting convesation piece on just about anyone’s mantle from your video game obsessed cousin to his Disney obsessed mom.

ALL IN ALL
All in all, the line looks fantastic and has enough little embellishments to boost them from average video game figures to somewhere higher up, but don’t spend your money on them if you’re looking for anything more than cool shelf surfers.

Full disclosure: I was a massive He-Man fan as a kid, and the Four Horsemen managed to make their updated figures look almost exactly like what my memory told me the classic figures looked like. Except the classic figures were never this cool and my memory had been seasoned by time and distance. To have them all arrayed together again brought it all back again how cool this line was.

Do yourself a favor - if you’ve got your Masters toys in storage, pull some out this weekend and play around with them. If only to get yourself jazzed for the imminent release of the first two Masters of the Universe Classics!

Sometimes these coming up with these Back Page is like pulling teeth. A bunch of us, including Justin, photographer Dylan Brucie and myself lock ourselves in a room and try to think of what we can make fun of in one big gag. I honestly don’t remember how long the meeting for this “Vs. Video Game” parody took, but once we did, we ran with it, tossing out ideas for toys and properties to show off based on existing crossover franchises and whatever other craziness we could think of. And we got most of them in, only being limited by our toy library (we originally wanted to include Army Ants). Jairo did a great job designing the whole thing with the logos laid out how they are. We’re really happy with the finished product and wish we could actually play this game! Who doesn’t love team ups? I guess we’ll just have to settle for DC Universe vs. Mortal Kombat. GET OVER HERE!

–TJ

Are you ready for double the ToyFare goodness?

Justin here, and this week you’ll be able to head to your local comic shop and pick up not just the new issue of ToyFare (#137), but also the latest volume of the collected Twisted ToyFare Theatre, volume 9! To find a comic shop near you, call the Comic Shop Locator at 1-888-COMIC-BOOK.

Here’s what you’ll find in ToyFare #137:
*A cover story on the Watchmen! We interview DC Direct about the highly anticipated toys, as well as Rorschach actor Jackie Earle Haley!

*The annual ToyFare Holiday Gift Guide, featuring all the coolest items for geeks this holiday season!

* Twisted ToyFare Theatre: Secret Invasion! Which one of your favorite Megos will turn out to have been a Skrull in disguise? It’s definitely one of these:

* A retro feature on Inspector Gadget: He only had one toy in the 80s, but it was one of the best damn toys of all time!

*A spotlight on Sideshow’s amazing Marvel products!

* Incoming: World premiere of NECA’s new Street Fighter 4 figures, plus much, much more!

* Behind-the-scenes of the first Become a Joe contest Hasbro held at San Diego!

* And a ton of other stuff.

In TTT Volume 9, you’ll find:

* Over 10 classic and neo-classic strips from TTT past, featuring the Megos, the Troopers, the Enterprise crew and more!

* A special gallery of Twisted ToyFare Sunday funnies!

* The latest chapter in the Official Handbook of the Twisted ToyFare Theatre Universe!

Buy both, and get free bragging rights that you bought both!

And now, my terrible artwork for the ToyFare 137 cover. Obviously, the real Comedian is my art skills:

Aunt May. Goliath. Man-Thing. Sue Storm. Wolverine. Red Skull.

In two days, one of these Megos will be revealed to be a SKRULL!

That’s because November 12 sees the release in comic shops of ToyFare #137 and “Invasion of the Mego Snatchers,” when Secret Invasion reaches the Twisted ToyFare Theatre Universe.

We are totally not jerking you around. One of these major Mego characters will be revealed to have been a Skrull since the beginning of the strip. And NOTHING WILL EVER BE THE SAME!

Come back each day for the next week (except on the weekends, when we have better things to do) to see three more characters with a Skrull hidden in their midst. Who will be revealed as a Skrull next week? The answers may shock and annoy you!

Post your theories about who’s a dirty Skrull at the Wizard Universe Message Board!

Well, if it’s good enough for the Soup, it’s good enough for us to promote. Please tune into their special on Sunday November 16. Here are three new trailers for you to enjoy in the meantime. And tell ‘em ToyFare sent ya!

Thing. Tarantula. Spock.

In five days, one of these Megos will be revealed to be a SKRULL!

That’s because November 12 sees the release in comic shops of ToyFare #137 and “Invasion of the Mego Snatchers,” when Secret Invasion reaches the Twisted ToyFare Theatre Universe.

We are totally not jerking you around. One of these major Mego characters will be revealed to have been a Skrull since the beginning of the strip. And NOTHING WILL EVER BE THE SAME!

Come back each day for the next week (except on the weekends, when we have better things to do) to see three more characters with a Skrull hidden in their midst. Who will be revealed as a Skrull next week? The answers may shock and annoy you!

Post your theories about who’s a dirty Skrull at the Wizard Universe Message Board!

Captain America. Alan Moore. Loki.

In six days, one of these Megos will be revealed to be a SKRULL!

That’s because November 12 sees the release in comic shops of ToyFare #137 and “Invasion of the Mego Snatchers,” when Secret Invasion reaches the Twisted ToyFare Theatre Universe.

We are totally not jerking you around. One of these major Mego characters will be revealed to have been a Skrull since the beginning of the strip. And NOTHING WILL EVER BE THE SAME!

Come back each day for the next week (except on the weekends, when we have better things to do) to see three more characters with a Skrull hidden in their midst. Who will be revealed as a Skrull next week? The answers may shock and annoy you!

Post your theories about who’s a dirty Skrull at the Wizard Universe Message Board!

In seven days, one of these Megos will be revealed to be a SKRULL!

That’s because November 12 sees the release in comic shops of ToyFare #137 and “Invasion of the Mego Snatchers,” when Secret Invasion reaches the Twisted ToyFare Theatre Universe.

We are totally not jerking you around. One of these major Mego characters will be revealed to have been a Skrull since the beginning of the strip. And NOTHING WILL EVER BE THE SAME!

Come back each day for the next week (except on the weekends, when we have better things to do) to see three more characters with a Skrull hidden in their midst. Who will be revealed as a Skrull next week? The answers may shock and annoy you!

Post your theories about who’s a dirty Skrull at the Wizard Universe Message Board!