By Zach Oberman

The diary is based on Secret Invasion #1, written by Brian Bendis. Considering Bendis has been able to make Luke Cage and Spider Woman (SPIDERWOMAN!) relevant, we have the utmost respect for him. He runs his comics like a Little League team - everybody gets to play.

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Author: Dr. Reed Richards, Esq., A.K.A. Mister Fantastic, Dr. Awesome, Chairman Incredible, El Hombre Supremo, Herr Stupendous… Listening to: I am not entirely sure where my ear is. Mood: Liquefied.

My dear readers, I’m having the worst day. It started off great: Tony Stark asked to meet with me and Hank Pym. I mean, TONY STARK. He’s kind of a jerk, but he’s also like the coolest superhero ever. The chicks LOVE him, and the stories about his parties are legendary. He makes Hugh Hefner look like a eunuch, and he wanted to hang out with me and Hank! I mean, sure, we’re all long-time superheroes and we know the same people, but while me and Hank are friends, we never really run with those popular guys. For all of my abilities to stretch my body into a million different shapes, everyone just thinks of me as the brainiac. Same for Hank: technically he’s an Avenger, but they always leave him at home when they go off on a mission because everyone forgets he has any powers other than his mind. Though you can’t really blame them - his superpower is that he can grow really big. (Tony would probably say something like “That’s what she said,” and everyone would laugh, even though it’s not that funny.) Everyone knows how unimpressive it is, especially Hank, so nobody says anything. Still, it’s more than the Black Widow can do, but everybody likes her because she’s got a big rack.

But now Tony Stark wanted to hang out with me and Hank! It was like if someone asked me if I wanted to go to the movies with Boba Fett! I tried not to be a total geek about it, but all of a sudden I hear myself saying, “What do you want to do, Tony? We could play Warhammer 40,000, or Risk, or I could call Charles Xavier and see if he wants to come over for some 2-on-2 Halo or something. I’ll have to check with my wife, but I’m sure it’s cool if you guys want to sleep over. We’ve got plenty of Hot Pockets.” God, I was so embarrassed. I couldn’t believe wanted me to meet up; I should have realized it wasn’t a social gathering.

In Tony’s lab was the naked corpse of a female Skrull. Hank elbowed me and whispered, “Reed, look! Ta-tas!” I could have killed him – here we were in Tony Stark’s place and he was making us look like spazzes.

The Skrulls are an alien race of shapeshifters that try and take over Earth every few years. But they’re so stupid – total Jar-Jars. It’s no empty boast when I say that I have things in my freezer that present a more serious threat to humanity. (Though to be fair, my freezer contains a dimensional portal to the Negative Zone, which is filled with unspeakable horrors but can also preserve steaks for over a year with no freezer burn.)

My initial reaction was suspicion. As much as I wanted to believe Tony needed my opinion, it would be just him to paint one of his groupies green as part of some prank on me. It wouldn’t be the first time he’s tried to make me look like a fool, especially in front of my wife, Sue. Once he purchased an entire candy factory just so he could take us on a “tour” as an elaborate ruse to push me into an industrial taffy pull. Every year he sends me an Abba-Zabba bar on my birthday, and repeatedly asks Sue when she last ate some “Laffy Taffy.” I’m not even sure what he means by that, but I think he wants to sleep with her. I couldn’t tell you how many times he’s asked me if I ever ask her to turn invisible and play “Guess the Orifice.” God, why do girls always like jerks like that? For a supposed “genius,” the man can be a complete Neanderthal. And that’s using the word “genius” loosely - he only scored a 1590 on his SATs, and he was thirteen years old! When I was twelve and a half I built my first particle accelerator from an Erector set and a Lite-Brite.

I quickly determined that the lady on the table was, in fact, a dead Skrull. Tony’s concern was that this Skrull was completely undetectable, which meant there could be any number of them all over the world. He wanted us to help figure out what made this Skrull different from all the previous ones we’ve seen. I was tempted to point out that perhaps the Skrull was only undetectable to people who couldn’t get a 1600 on their SATs (Pwned!) but I didn’t want to ruin my chance to see a Playmate or six.

Of course, just then Tony got a call and had to leave on some urgent errand, coincidentally leaving the two nerds to do all the work. I don’t know how I didn’t see that coming – it was high school all over again. For the smartest guy on Earth, I can be so dense sometimes. Knowing Tony, he was probably off to go rescue the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders from celibacy. As soon as he was gone, Hank turned to me and said, “Dare you to touch her nipple.” I pray there weren’t any cameras.

So Hank and I got to work, and I’ll admit it – maybe I was a bit distracted by her, um…boobies. They were so big… and shapely… and possibly the reason I didn’t notice Hank’s raygun until he was pointing it in my face. I started to tell him that this was no time to play Battlestar Galactica when he pulled the trigger. Turns out it was a real raygun, and somehow it disabled my elastic powers. It turns out my best friend is a Skrull, and now I’m a puddle on the floor.

What an idiot I’ve been. It’s taken hours for me to work up the strength to stretch my fingers over to Tony’s computer and write this post, and I can’t stop wondering how long this ruse has been going on. All those long nights, playing Magic: The Gathering with Hank at 2 a.m. and debating whether Uhura or Lieutenant Yar was hotter – how much of that was fake? How many of my personal secrets have I confessed to the entire Skrull ar-

Oh crap. Tony’s housekeeping robot just came in the room and is looking at me like I’m an accident, not a guest. If half of the stories about Tony’s bacchanals are true, I don’t want to think about the types of messes this robot has seen before. Aaaaaaaand now I’m screwed; it just revealed a wet-dry vacuum hose labeled “Bodily Fluids.” If anyone is reading this, please send help and bring lots of rubbing alcoh...