Criti Noll

Origin

The first Criti Noll replaced Hank Pym (Yellow Jacket, Ant-Man, Giant-Man, and later Wasp II) before Civil War. This skrull had the powers, memories, and the feelings of Pym (before Pym's capture). However, shortly before or during the Civil War, Noll started to warn the owner of a diner who once served him some good food of the coming Secret Invasion. The skrull impersonating Colonel Dum Dum Dugan came and stopped him, and Noll told Pym that the humans were not to be underestimated and that the best course of action would be for the skrulls to leave. Dugan-Skrull called him a traitor, and prepared to battle him (that skrull had the powers of the Human Torch and the Thing). Noll ran into the the woods, but despite the use of all his abilities, Dugan-skrull and a group of skrulls posing as SHIELD agents killed him. A new, very zealous, and rather violent skrull took up his name and his identity as Pym. This Criti Noll II not only had the powers, feelings, and memories of Hank Pym (before Civil War), but also could become intangible with a deal of effort and could become diamond hard. He was also the second-in-command of the Skrull forces near and on Earth.

Major Story Arcs

Civil War

During Civil War, Noll worked to try and stir up as much discontent as possible between the Anti and Pro- Registration forces. He worked with Reed Richards, Baron von Blitzschlag, and Tony Stark to create a cyborg-clone of Thor, however he programmed it as his own agent of destruction trying to cause as much upsetness as possible. This worked, for the Thor (later named Ragnarok) blasted a hole through anti-registration warrior Bill Foster (Giant-Man II/ Goliath I)'s chest, who was a very close friend of the real Hank Pym. Reed Richards and Tony Stark were devastated, for they had believed the cyborg to be programmed not to kill. Noll seemed upset too, seemingly taking lots of anti-depressants, but it is unknown if this was because his Pym personality was really disturbed or it was just another act.

The 50 States Initiative and Camp Hammond

After the Civil War, Noll, Richards, and Stark revealed a new program, the 50-State Initiative, an organization to train and place supers in every state. Noll made sure that all but two of the teams had a skrull in it.

On the first day of training, Henry Gyrich, who was in charge of the Initiative under Iron Man, and Initiative instructor Gauntlet, in front of Noll, commanded young Initiative recruit Trauma to demonstrate his full power. Trauma tried to tell them he had trouble controlling it, but they ignored him. When Trauma's power to become one of a creature's greatest fears kicked in, he lost control and turned into a giant spider that was the terror of mentally unstable recruit Armory. Armory's power was she had the great alien weapon the Tactigon attached to her arm. The Tactigon could turn into anything (though it was sentinent), and Armory in her horror turned it into a blaster of some sort, which she began to fire randomly. One of the blasts killed young recruit MVP, who died to save Cloud 9. Noll worked with War Machine and Gyrich to cover it up. Noll also made sure the Tactigon was removed from Armory, who was sent to in-patient unit of a mental hospital.

During the training in the next few days, Cloud 9 was so upset about MVP's death that Trauma inadvertently turned into MVP's corpse, shouting at everyone he held responsible for the death. Justice was furious at Gyrich, Rhodes (War Machine), and Noll for covering it up from the staff, so Noll ran up to Trauma and began yelling at him. Trauma explained that he couldn't control his power yet, but well Noll got so close him, he switched into Noll's worst fear. Surprisingly, this was not them discovering he was a skrull invader, but was Pym's memory of brutally beating Janet van Dyne (Wasp I). Noll was greatly disturbed, and collapsed on the ground crying.

On the Initiative's first violent mission, HYDRA was trying an aerial assault to assassinate President Bush. Noll turned to giant-size and plowed the HYDRA flagship into the ground, where it blew up. Noll used his intangibility and diamond hard skin to survive, then pretended he did so by shrinking to subatomic size.

World War Hulk

When the Incredible Hulk attacked New York during World War Hulk, Tony Stark had technology in place to blast all of New York into the Negative Zone (including the Hulk). For obvious reasons, Stark was hesitant to use this, and once he was captured and badly beaten by the Hulk, he gave the technology and the responsibility to Dum Dum Dugan (who was really a skrull). Dugan was devastated and did not know what to do, but lost contact with Stark. In desperation, he brought the information to Noll (since the leader of the Skrull forces, Queen Veranke, was busy impersonating the Amazing Spider-Woman). Noll used the information to build a larger device that could plunge the entire planet Earth into the Negative Zone. He had devices secretly put in every state with an Initiative team, and when at least three were activated, it would play its destruction. It appears unlikely Queen Veranke was aware of this plan.

When new recruit Ant-Man (Eric O'Grady) made fun of the deceased Ant-Man Scott Lang, Stature (Lang's daughter) attacked him. In the ensuing giant-sized fight, destruction began to be caused and Noll intervened in giant-size. Still, the battle was chaotic and Gyrich didn't want the bad press, so he told Taskmaster to do anything to just stop it. Taskmaster hit preassure points on the colossal people, knocking them to the ground. As he bragged about this achievement, Noll complained, so Taskmaster whacked him in the neck with a shield, silencing him. Later Noll said his neck really hurt.

Baron von Blitzshlag and Henry Gyrich cloned killed Initiative member MVP, first once to keep MVP's dad from being aware and next three ones genetically altered by the Baron's DNA to be the new Scarlet Spiders. Noll disapproved, but since Gyrich was in charge, he couldn't really do much legally so he didn't tell anyone. Then a fifth clone was created (Noll knowing, of course) by the Baron and Gyrich to be bonded with the Tactigon, but this clone went insane, calling himself KIA (Killed In Action) and beginning a bloodthirsty rampage seeking vengeance for the original MVP's death. Noll used his skrull powers to save himself, though he was nearly killed anyway. Later, he said he just shrank to sub-atomic size to escape death. After KIA was killed, Noll marveled that none of the Initiative seemed to be confused by what he perceived to be a lame and overused excuse.

Discovered

A new recruit, Crusader, who secretly possessed the Freedom Ring, was really a skrull who had been sent to spy on Earth but switched sides, yet was to scared to tell anyone (all Crusader's contacts to the Skrull empire had been killed, so Noll knew none of this). Strawberries and pickles were a good substitute for a famous Skrull food, so both Crusader and Noll were eating it. When they ran into each other, Crusader saw Noll's food choice first, and realized he was a Skrull. Not wanting Noll to know HE was a skrull, Crusader used the Freedom Ring to change his meal into grapefruit. Crusader did not know how to reveal Noll without everyone seeing he was a Skrull and attacking him, so he kept his mouth shut.

After the Mighty Avengers' battle with Ultron, Noll gave Janet van Dyne with a formula that could cause her to grow from subatomic to giant size in seconds. What he didn't say is that he had a trigger that could case it to unleash a genetic weapon to kill all the non-skrulls in the nearest vicinity.

Secret Invasion and Death

In the final battle at the end of Secret Invasion, Noll wanted to unleash the weapon, but Vernake wanted to fight in a more civilized way and not make it a violent, bloody, and uncivilized takeover. Vernake was then knocked out and appeared to be dead, so Noll took control and unleashed the weapon. Thor stopped it by zapping a hole through Wasp's chest. The battle was then won by the humans, and Noll returned to Camp Hammond where Dugan-skrull and a few others were. Noll then demanded the Negative Zone weapon be unleashed. Do to the counter-strikes of the Initiative and the Skrull Kill Krew only two states could launch their weapons, but Noll thought this did not matter since Camp Hammond had a device. However before he could trigger it, Crusader appeared, having apparently tracked Noll (probably with the Freedom Ring). Crusader began to be overpowered when some of the Initiative and the Skrull Kill Krew arrived through the Negative Zone portal. Noll released a very rare weapon only he had that was a gas that killed all non-skrulls when inhaled, which killed a member. However, Crusader was a skrull, and ran through the gas and used the Freedom Ring to punch a hole through Noll's chest before Noll could activate the Negative Zone weapon. This appeared to kill Noll. Crusader was then killed by 3-D Man for being a skrull. The real Pym was found having been held in Skrull captivity for years.

Noll got the last laugh, though. A code was in the Ragnarok body (Ragnarok had been killed by Hercules) that resided in Noll's lab that when not entered every thirty days (and only Noll knew it) would unleash the cyborg-god on everyone. Ragnarok caused much destruction and even killed a Scarlet Spider.