Secret Invasion adds substance to the MCU

Secret Invasion was a mirror to modern-day society and adds more layers to the Marvel Cinematic Universe at the same time.

This is a recap and review of the entire Secret Invasion limited series on Disney Plus. At the end of the article you will find a list of my reviews for each individual episode.

Secret Invasion showed us that there are Skrulls on Earth. They are refugees from the planet of Skrullos. The Skrulls are promised a new home planet by Nick Fury but after 30 years there is unrest among the ranks. They fear that Fury won’t live up to it.

Fury and Talos are the at-odds couple

Nick Fury leaves the top secret project called S.A.B.E.R. in order to help the Skrulls after a few terrorist attacks. Fury quickly reconnects with Talos who we know from the Captain Marvel movie and later the Spider-man movies.

It is Talos who tells Fury that he had to take care of business while he was away. There are about 1 million Skrulls on Earth. Both men are angry at each other. Fury can’t believe Talos let 1 million of them in while Talos refutes that he had to do it all alone.

Talos wants peaceful co-existence between the 2 races while Fury tells him that humans can’t even live together on 1 planet, let alone with another species.

Both have their points but I am more closely akin to Fury’s opinion. I can’t remember a time when there was no war for instance or famine or even heavier themes like racism. Humans are barely able to live with each other, having rogue Skrulls on your planet who acts of terror isn’t helping much either. Secret Invasion bares it all as a mirror of modern-day society!

On top of that, at the start of the show G’iah, Talos’ daughter defected to the rogue part of the Skrulls and thus a lot of the emotional anchor of the show was between G’iah and Talos.

Nick Fury is morally gray in Secret Invasion

Fury has changed after the Blip. That’s something that needs to be mentioned because it is character development in Secret Invasion that will resonate with the rest of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Where Fury used to see the world in black and white, he has become morally gray in Secret Invasion. And over the course of the show we see that he sees the world as not always right and always wrong but somewhere down the middle. It is good to have that because the Marvel Cinematic Universe has too much of the goody-goody two-shoes and too many of the one-dimensional evil bastards.

I hope this opens the doors for many more anti-heroes like Wolverine and a reimagined Punisher. There are many more examples that I can name but for now, these are at the top of my list of heroes I would like to see in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Shapeshifting Double Agents are adding paranoia

The rogue Skrulls played it really smart in Secret Invasion I have to say. The agents posed as key people, think famous journalists, UN leaders, and more. They took their targets put them in stasis and took over their memories.

The Skrulls infiltrated almost every layer of society using their shapeshifting skills. The only layer they didn’t have was religion. Except for that, economics, newspapers and finances, and so forth. It is scary!

The shapeshifting does not stop there. The malice continues when they change shape and get taped while doing so. So it looks like Fury shoots Maria Hill while in fact, it was Gravik. But the tape shows Fury and the Skrulls took over someone near and dear to Marvel fans and pundits alike: James Rhodes, also known as War Machine. The details about that are vague but it must have been some time.

But it wasn’t just the shapeshifting. Within the ranks of the rogue Skrulls, there was a double agent who was trying to dismantle the terrorist group from the inside. Her name is G’iah, the daughter of Talos. The moment Talos really needed her, she stood up and gave him the code that was needed to defuse a tight situation where the president’s plane would get shot so a Skrull could take his place. The Secret Invasion wasn’t just about Earth it seems.

The show was very interesting because of the shapeshifting and the double agents. You never know who was the good guy and who is the bad guy. For some, it was quite clear but Rhodey, I never saw that coming. And I really wonder how long it has been since Rhodey was taken over by a Skrull. It added more to the paranoia of “who can you trust?” which is the tagline of the show.

The Super Skrull enters the Marvel Cinematic Universe

Another great thing about the show was that the Super Skrull entered the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The character has a rich history in Marvel Comics and to me, it was completely unexpected that he made his debut.

I was surprised because in the comics he is a nemesis of the Fantastic Four and his powers consist of the powers of the members of the Fantastic Four.

But Marvel figured out a way to give Gravik and G’iah their powers by having a machine that can infuse the powers, and get this, of all the Superheroes who fought Thanos in Avengers: Endgame.

The Skrulls were part of the team who had to clean up the DNA of the Superheroes. They get injured, blood falls on the floor and the DNA is there as well.

So the end fight showed G’iah versus Gravik and it was a fight to never forget. But now the problem is, there is now a Skrull infused with Kree technology. Can the Skrulls keep the peace with their archrivals? Or will it turn into an all-out war with the Kree with their own technology used against them? Only time will tell.

Secret Invasion was pretty good

I liked Secret Invasion! There were a lot of developments that will affect the Marvel Cinematic Universe and I am looking forward to. The Kree / Skrull war is one of the things I am looking forward to. While the Kree has initiated peace talks, the rogue branch of the Skrulls still has that warmonger aggression as their comic book counterparts.

Since Marvel is still going cosmic, I am sure we haven’t seen the last of the Kree / Skrull peace talks.

While the show has a good start, a decent middle part, and a very explosive ending, I can’t help but think that it is only used to add more substance to future installments that expand the Marvel Cinematic Universe. For instance, The Marvels, which will premiere in November 2023, will show what S.A.B.E.R. actually is. But also show the fate of Priscilla and Fury.