The first episode of Marvel’s Secret Invasion collection was a stable begin to a spy collection that might upend the Marvel Cinematic Universe, during which a gaggle of extremist shape-shifting Skrull refugees are plotting to take over Earth and, within the course of, kill the people who stay there. It’s well-written, the forged is uniformly nice, it would not appear to be it was shot on a particularly fake-looking CGI soundstage. I can not assist however hope that this will likely be a uncommon Marvel season that manages to start out properly after which preserve its high quality.
But the primary episode of Secret Invasion additionally gave me a sense I’ve been getting from the MCU so much over the previous few years: Why wasn’t this story ever arrange or teased prior to now? There have been 11 motion pictures and eight seasons of TV which have come out because the Skrulls have been launched in Captain Marvel, however all that Marvel has achieved with them since is to very often remind us that Nick Fury’s inexperienced buddies are nonetheless round. And there’s been nothing, in the meantime, about these secret different Skrulls who’re doing that titular invasion.
Warning: This article accommodates gentle spoilers for the primary episode of Secret Invasion, and it additionally discusses main plot particulars from some previous Marvel collection, like The Falcon and the Winter Soldier and WandaVision.
As it stands proper now, there have been no significant story precursors in any respect for Secret Invasion since Spider-Man: Far From Home in 2020. None of the 9 motion pictures or eight seasons of TV that we have gotten since Far From Home have been related to what is going on on here–and the final canonical look by a Skrull was on the finish of WandaVision, when one of many aliens working for Fury recruited Monica Rambeau for one thing we nonetheless have not seen but. Monica is just not anticipated to look on Secret Invasion, so no matter that was possible will not come up till The Marvels this fall.
That lack of connective tissue between completely different motion pictures and exhibits has been an more and more sore spot for followers within the post-Endgame period, and it is a problem that is exacerbated by the way it usually looks like that connective tissue was current in a narrative after which eliminated. It’s not a totally ridiculous concept. The MCU expanded dramatically with the addition of Disney+ collection, after which COVID-19 upended the discharge schedule–it follows that sacrifices must be made as soon as issues obtained out of order as a result of there have been and are so many shifting elements.
One of the largest victims of that shuffling must be The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, a collection that by no means actually settled on a thematic focus as a result of its villains, the Flag Smashers, have been so poorly sketched out, leaving a bizarre gaping gap the place their character improvement and private motivations have been alleged to go. During the Blip, nationwide strains have been redrawn or erased, and other people lived the place they happy. But as soon as the half-empty world turned full once more, everyone tried to push issues again to the outdated normal–and that left numerous of us newly displaced, which led to the formation of the Flag Smashers.
But whatever the righteousness of their trigger, by the top of the present they’re all useless, and Sam Wilson completed their mission by giving a “why can’t we all just get along?” speech on TV.
The complete bit was unsatisfying and imprecise, and it felt just like the true thematic core of the story had been sucked out. Since that was very early within the post-Endgame cycle, it was robust to even know the place to start attempting to determine how they’d gutted this story. Now, now we have too many prospects, however Secret Invasion has given me my favourite one to this point: that the early days of this Skrull invasion have been part of this story, however their half was reduce.
The side of Secret Invasion that put the thought into my head is that these Skrull rebels have a remarkably related trigger to that of the Flag Smashers. These alien refugees, whose world was demolished by the Kree, have been promised a brand new residence by Nick Fury. But Fury obtained snapped, and he hasn’t come via with something since his return, and so a gaggle of those Skrulls resolve to take issues into their very own, newly extremist arms with a purpose to get issues achieved. They’re just about the Flag Smashers: Outer Space Edition.
Aside from that remarkably apparent thematic parallel, there’s nothing else of observe within the textual content that actively helps this concept. But it suits properly sufficient circumstantially in numerous other ways. The rushed new Captain America might definitely be the work of a secret Skrull within the U.S. authorities who desires an unwitting Skrull-controlled superhero who can act within the open on Earth. At the identical time, Skrulls are tremendous robust to start with, and so that you would not be capable of inform the distinction between a Skrull disguised as a human and a human who had taken the tremendous soldier serum like members of the Flag Smashers had.
But I need to stress once more that that is principally hypothesis and guesswork. It’s educated hypothesis and guesswork, however that is nonetheless a really great distance from verified truth. Fortunately, although, if there’s something to this concept, we’ll most likely discover out fairly quickly. While the MCU did not handle to arrange a lot of Secret Invasion upfront, it is a good wager that it’s going to retroactively insert these insurgent Skrulls into previous tales in order to ascertain how they’ve managed to get this far of their secret battle.
Retroactively organising your story in flashbacks definitely would not be as satisfying as it might have been if that they had arrange this storyline upfront the traditional approach, but when they will handle to successfully promote these retcons, it might go a great distance towards fixing the MCU within the close to future by really giving the MCU an even bigger image as soon as once more.
The merchandise mentioned right here have been independently chosen by our editors.
GameSpot could get a share of the income in the event you purchase something featured on our website.
Discussion about this post