‘Secret Invasion’ Seemingly Kills Off Marvel Favorite: Details

Warning: This story accommodates spoilers concerning the plot of Secret Invasion season 1.

Marvel’s latest Disney+ sequence, Secret Invasion, made its debut by seemingly killing off one of many franchise’s main characters.

The sequence, which adopted S.H.I.E.L.D. director Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) as he goes head-to-head with shape-shifting aliens, premiered on Disney+ on Wednesday, June 21. In the primary episode, Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders) appeared to fulfill her match by the hands of Gravik (Kingsley Ben-Adir), the chief of a faction of Skrulls seeking to take over the Earth.

In the aftermath of an explosion set off in Russia by Gravik and extra Skrulls (the identical aliens launched in 2019’s Captain Marvel), Maria is shot within the abdomen by the supervillain — who’s disguised as Nick. Gravik manages to flee earlier than the actual Nick holds his dying pal in his arms. The episode ends with Nick’s Skrull ally, Talos (Ben Mendelsohn), dragging him away from the scene as Maria’s physique lies on the bottom.

Maria’s surprisingly darkish ending got here as a shock to followers. “’FINALLY SECRET INVASION!! Maria Hill gets her time to shin[e] —’” one fan tweeted on Wednesday, whereas another wrote, “Marvel. i swear. i BETTER see maria hill alive before the show ends.”

Other social media customers famous that Maria’s surprising demise highlights how she’s been underused in Marvel Cinematic Universe. “The mcu never treated maria hill with the respect she deserved but to kill her like this in the pilot of a series she should be co-leading is so stupid. what is their problem??” one fan claimed.

Smulders, 41, made her debut as the previous S.H.I.E.L.D. agent in 2012’s The Avengers. She went on to reprise the position within the movies Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Avengers: Infinity War, Avengers: Endgame and Spider-Man: Far From Home. She additionally made appearances within the Marvel exhibits Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., What If…? And Marvel’s Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur.

After combating many enemies with Nick through the years — from undercover Hydra brokers to Jake Gyllenhaal’s Mysterio — Maria’s destiny appears set in stone. However, sequence director Ali Selim teased that he doesn’t know whether or not the character will return down the road.

“That’s a question for Kevin Feige — I don’t make those decisions about who goes or when,” he revealed in a latest interview with Polygon. “But I thought, ‘Oh, great, a death scene with Cobie Smulders. How fun is that going to be?’”

The How I Met Your Mother alum, for her half, is grateful for her years-long journey within the comedian ebook franchise — even when Secret Invasion does mark her final outing as Maria. “I’ve been a pretty lucky lady,” she instructed Entertainment Tonight in an interview printed on Wednesday.

Smulders — who shares two children along with her husband, Taran Killam — additionally praised the sequence for taking over a “much darker” tone than different initiatives within the MCU. “I think the cool thing that Marvel is doing are these series where you get to look at these characters in a different way,” she continued. “You have more time to see them in their personal lives.”

New episodes of Secret Invasion air Wednesdays on Disney+.