Given the source material, there were reasons to be enthusiastic about Secret Invasion. However, this isn’t a straight copy of Marvel Comics, according to Kevin Feige.
Secret Invasion includes intensity and violence last seen in Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014), making it a class apart within the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Secret Invasion‘s central idea is definitely exciting. The Skrulls, a species of shape-shifting aliens, intend to conquer Earth by snatching human faces and infiltrating governments and forces. Fury’s objective to find the adversary and protect the planet is one that is heavily influenced by spy films.
But it soon became apparent that the story’s many components—including its characters, the more general politics of their place in the world, and the Skrulls’ guerilla tactics—were too much for the program to manage. It’s a failure for a show that was previously viewed as having a lot of promise.
Regular viewers of Marvel would be interested in it. Kingsley Ben-Adir, Olivia Colman, and Emilia Clarke undoubtedly give some of the strongest performances in the production. This is why it’s worthwhile to see the show.
The Good: Espionage Thrillers And The Promise of Entertainment
Secret Invasion showed a vast amount of promise due to Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) coming back down to Earth to finally be the super spy everyone has known him as since his first appearance in Iron Man (2008). The premise, the stakes, and the long-awaited return, all played a major factor in the hype that was created for this series ever since its announcement.
The first three episodes of the series felt like the perfect building blocks for what a great amount of potential the finale could bring. Having Nick Fury be underestimated by almost literally every character in the show created more excitement as to the expectations of Fury, the man who assembled the Avengers, would tear down the Skrull Invasion and Gravik’s plan to eliminate humanity from the planet.
Stakes were shown to be as severe as they come the moment Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders) was shot down in the middle of a bombing in cold blood. They only increased with each episode as we see Fury being fired from his position in the government and having to take matters onto a much more personal level than he ever had to.
Let’s not forget that Secret Invasion also introduced us to the wife of the one-eyed man super spy. To which the audience felt as if they were about to witness the complete destruction of Nick Fury’s personal life due to Marvel revealing such impactful information in such a high-stakes moment in the series.
Did You Know This About Secret Invasion?
- Samuel L. Jackson and Don Cheadle will share screen time for the first time in the series. Although the two performers are close friends in real life, they have never been together on screen before Secret Invasion.
- It is based on Samuel L. Jackson’s own upbringing that Nick Fury tells Talos about how he and his family would sneak food aboard the train they would ride in a shoebox since they couldn’t eat in the segregated dining car.
- Olivia Colman, for instance, expressed dismay that Sonya Falsworth was a Badass Normal character without any superpowers. This is a very small example. She did beg that Marvel allow her to “be bitten by something, or fall into a vat of something,” but the authorities turned her down.
- According to the show’s executive producer Jonathan Schwartz, Homeland and The Americans, as well as John le Carré’s Cold War-era thriller novels, were major influences.
- Talos was scheduled to perish in Captain Marvel, but the plot was changed to allow for his survival. Four years after his introduction, Talos is killed off by Gravik in the fourth episode of Secret Invasion.
The Bad: Broken Characters And An Unfulfilled Promise
The first three episodes of the series were promising so much to the audience in terms of what implications would this bring into the MCU and how will Fury ever solve the problem of this Secret Invasion that plans to wipe out humanity. Every fan had strapped on their seatbelts, ready to be entertained to the edge of their seat. Yet, they were left snoring by the lack of any luster by the final episode.
The fact that Maria Hill died believing that Nick Fury would put an end to the Skrull Invasion only for him to pack up and leave Earth once again after he makes things so much worse is just downright diabolical and disrespectful. Talos’s death had as much impact as Pietro Maximoff/Quicksilver’s death in Avengers: Age Of Ultron (2015).
The super spy who knew everything about everyone did not do a single damn thing that could be considered important in the action-packed, CGI fest finale. G’iah, the daughter of Talos, took the spotlight alongside Gravik as both of them juice up on every super-powered individual that clashed on Earth during Avengers: Endgame (2019).
The fact that the most broken character is one who has the powers of everyone in the MCU got introduced in the same fashion as many of the original members of the Avengers is a testament to how far Marvel writers have had to reach to pull out another “character that has to defeat their opponent who is evil and has the same set of powers to show how strong they are” trope.
All in all, Secret Invasion had its good moments but unfortunately, they do not redeem all the gibberish they pulled out of thin air to end the series with.
Also Read: Secret Invasion: A Dive Into The Secrets Of Marvel Comics
