Secret Invasion, one of Marvel’s worst MCU projects to date (at least by viewership, review scores, actual uh, quality) focused on Skrulls and their infiltration of the US. The plot was odd from the start, as in the comics, it was all about Skrulls replacing superheroes, not just normal humans and world leaders, but I found its ending the strangest part of all.
In it, Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury, having just arrived back on earth from his many years away on board a spaceship, just…returns to that spaceship at the end. This makes little sense given the events that have unfolded. The Skrull infiltration has been unmasked and the world is in chaos trying to figure out who is or is not a Skrull. While Fury stopped a war between Russia and the US, things now seem even worse, and he just…leaves? He’s the “my job here is done” meme brought to life.
But I have a theory about why this happens. I was reminded of this after Brie Larson released a new photo from The Marvels with the three central Marvels and a bunch of Skrulls behind her. And as we’ve seen from the trailer, Sam Jackson is back on board this ship, as he’s there to witness Kamala accidentally switching places with Monica in the first trailer for the film.
I think that Secret Invasion was designed to be ignored by The Marvels entirely. That if you missed Secret Invasion, as millions upon millions of Marvel movie-watchers have, you could just remember Fury got on a ship a while ago and is…still on the ship, like he never left. In a way, it would be more confusing if the movie does try to integrate Secret Invasion elements in a significant fashion, given its low viewership and how many people haven’t watched it.
I absolutely do not expect, for instance, Emilia Clarke’s G’iah to appear in The Marvels at all, despite the events of Secret Invasion making her, a Skrull, the most powerful person in the MCU by giving her dozens of hero and villain powers, from Hulk to Thanos to Groot to Carol Danvers herself. And it would be weird if she showed up, because 90% of the audience would have no idea who she was, or why she has these powers.
The Marvels ignoring Secret Invasion would continue a long tradition of Marvel shows either being entirely irrelevant to the characters who return to the movies, or they remain disconnected from the larger MCU overall. Let’s just go in order:
Loki was the show that allowed the multiverse to start unraveling, and yet it was Spider-Man: No Way Home that saw Strange ripping open the universe when Peter tried to re-mask his identity. And while it served as the first look at Kang, his real introduction was during Quantumania, with him blasting away at Ant-Man and The Wasp.
WandaVision showed Wanda processing her grief over losing Vision in Endgame, and yet it did not seem like the people who made Multiverse of Madness really got that show at all, turning her into a supervillain. You could have just remembered she lost Vision and then gone straight into Multiverse of Madness without realizing WandaVision ever happened.
The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. This may have been my favorite “we could just ignore this” example. In Endgame, Steve Rogers grants the title of Captain America to Sam. Sam spends the entire show debating whether he’s even worthy of taking the shield. He eventually does. And now we’re getting Captain America 4. The show simply never needed to exist. You could have gone from Endgame straight to Cap 4, and the result would have been the same. The show only serves to show the origin of his costume. That’s it.
Then we reach shows that are just disconnected. Hawkeye is done Avenging but we have no idea when Kate Bishop will ever show up again. Moon Knight was the one show with essentially zero crossovers with any Marvel property, movies or TV. She-Hulk had a Hulk cameo and introduced his son, but that appears to be teasing a Planet Hulk film that as of now, doesn’t actually exist.
I’d say the singular exception to this rule (because as I said, Secret Invasion is part of the “ignore it” group) is probably Ms. Marvel, which serves as a great introduction to Kamala and reveals how she got her powers. That seems pretty key for The Marvels, given that she’s a main character, but I’m guessing they will do an abridged version of her origin there anyway, as Ms. Marvel had pretty low viewership too.
While this was supposed to be a new era for Marvel TV, unlike the wholly disconnected Netflix era, and the rules that Agents of SHIELD could never meaningfully cross over with the MCU after like, season one, things are not really that much different. These shows are designed to either be ignored, despite now starring movie MCU characters, or to be entirely self-contained and locked off from the larger MCU. It’s a bizarre system, but it’s where we’ve landed. And I’m not surprised Disney may start scaling back on these sub-projects.
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I think that Secret Invasion was designed to be ignored by The Marvels entirely. That if you missed Secret Invasion, as millions upon millions of Marvel movie-watchers have, you could just remember Fury got on a ship a while ago and is…still on the ship, Read More