Spoilers Secret Invasion grade and discussion

[Anwar]

Sinister is a character when you write him well, he's very menacing and when you write him poorly, he's an utter trainwreck. I especially hate when they try and write him "funny" because he's absolutely not a funny character. If you were a fan of Madelyn Pryor before she became a constant source of mockery and fanservice, he's especially horrifying. Sinister being a Victorian scientist with all the racism and eugenics that implies works great. However, when you make him ruler of the Universe and pair him with Apocalypse, he gets ridiculous.

Frankly, both Sinister and Apocalypse weren't terribly well written characters from their conception up until their current storylines on Krakoa. Apocalypse's best incarnation was probably in the X-Men Evolution cartoon.

However, Dark Beast I feel like ruins the character of Hank McCoy who has always been one of my favorite X-men. Ever since the Age of Apocalypse, they've acted like he was one step away from becoming a monster when he was always best as the kindest and gentlest of the X-men but for Colossus.

To be fair, Hanks' descent into villainy has been years in the making. Even back in the 60s he was the one who seemed to have more of a chip on his shoulder compared to the others, even Cyclops. He had a "I'm as good as the rest of you, even if you all have better powers than me!" mindset and did somewhat unethical things like testing serums on himself.

Ironically, he was happier and more complete as a character when he WASN'T an X-Man and was an Avenger instead.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

For those (myself included) who are taking issue with Gravik's "we want Earth!" demand, turns out Kingsley Ben- Adir agrees:

So the more I looked at cult leaders who are able to manipulate whole communities of people to do these horrific acts for justified reasons, it felt appropriate as the villain in this piece to explore the antisocial personality disorder side of things. The righteousness of what he’s doing is this complete crock of shit, and it’s just how he uses and manipulates people. He is testing everyone constantly, and that becomes quite fun to play. It becomes something that you can ground yourself in, and then I felt that all the scenes started to have more interesting layers than just what he was saying.

What he says and what he does are two different things. He’s saying it’s for his people, but what seems more important to him is that Nick Fury experiences it as it’s happening. So we’ll see more of this later on with other characters, where you go, “This guy is doing and saying very different things, so there has to be something else going on underneath.” Otherwise, it’s just dull. We’ve seen it, and it won’t be felt. So the audience will feel that there’s a tension or something that is not being said, and that there’s something you don’t know about the way that he feels.
​

And for those who were wondering about that scene with a dozen Gravik's, Ben-Adir shot in each of those spots for a composite instead of just CGI:

Yeah, they shot me in [each spot]. Well, all the people were standing in their positions as the waiters and the other people in that room, and then we’d do takes where the real people stood up. And then I went to all of those different positions and did exactly the same thing that they did. And then they would go off and do a whole set of CGI tricks to morph them together. There’s a special camera that they used to do it. It was a huge thing.
​

There's more in the Hollywood Reporter interview including where Ben-Adir drew inspiration from for his performance as Gravik.

 

[Charles Phipps]

Frankly, both Sinister and Apocalypse weren't terribly well written characters from their conception up until their current storylines on Krakoa. Apocalypse's best incarnation was probably in the X-Men Evolution cartoon

Really? I HATE Krakoa Apocalypse and Sinister. Apocalypse getting any kind of redeeming qualities pretty much removes the fact he's the living embodiment of racial supremacy.

But I've said, "Sometimes you need complete monsters."

But yes, so far I think SECRET INVASION is off to a rough start because if you're going to do a political thriller you either have to do it in a cheesy spy why or you have to do it in a way where the stakes are utterly well established. THE WINTER SOLDIER remains the best MCU one and that's because it used RL to underscore the Hydra takeover as well as asked real questions about the surveillance state.

 

[Nerys Myk]

I bailed on the X-Men at the start of the Hickman/Krakoa era. Not the X-Men I was interested in.

 

[Anwar]

It was a nice break from the status quo, I'm grateful for that.

Really, one of my favorite series was Uncanny Avengers where the X-Writers were finally forced to admit there was a Marvel Universe beyond just the X-Men.

 

[Timelord79 (he/him)]

The second episode deals with the fallout of the first.
We learn that the Skrull have already infiltrated governments and institutions at the highest levels and are (almost) fully behind Gravik’s crusade.

The scene with Rhodes was interesting.
It’s possible he really was a Skrull, but I don’t think so.
It felt like they made him antagonistic to play with our expectations and stop trusting him.
But I think he will come through eventually.
If we see him in the suite, I don’t know.

Gaia is figuring it out. It’s probably save to say, she will switch sides at some point.
When she looked at the computer screen, to learn about the experiments I caught the file on Groot and Extremis. couldn’t place the other two files.

Fury is married to a Skrull!!!
That’s not coming back to bite him at all. Someone will exploit that and/or question his loyalty at some point.
And then it’s going to be the shining example of Human and Skrull not only co-existing but sharing a life together.
Was he not actually on the space station the whole time but living the married life in the British suburbs?

 

[FPAlpha]

The second episode deals with the fallout of the first.
We learn that the Skrull have already infiltrated governments and institutions at the highest levels and are (almost) fully behind Gravik’s crusade.

The scene with Rhodes was interesting.
It’s possible he really was a Skrull, but I don’t think so.
It felt like they made him antagonistic to play with our expectations and stop trusting him.
But I think he will come through eventually.
If we see him in the suite, I don’t know.

Gaia is figuring it out. It’s probably save to say, she will switch sides at some point.
When she looked at the computer screen, to learn about the experiments I caught the file on Groot and Extremis. couldn’t place the other two files.

Fury is married to a Skrull!!!
That’s not coming back to bite him at all. Someone will exploit that and/or question his loyalty at some point.
And then it’s going to be the shining example of Human and Skrull not only co-existing but sharing a life together.
Was he not actually on the space station the whole time but living the married life in the British suburbs?

I think it's a given that Rhodes will switch sides once Gravik's plan is full in motion and public so to speak - once Rhodes learns and probably experiences that Fury is right he will join his side ( unless they really do a switch and it turns out he's a Skrull).

Gaia is looking at DNA samples - first from a woman ( i figure some scientist important to their plan) then it's DNA from Groot, a Jotunheim Frost Beast ( Thor 2 when Thor and his crew "invaded" Jotunheim, home of the Frost Giants, and nearly started a war), Cull Obsidian ( one of Thanos' henchmen - i think he was the one with the spear that Cap catches and is used to wound Vision) and finally Extremis, which was the compound developed by the villains in Iron Man 3 that gives people enhanced abilities.

I figure Gravik is looking at upgrading his soldiers as part of his plan to take over Earth and also sooner or later he has to face off against the Avengers or any other superheroes though i don't believe that will happen in this show.

I really like the style of the show, much less CGI heavy slugfests that we're used to from the MCU ( which i love but can get repetitive and boring) and the direction is slowly forming as all parties wheel and turn to further their plans or find out about them to stop them. Fury has the rug pulled out under him and he's becoming ever more desperate, which is something he's not used to because he's usually the one pulling the rug.

I love Olivia Colman's character - so ruthless but at the same time charming while she's cutting off fingers, which in turn makes her in this combination absolutely terrifying. This is a woman you don't want to cross or be an enemy of.

"If Slovakia rolls its eyes one more time at me i'm gonna put on the suit and carpet bomb it!"

 

[Charles Phipps]

I'm disappointed Maria Hill is apparently really most sincerely dead. However, I like that there's a million Skrulls on Earth. It's an actual ethnic minority now.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

"[That door was locked.]"
"Yes, and now that that the door is unlocked, what does that tell you about me and doors?"

Damn, they dropped a lot of revelations, some of them shocking, some of them that murky.

Just when I thought the show had forgotten the "invasion" part of the title, we find out more than a million Skrulls have been secretly hiding on Earth for years but Talos never told Fury about them until now. This revelation has a number of issues, the foremost being Talos and Fury had good relations for decades before the Blip occurred and yet during that time, hundreds of thousands of Skrull refugees were showing up and Talos didn't tell Fury during that whole time. I would get his mistrust if that mass immigration happened just prior to or during the Blip but that didn't seem to be the case based on their argument that suggeded it was a slow process. Maybe if it had been explicitly stated that such large numbers arrived closer to or during the Blip that Talos' lack of communication would make sense upon Fury's revival. Maybe I missed something during that argument but that whole aspect didn't sit well with me.

Of course, that revelation paled in comparison to learning that the Skurll Council has successfully penetrated high levels of leadership across the globe...and a Fox News stand-in (that felt weird but I get he's there to sow discourse). And now Gravik has asserted himself as the sole supreme leader. Glad to see "invasion" hasn't been forgotten after all.

So Gravik is working on a machine to make him and his Skrull allies more powerful, one might even say...Super? And apparently they're using the DNA of Groot, Cull Obsidian, Frost Giants, and Extremis (returning again!), among others. Hell of a genetic soup Rosa Dalton is working with! Gravik's tentacle arm seen in one of the trailers makes more sense now.

Maria Hill is definitely dead, Fury has burned his bridge with Talos, and Rhodey is rightfully pissed as all hell at Fury, but it turns out Fury has one last ally: Priscilla who is a Skrull Fury became close with from the early days of the Promise he and Carol made to the Skrull refugees. I love this little twist...even if it's a little weird to see Charlyane Woodard as Fury's wife after playing Jackson's mother in Unbreakable and Glass.

Lastly, I'm absolutely loving Olivia Colman's performance as Falsworth and her jovial menace during the interrogation scene left me in stitches.

Overall, a great episode and I'm very curious to see what everyone's next steps are.

 

[Anwar]

I mean, since the Fantastic Four don't exist yet in the MCU it makes sense that the Super Skrulls would have to use other templates for their augmented powers.

 

[Charles Phipps]

Just when I thought the show had forgotten the "invasion" part of the title, we find out more than a million Skrulls have been secretly hiding on Earth for years but Talos never told Fury about them until now. This revelation has a number of issues, the foremost being Talos and Fury had good relations for decades before the Blip occurred and yet during that time, hundreds of thousands of Skrull refugees were showing up and Talos didn't tell Fury during that whole time. I would get his mistrust if that mass immigration happened just prior to or during the Blip but that didn't seem to be the case based on their argument that suggeded it was a slow process. Maybe if it had been explicitly stated that such large numbers arrived closer to or during the Blip that Talos' lack of communication would make sense upon Fury's revival. Maybe I missed something during that argument but that whole aspect didn't sit well with me.

Actually, Talos says that it did happen during the Blip when Fury was dead. He activated the beacon and presumably they all arrived when the rest of the universe was in utter chaos. Talos didn't tell Fury because he's barely had any contact with the Skrulls since his return from the dead. Perhaps because he realized that it was going to be a helluva awkward conversation.

Note this actually ties together with the Flag Smasher arc from Falcon abd the Winter Soldier. During the Blip, apparently all of Earth did a 180 on accepting refugees. People just liked being around more people.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

Gaia is looking at DNA samples - first from a woman ( i figure some scientist important to their plan) then it's DNA from Groot, a Jotunheim Frost Beast ( Thor 2 when Thor and his crew "invaded" Jotunheim, home of the Frost Giants, and nearly started a war), Cull Obsidian ( one of Thanos' henchmen - i think he was the one with the spear that Cap catches and is used to wound Vision) and finally Extremis, which was the compound developed by the villains in Iron Man 3 that gives people enhanced abilities.

Cull Obsidian was the beastly one with the big hammer, who lost part of his arm, and then gained a super hammer arm.

I'm pretty sure the files G'iah looked at were directly connected to the machine she observed since she looked up the scientist in charge of it, Rosa Dalton (the same name that the tortured Skrull gave to Falsworth).

Actually, Talos says that it did happen during the Blip when Fury was dead. He activated the beacon and presumably they all arrived when the rest of the universe was in utter chaos. Talos didn't tell Fury because he's barely had any contact with the Skrulls since his return from the dead. Perhaps because he realized that it was going to be a helluva awkward conversation.

Ah, thank you for that! I clearly misheard/misunderstood what Talos said in the heat of the moment. That makes that whole situation more understandable. I definitely need to watch that scene again to be appreciate what was being said (and not said...), especially now that I won't be distracted by that nagging thought like I was the first time around.

As for Talos not saying anything, his argument makes perfect sense now. Fury went Full Fury...in Space!

Note this actually ties together with the Flag Smasher arc from Falcon abd the Winter Soldier. During the Blip, apparently all of Earth did a 180 on accepting refugees. People just liked being around more people.

Oooooo! Good catch! That's a nice thematic tie-in.

 

[FreezeC77]

Actually, Talos says that it did happen during the Blip when Fury was dead. He activated the beacon and presumably they all arrived when the rest of the universe was in utter chaos. Talos didn't tell Fury because he's barely had any contact with the Skrulls since his return from the dead. Perhaps because he realized that it was going to be a helluva awkward conversation.

Note this actually ties together with the Flag Smasher arc from Falcon abd the Winter Soldier. During the Blip, apparently all of Earth did a 180 on accepting refugees. People just liked being around more people.

It also likely means you had some of these Skrulls possibly replace 'blipped' people and then have to kill the blipped person when they return. In which case you think there might have been one or two instances where a story got out about an usual 'doppelganger' or something.

I wonder though. If say 1mil skrulls fled their planet and were out among the cosmos as refugees and then the blip happened. Wasn't the blip universal? So then if Talos summoned them, wouldn't there have been like half of the refugees who 'blipped' and then later returned?

 

[Reverend]

Yeah, Talos inviting what was left of his people to a massively depopulated Earth after half the universe just got wiped out seems like a perfectly reasonable thing to do given the circumstances. It's not like anyone had any hope that it could be undone; that was simply the reality they were living in. Not having that conversation with Fury on the other hand seems a lot less forgivable, though Fury has been rather non-communicative (he literally hung up on Talos after the whole Mysterio incident) so he didn't really give him the opportunity. Plenty of blame to go around there!

At least this gives us a timeframe for any main characters that may have already been replaced, since it likely wouldn't have started until just the last few years (maybe during the blip?) Obviously we can eliminate anyone that died (and didn't turn into a lizard) such as Natasha, Tony, Steve, etc. It might also be safe to assume they generally avoided anyone with super-human abilities (or rather anything beyond a Skrull's natural strength & resilience) otherwise why even bother with this Super-Skrull project? I'd also eliminate any of the newest wave of characters since; who would even care if Xu, Katy, or Karun were actually Skrulls? Also Madisynnm, since no Skrull is that good of an actor.

That still leaves a number of hitters, but none that I can think of would be truly shocking.

Still no solid information on why they feel abandoned by Carol too, or what the difficulty was finding a new home. I mean wasn't the whole point of Mar'Vel's lightspeed engine supposed to be to allow they to go off the grid and find Planets that the Kree couldn't reach? What, did they just run smack into the Shi'ar or something?

So far the most chilling aspect of the invasion for me has been them getting their hands on Groot's DNA. Not because of what they're obviously doing with it, but the implication would have to mean they've successfully infiltrated Wakanda too. Not sure where they got the Extremis sample from. Those subjects tended not to leave behind remains, just ash and a scorch mark. Now that I think about it, the only possible source for a stable sample is Pepper. So odds are: she's already been replaced.

 

[Wingcommanderdarkwolf01]

Was that a RAF officer at a around 15.00 minutes?

 

[FreezeC77]

Yeah, Talos inviting what was left of his people to a massively depopulated Earth after half the universe just got wiped out seems like a perfectly reasonable thing to do given the circumstances. It's not like anyone had any hope that it could be undone; that was simply the reality they were living in. Not having that conversation with Fury on the other hand seems a lot less forgivable, though Fury has been rather non-communicative (he literally hung up on Talos after the whole Mysterio incident) so he didn't really give him the opportunity. Plenty of blame to go around there!

At least this gives us a timeframe for any main characters that may have already been replaced, since it likely wouldn't have started until just the last few years (maybe during the blip?) Obviously we can eliminate anyone that died (and didn't turn into a lizard) such as Natasha, Tony, Steve, etc. It might also be safe to assume they generally avoided anyone with super-human abilities (or rather anything beyond a Skrull's natural strength & resilience) otherwise why even bother with this Super-Skrull project? I'd also eliminate any of the newest wave of characters since; who would even care if Xu, Katy, or Karun were actually Skrulls? Also Madisynnm, since no Skrull is that good of an actor.

That still leaves a number of hitters, but none that I can think of would be truly shocking.

Still no solid information on why they feel abandoned by Carol too, or what the difficulty was finding a new home. I mean wasn't the whole point of Mar'Vel's lightspeed engine supposed to be to allow they to go off the grid and find Planets that the Kree couldn't reach? What, did they just run smack into the Shi'ar or something?

So far the most chilling aspect of the invasion for me has been them getting their hands on Groot's DNA. Nor because of what they're obviously doing with it, but the implication would have to mean they've successfully infiltrated Wakanda too. Not sure where they got the Extremis sample from. Those subjects tended not to leave behind remains, just ash and a scorch mark. Now that I think about it, the only possible source for a stable sample is Pepper. So odds are: she's already been replaced.

Involving Pepper could make sense since you have Rhodey in this... Although given episode 2 it would seem way too easy to make him a skrull just based on what the audience is supposed to feel watching his conversation. I could see Happy being a Skrull. It seems like something Jon Favreau would find interesting and in terms of access to samples/technology he's in a good and non super-visible position.

In terms of Wakanda we know that Everett Ross has a connection to Wakanda and in the first episode we saw a Skrull in Russia posing as him. Although does Secret Invasion take place after Wakanda Forever in the MCU timeline? So Ross was broken out of US custody by Okoye at the end of Wakanda Forever, which should mean he's not working for the US Government so why did that other agent think he still was? You would think being broken out of custody would have made him a known felon at large. (at least within the agency)

 

[Reverend]

Was that a RAF officer at a around 15.00 minutes?

Yup. The uniform and salute gives it away. Group Captain going by the rank insignia, though given the occasion and that he's stood next to a bunch of 4 star US Generals it's probably supposed to be the Station Commander RAF Northolt, specifically (which I think would be a Group Captain by rank.)

 

[Reverend]

ETA: Damnit, meant to edit that in, not double post! My decent into senility continues . . .

Involving Pepper could make sense since you have Rhodey in this... Although given episode 2 it would seem way too easy to make him a skrull just based on what the audience is supposed to feel watching his conversation. I could see Happy being a Skrull. It seems like something Jon Favreau would find interesting and in terms of access to samples/technology he's in a good and non super-visible position.

I really hope Rhodes isn't a Skrull at this point as it would undercut a lot of the tension and drama in this episode between him & Fury.
As for Happy . . . I mean I'm sure Favreau would be up for it, but he's really not enough of a "get" for it to mean anything. Also; the implications for the events surrounding the last two Spider-Man movies also makes it an undesirable choice for a number of reasons.

 

[Enterprise is Great]

Gi’ah must be working for someone since she left and made that phone call in Russian I think it was.

Thee story Fury told about his mother and him on the train made me wonder if that story was from Jackson’s life. It felt really autobiographical.

 

[Wingcommanderdarkwolf01]

Yup. The uniform and salute gives it away. Group Captain going by the rank insignia, though given the occasion and that he's stood next to a bunch of 4 star US Generals it's probably supposed to be the Station Commander RAF Northolt, specifically (which I think would be a Group Captain by rank.)

When did the RAF last show up on tv?