Ten minutes ago I finished watching the first episode of Marvel’s ‘Secret Invasion’. Ten minutes I’ve been talking non-stop trying to understand what I’ve just seen and why I’m left with more questions than answers (and not about what they want me to ask either).
Now, I don’t think the first episode was bad necessarily. There’s been far worse writing in even other MCU works but it’s more the idea and plot that I’m confused by—and the timeline, especially the timeline. So, rather than talk about them endlessly and be thinking about them all night I’m going to write them down here so I can bug other people with all the thoughts swarming around my head. This is a warning: THERE WILL BE SPOILERS AHEAD. It’s hard to ask all these questions without spoiling some of the plot-points. Here we go. Buckle in.
How do the Skrulls powers work?
We’ve established in Captain Marvel the Skrull can change into whatever form they want but, considering this, in this first episode it seems the main ‘skins’ they choose are always oddly age appropriate? Talos is middle-aged/on the older side and keeps with a skin that is appropriate to this age. His daughter is a younger woman and chooses a younger woman as her skin. Garick (sorry about the spelling, trying not to look it up in case of spoilers) is a young man and chooses a young man as his main skin… and so on with the remaining Skrulls. If you were trying to hide would you not choose somebody completely against type? I mean, imagine Garick had stuck with the little girl as his main skin. Nobody would believe that she was the leader of a resistance group set to blow up the world (or maybe they would if she was part of Black Widow’s old group). Also, can child Skrulls disguise themselves as adult humans or is it only a skill you can gain the older you get? I’d be very concerned if a child could potentially be disguised as a high-ranking politician or something…
- How does age work with the Skrulls?
We find out in this episode that Talos is over 100 years old (I think 148 but I can’t quite remember), but he tells Fury that this would equate to 40 human years. His daughter is obviously quite a bit younger than him—so, based on human years, is she still a child to the Skrulls? Or do they age like humans as children and then start to more slowly age as adults? When we first met Talos’ daughter she was around the same height as a young Monica. In the present time, assuming as the others have she’s chosen a skin close to her real age (and most likely is Emilia Clark in a green mask), she’d still be around the same age as present Monica… which means she’s aged at the same rate up until this point. Is she still considered a child however, because she’d be really young then in human years, based on Talos’ age?
- Where did all these Skrulls come from?
This may be down to bad memory but in Captain Marvel when he found the rest of the Skrulls there was only a very small few of them left, including a very small amount of children. Yet in this show, only 30 years later (again, apparently a very small amount of time in a Skrull’s lifespan), there’s around 500 living in the Resistance compound—and apparently more arriving everyday and living in other areas of Earth (including 100 sleeper agents). Where did all these Skrull come from? Especially all these young adults who were presumably children 30 years ago? Did we spend the last 30 years picking up random Skrull refugees from other planets and then bringing them to an already overpopulated Earth? This brings me to my next question…
- Did they seriously not find another planet in 30 years?
Nowhere? Thanos’ ex-planet? There you go, at least two places that may be open to some new people to populate. They showed in this first episode that the Skrull plants can, similarly to them, change to suit the atmosphere they’re growing in… which means that the opportunities should’ve been vast for where they could live in the Universe (or even Multiverse now). There’s even planets within our own solar system that could be used for this purpose. If humans can work out how to grow stuff on Mars, I’m sure the Skrulls with their plants that already adapt would manage just fine. In fact, Thanos’ population supposedly wiped out their planet by overpopulating it—which is not a problem that the Skrulls have at the moment so maybe they could bring some life back to it? And what about the 5 years of the blip when half the population of the universe were wiped out? I’m sure there were plenty of planets that would’ve accepted some help from the Skrulls and their amazing plants.
- Why is Captain Marvel being made to look so horrendous?
I know, I know, some would argue she always looked this way—but I disagree. She’s a character that is very proud, struggles to show emotion after years of it being denied to her and was easily led at one point in her life. But she helped the Skrulls. She formed a friendship with them and agreed to help them… and then she what? She just gave up? She was there over 20 years searching for a planet for them. She was still there for 5 years in the blip, apparently travelling around the Universe to help other people (and could’ve kept an eye out for Skrull possible planets still). So why did she apparently just give up on helping them? Why did she bring them, and apparently multiple other Skrulls she found, back to an already overpopulated Earth? Beyond the fact she was originally from Earth, she didn’t spend that much time there and would have no other reason to bring them there other than ‘plot convenience for later’. Fury we can forgive for not doing much to help them as he was grounded to Earth or Earth’s gravity—but Captain Marvel? What have you been doing for 30 years?
- Is Ross okay? Where is he and/or how long has he been gone?
Okay, I’m not going to pretend like I didn’t expect Ross to be a Skrull at the beginning. It was obvious from the way the scene was framed… but is Ross one of the ‘skins’ in the Resistance’s basement? Is he trapped down there still? If he is trapped down there still, how long has he been there? Was it really him in Wakanda Forever?
- What happens to the skins when the Skrull dies and where do they get them?
When the Skrull wearing the ‘skin’ of a specific person in the basement dies, does the person they’ve taken the ‘mind’ of die too or do they get their mind back/wake up? When they take their minds does the person still retain their own thoughts or do they become brain-dead bodies? Where do they get these people from that they bring down here and how do they choose who they’re going to bring? Also—are they trying to say that nobody in Russia monitors their old Nuclear sites? Or there’s nobody around the area? I mean—it was close enough to a big city to drive there on the same day—it’s not like it’s dead in the middle of nowhere?
- Why did everyone run away when the explosions went off?
Now, I’m not saying people wouldn’t run. Of course they would. Your body would automatically go into fight, flight or freeze the moment you were put in that stressful situation—but that’s just it. Everybody went into flight (and even still just seemed to be running around like chickens rather than running away). Not one person stood there in shock or fell to the floor in panic. Not one person ran to the stage to see if anyone there was okay (which, if people you loved were on there, there’s a chance you would). Through all the incidents I’ve seen on the news with similar situations, including bombs, gunmen, people with knives etc.—there’s a multitude of reactions. Somehow in this Marvel scene, it was all just people running around (I think, only to block Fury from the others and force them apart). Are we saying not one person saw the man standing calmly in the centre of the screaming crowd with an explosive devise and a gun on him? Not one person either charged him themselves or contacted the authorities (that were there as they tried to help Hill up)? It’s not like he did it in a private corner. He was surrounded by people.
- Why didn’t Fury grab Gravick and hand him to the Russian authorities?
This was more of my Mum’s question and I semi-answered it for her, as I believe it was implied earlier on many times why he was inactive when faced with Gravick later but I’m going to ask it for her anyway because I agree it is annoying (even if they tried to write it away). Fury had Gravick in his sights, before the explosions and after. He had his gun pointed at him (which, you know, in a crowd in Russia I’m surprised he could get away with that to begin with, pre-explosion) and could’ve shot him (even in a body part that would just knock him to the ground until Fury could grab him and hand him over to the Russian authorities). He chose not to, we’re led to assume, because of whatever past he and Gravick are implied to have. But post-explosion, wouldn’t you as an agent who’s shown to be quite trigger happy so far just shoot automatically? Yes, they tried to explain it away. No, it didn’t leave us satisfied with why he didn’t act in a moment he really should’ve.
How did Fury know what Gravick looked like?
I only realized this whilst writing the last question but… Fury’s been away a long time. He was away for 5 years of the blip and then, supposedly, 3 more years post blip according to Hill (which, you know, I have timeline questions too). That’s 8 years, at least, since he’s seen Gravick. We assume Gravick was a child or teenager when they first met because of Fury’s discussion with Talos and how they seemed to treat his relationship with Gravick (as Talos said Gravick looked up to Fury and was really hurt when he left—something that would be more perceived as a younger person looking up to an almost-father figure). Since they’re all shown to be taking on permanent ‘skins’ that they say, in the Resistance area, that even other Skrulls would struggle to recognise, we assume that Gravick’s face is a fairly new one to keep his identity hidden (or at least, as I said before, this would be the sensible way to play it). So why does Fury seem to recognise Gravick enough to stop trying to shoot him? And, more to the point, why did he not know that he was the Russian guy in the bar the night before? It was… obvious even to me, a person who doesn’t know anything about Gravick. Why would a random Russian guy say something so oddly specific to Fury?
Where are we in the timeline? I’m so lost…
The blip was 5 years. And now we’re 3 years later? Or are we more… or are we less? Wasn’t Peter older than 15 in Endgame? How old was Ms Marvel when the blip happened? (and more of a question for the Ms Marvel writers—but why did nobody in that show mention the Blip? What happened to everyone in that show during the Blip?). How old is Ms Marvel in the new Marvels film? How long has it been since Wandavision? Wandavision supposedly took place in the months after Endgame finished—which means Monica went up to space to join Nick 3 years ago? What has she been doing up there for 3 years? Wasn’t a Skrull agent the person who came to get Monica for Fury? Where’s that agent now? Where are we in the timeline? Everytime a new MCU project comes out I get more confused about where we are in time… Technically haven’t we, in real life, just reached the date that Tony sacrificed himself post-blip? Does that mean the MCU is 3 years in the future still? Then… are the dates matching up with that? Basically, I’m lost and sort-of wondering whether the people in charge of the MCU are either lost themselves or would make it more clear for me. Thank you.
Overall, I neither loved nor hated this first episode. I enjoyed a lot of the actors. I can already see some twists coming and expect there’ll be a lot more to come that I’ll figure out later (or maybe I won’t. Maybe they’ll really surprise me?). I think some things could be tightened up or explained and hopefully will in future episodes. I think Carol should come down and fix some of this mess that she’s apparently just left for other people to clean up.
I think the villains are very similar to a lot of villains we’ve already seen in the MCU and other Superhero series—from the Flag Smashers in Falcon and the Winter Soldier, to Harrow and his people in Moon Knight who were hidden among regular people, to even an entire plot point in a season/series of Supergirl where aliens wanted to show their real faces instead of hiding and there was a resistance group against them (similarly to Secret Invasion using being an alien as an allegory for racism in humanity—although I would argue I’d be far more uncomfortable at someone who could pretend to be a person in charge of Nuclear codes etc. and there may be an actual reason to fear the Skrulls abilities).
Actually, I’m going to come out of the brackets on that one… because this really is a question of ‘fear of abilities’ more than ‘race’… which is the plot in Ms Marvel? Shouldn’t the Department of Damage Control have a vetted interest in what’s happening with the Skrulls? Wouldn’t they also be on their most wanted lists? Are we really just dragging the MCU into the humans vs anybody with abilities X-Men style plot-line? I really wish they’d just make their mind up already and be more consistent with this. Everything’s feeling a bit disconnected at the minute.
Anyway, this was just the first episode. Maybe things will change. Maybe it will join up with some other MCU shows. Maybe Konshu will send Jake after the Skrulls since they’re being naughty? No? Aw…
Thank you for reading. If you know any of the answers, feel free to leave a comment and explain to me. However, know I probably won’t read them until after the show’s done—I want the show to speak for itself, rather than having to read the comics to answer for them. The show should be able to stand on it’s own legs. What did you think? Did you like the first episode of Secret Invasion? What do you think will happen next?
Signed,
The Literary Onion
P.S. Justice for Maria Hill. All I wanted was to learn more about Hill and get to spend more time with one of my favourite MCU characters. Instead, like all my favourite characters recently, they just end up dead. I’m just not going to like anybody from here on out– apparently me liking someone in the MCU is the kiss of death.
The Literary Onion 