The Marvel TV drought is finally over! Coming over eight months after She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, Disney Plus has served up a new MCU show at long last in the form of Secret Invasion. The first episode of the conspiracy thriller miniseries premiered on streaming this Wednesday, and it’s already not so much rocked the boat of the Marvel fandom but capsized it. From shocking — and controversial — developments to unwanted technical advances, episode one had it all.
Secret Invasion doesn’t skimp on the shocks, but committing the superhero genre’s most heinous trope in 2023 is a bold choice
The “women in refrigerators” trope is the most notorious sexist trope to come out of the superhero genre; the act of a female character getting killed off for nothing more than furthering the male hero’s arc and spur them on to get revenge. You’d think in 2023 creators of superhero stories would know well enough to avoid committing this sin, but apparently the makers of Secret Invasion didn’t get the memo and have been subsequently roasted on social media for their troubles. It doesn’t help that the character in question is a bonafide MCU icon. At least there’s a strong chance their fate will be speedily reversed…
‘Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’ may well provide the answer to a Secret Invasion mystery as The Marvels already undercuts its big twist
Why are we so sure of this? Well, thanks to a couple of other Marvel productions, one that’s a ghost from the past and the other that’s a ghost of what’s yet to come. Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. — which Marvel told us to watch before Secret Invasion, remember — could provide the answer to how this character will be resurrected. And we’re pretty darn certain they will be resurrected somehow, given that we know they’ll reprise their role in The Marvels. It’s been confirmed, by Samuel L. Jackson himself, that SI is set before the upcoming Captain Marvel sequel. Nick Fury has nothing on Marvel fan detectives.
Secret Invasion‘s opening credits inspire widespread ire and fear, and there’s nothing artificial about it
Yes, it’s true. Secret Invasion‘s opening credits were made by A.I. While that’s being viewed as a troubling advancement by many fearing that the MCU is supporting the robopocalypse, director Ali Selim has made a strong case for why the use of A.I. in this show in particular was a smart and very meta creative decision. Just so long as Marvel doesn’t make this a company-wide policy and deny us gorgeous human-made opening credits sequences like Daredevil‘s we should be OK. Although, honestly, the whole A.I. controversy might be hiding a much bigger concern about the credits’ placement.
Secret Invasion‘s secrets are now beginning to spill, so pay close attention for further updates from the Marvel universe.