Warning: This article contains spoilers for the Secret Invasion finale.
Secret Invasion started strong, promising to get into the murkier corners of the MCU with a paranoid spy thriller in which anybody could be an alien duplicate. But the finale has just aired and has left fans distinctly underwhelmed.
Criticisms range from its short length, potentially ruining future stories by introducing overwhelmingly powerful characters, and shoddy CGI. But, perhaps most notably, there’s a lot that simply doesn’t make sense. There’s a lot to get into here, so let’s jump in.
All the human prisoners in the radioactive nuclear base should be dead
It was established early on that the reason for the Skrulls setting up home in an abandoned Soviet-era nuclear base is because they’re immune to radiation and humans aren’t. We got a taste of just how radioactive it was in this week’s episode, as we saw a Geiger counter firmly in a yellow “danger” zone in an outside area. Presumably, it only gets more dangerous inside the plant.
But the Skrulls were keeping unconscious human prisoners for what might be years without any radiation protection. Sure, they might be giving them iodine pills, but that long spent in a highly radioactive environment is a death sentence.
Why didn’t Sonya immediately shoot the ‘Rhodey’ Skrull?
There’s a long and tense showdown towards the end as Nick Fury and Sonya hold the Rhodes Skrull at gunpoint as they try to convince the President he’s being lied to. This eventually culminates with Fury shooting the imposter, revealing her true Skrull nature. If our heroes’ goal is to show the President that Rhodey is a dangerous Skrull on the verge of kicking off World War III, why waste time when you could simply shoot them? I mean, it’s not like Sonya has shown any hesitation in killing Skrulls before this.
Heck, even if they didn’t want to outright execute the Skrull, we’ve seen that a limb shot exposes their true form, so why not just do that?
‘The Harvest’ includes DNA from characters who weren’t at the Battle of Earth
Gravik’s goal in the final episodes has been to obtain “The Harvest,” explicitly named as a vial containing DNA he and the other Skrulls scooped up from the battlefield after Avengers: Endgame‘s Battle for Earth. But among this are Ant-Man and the Wasp‘s Ghost and The Incredible Hulk‘s Abomination, neither of whom was at this battle.
Now, we don’t doubt that Fury could feasibly have access to both Ghost and Abomination’s DNA, but is he just tossing every DNA sample he can find into a single vial?
Nick Fury’s plan is stupid
So, to recap, Nick Fury’s plan to beat Gravik is to get G’iah to impersonate him, pretend to be succumbing to radiation sickness, and give him the combined DNA of pretty much every major superhero. After this, G’iah must be in the Super-Skrull machine when it turns on and then defeat Gravik in combat.
Now, you don’t need to be Sun Tzu to spot a few tactical flaws in this genius plan. The most obvious is what happens if G’iah isn’t in the Super-Skrull machine and doesn’t get a power boost. Presumably, Gravik smushes her into a fine paste and then goes on to wreak havoc on the human race with his near-godlike abilities. But even if G’iah gets the powers, her beating Gravik is essentially a coin flip.
Fortunately, it all worked out for Fury, though this does now leave the loose end of someone who was until very recently on board with a plan to secretly take over the world through nuclear war wandering around with insane superpowers. Oh well, you can’t make an omelette without unleashing an immortal, superstrong egg into the world.
Is jewelry genetic?
Both G’iah and Gravik receive DNA from Thanos’ lieutenant Ebony Maw (despite him not being at the Battle of Earth either but whatever). This seems to grant them some of his telekinetic and psychic abilities, with Gravik manifesting his pale hand while fighting G’iah.
Bizarrely this also includes his rings. Yes yes, comic book super-science and all that, but jewellery does not get passed down in your genetic code!
How do G’iah and Gravik know how to use their new powers?
Some of the Super-Skrull powers seem to manifest unconsciously, like the Extremis healing and the various limb transformations that grant enhanced strength. Others apparently have to be consciously activated, for example G’iah using Mantis’ ability to put Gravik to sleep.
But Mantis’ powers (and several other abilities) are clearly learned rather than encoded within DNA, so does receiving the Super-Skrull infusion also implant the knowledge of how to use them? How does she know she has to say “sleep” just as Mantis does?
Thanos’ and his army’s DNA is dust
No MCU fan is going to forget Thanos’ final fate in Avengers: Endgame. Tony Stark gets the Infinity Gauntlet, snaps Thanos and his army away and dies a heroic death. But in Secret Invasion Nick Fury has somehow gotten hold of Thanos’ DNA (and also the Black Order’s and his Chitauri warriors). In Endgame every molecule of Thanos is atomized into dust and that should also include any DNA he left lying around.
Why was it so easy to kill Gravik?
In episode four Gravik survived being shot in the head by Nick Fury, with the Extremis quickly healing his wounds. By the time of the clash in the finale he’s also loaded up with Hulk, Thanos, and Captain America DNA (among many others), each of which comes with its own healing factor. Then G’iah promptly blasts a hole in his chest and kills him.
From what we’ve seen of Extremis alone in this series Gravik should have survived this attack. Perhaps the writers wrote themselves into a corner and hoped we wouldn’t notice.
Why is Everett Ross still alive?
It’s established early on that the Skrulls keep some particularly high-profile human captives around to extract memories from. The show opened with a Skrull impersonating Martin Freeman’s Everett Ross, though this duplicate fell off a roof and didn’t make it to the opening titles.
So, if the Skrull impersonator is dead (and, as Maria Hill witnessed his death the cover is well and truly blown) why are the Skrulls keeping Ross alive? After all, if Fury and his allies know that Ross had been replaced by a Skrull, it’s not as if they can just send out another Skrull agent to pick up where the last one left off.
Talos’ heroic sacrifice is now a sick joke
The fourth episode saw Ben Mendelsohn’s Talos give his life to save President Ritson. In episode five we saw a news broadcast that said “In a bizarre twist, President Ritson was rescued from the assault by what eyewitnesses describe as a shapeshifting alien”, complete with a picture of the injured Talos.
Mere days after having his life saved by a Skrull, Ritson then passes a bill that dubs Skrulls “enemy combatants” and we see a montage of them being executed. The jury’s out on whether even that makes sense, though Talos giving his life to save someone who instantly begins to commit a genocidal purge against his people undercuts all the themes and the importance of the story we’ve been watching for six weeks.
What’s going on with the unconscious people Sonya showed G’iah?
The episode wraps up with Sonya and G’iah making a pact to help each other out, despite their mutual dislike. As the episode ends we see Sonya walking through a huge room of unconscious people, with a soldier asking “What the hell is all this?”. Sonya replies “This is how the enemy got so good” as G’iah stares on in horror.
Presumably, these are people being impersonated by Skrulls, but given that we’ve been told that Skrulls either kill the person they’re duplicating or assume the role of someone about to die keeping a gigantic room full of unconscious people alive doesn’t make sense. We’re also wondering why this is such a surprise given that Sonya knows exactly how Skrulls operate. Also, why is G’iah apparently shocked at something she, a high-ranking Skrull operative should know all about? What’s going on?!
Why does Nick Fury end his story in the exact place he began it?
Secret Invasion has been about Nick Fury trying to seek redemption for breaking his promise to the Skrull refugees and exploiting their shapeshifting skills to further his career. The show began with Fury facing the consequences of abandoning the Skrulls on Earth to hang out in space, which has been repeatedly underlined as a moral failing.
Now, after six episodes, we see Fury heading back into space after leaving the Skrulls in an even worse situation: now they’re being extrajudicially executed under the orders of the President! Fury calling the President up to tell him off for a few minutes isn’t doing much for the Skrulls that are being murdered by death squads as a direct result of Fury’s own actions.
We suspect a lot of these bizarre flaws are down to massive last-minute rewrites and reshoots. The reasons for this remain unclear. Here’s hoping we get a proper post-mortem of what actually went down behind the scenes of Secret Invasion, as right now it’s looking like a proper mess.