Warning: This article contains spoilers for Secret Invasion episode six.
Kingsley Ben-Adir is having a fantastic week. He’s one of the best Kens in the top-billing film in theaters right now, and he’s arguably the best part about Marvel’s Secret Invasion, which just aired its final episode this Wednesday. Mind you, the actor plays completely opposite roles in each project — a vivacious if anxious sidekick to Ryan Gosling’s main Ken in Barbie and one of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s most ruthless and blood-thirsty villains yet in Secret Invasion.
For those of us who have watched Barbie over the weekend and have been keeping up with Secret Invasion, it’s hard to believe the same person is playing both of those characters. The stark contrast spotlights Ben-Adir’s immense acting range, as well as his ability to fully embody whatever role he is given, and has positively put him on the map as one to watch in the future of Hollywood.
Unfortunately for us all, however, it looks like his time as the Skrull rebel leader Gravik is over, judging by his apparent death in the finale of Secret Invasion. And if that’s the case, Marvel might have just given up a bonafide movie star in the making, that could have been the answer to the franchise’s Kang/Jonathan Majors conundrum. The villain in the sci-fi/spy thriller series doesn’t just have a higher kill count than his multiversal counterpart, but he actually puts his money where his mouth is. For all the threatening speeches that Kang delivered in Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania, we saw very little of what he was actually capable of.
Not only could Gravik have easily carried a multi-project arc like Jonathan Majors’ Kang, but Kingsley Ben-Adir’s talent is also on par with the American actor. It’s frustrating to think that the 37-year-old’s contribution to the MCU was constricted to a Disney Plus show, and one not that many people were interested in at that. It also feels like a disservice to Gravik’s journey across the show that he was so easily defeated.
Marvel might come to regret the decision to write off Kinglsey Ben-Adir’s character so soon, but at least his terrifying performance as Gravik on the small screen reaching us at the same time as he prances around Barbieland in theaters will always exist as our own little version of Barbenheimer.
Every episode of the first season of Secret Invasion is available to stream now on Disney Plus, while Barbie is showing everywhere in theaters.