After that astoundingly kinetic opening episode, we can only imagine what’s in store for the following chapters of Secret Invasion, which is finally marching its way onto Disney Plus as of Wednesday.
At the moment, Nick Fury’s allies are few while the dangers are many, but he does have one steadfast rock in this whole mess, and that’s Talos; the benevolent Skrull and longtime friend of Fury who’s chosen to oppose Gravik’s radical posse of aliens. He may be an incredibly powerful partner for Fury to have, but when you seem to be the only ally in sight, that’s a role you tend to default to anyway.
In any case, Talos’ position as an effective co-lead alongside Samuel L. Jackson‘s Fury indicates that he’s in for quite the arc, especially with his daughter G’iah fighting on the opposite side of the conflict. Indeed, Secret Invasion looks all but ready to take the first dive into the ins and outs of Talos, which Ben Mendelsohn recruited the help of some old collaborators to nail down.
In an interview with Collider, Mendelsohn revealed that he spoke to Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, the masterminds behind his MCU debut Captain Marvel, to help him figure out how to best explore Talos as a character, and apparently the secret ingredient for Secret Invasion was to lean into the Skrull’s more sardonic, humorous side.
“I talked with Ryan and Anna who were familiar with the whole project, and one of the things which Anna had said to me was, “Make sure that we find a way to keep that humor,” because I referred back to them as the original creators of this. You’re not seeing a lot of it at this time, but you will come to see parts of it. Now, what’s changed about him is this is a guy who really has the weight of the world on his shoulders, and the humor is a lot more like traditional Australian humor, which is like [gestures emphatically], which is derisive kind of humor. “
It may not sound like an ideal route, considering the darker tones that Secret Invasion seems prepared to commit to, but from what we’ve seen so far, Talos’ humor isn’t the same quippy tension breaks that we’re used to seeing out of the MCU so much as it is a very dry coping mechanisms that only alleviates tension for Talos himself. In other words, it’s a nice change of pace.