With over a week having passed since the finale of Secret Invasion, it seems as though the show is quickly evolving into the next Eternals; not only do both projects boast some of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s most dire critic scores (Eternals with a 47 percent approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes compared to Secret Invasion‘s 55 percent), but everyone and their Skrull imposter is sounding off about how Secret Invasion would have been better off as something else.
Indeed, like the many “Eternals should have been a show” trumpeters, r/marvelstudios has been absolutely flooding with post after post musing on whether Secret Invasion should have honored the scope of its comic book storyline with an Avengers-sized film, or even an entire Phase. But, many remain convinced that it wasn’t the size or packaging of Secret Invasion that was the problem, but rather some much more fundamental shortcomings and hurdles that made it whimper the way it did.
For example, Secret Invasion works in the comic books due to the many storylines that each hero — or potential Skrull kidnappee — has under their belt, meaning continuity wouldn’t interfere, retroactively or otherwise, much at all with any Skrull reveals. The MCU, being just one overarching narrative, doesn’t have that luxury, so expanding the scope of Skrull imposters could cause marked narrative harm to the canon.
Meanwhile, one can quite easily pin Secret Invasion‘s failure on the fact that it simply wasn’t given the creative attention it deserves; by the sounds of it, the show’s writing, directing, and even producing wound up being a logistical nightmare. Would we really want that sort of disorder getting applied to an Avengers film, of all things?
However the Secret Invasion problem could have been solved, it’s too late to do so now; it’s time to chalk this one up as a loss, move on to Loki season two, and, if we’re extra lucky, benefit from whatever fruits happen to blossom from the seeds that the show did plant.
Secret Invasion is streaming in full on Disney Plus.