Warning: This article discusses light spoilers for Secret Invasion episode 2.
It’s been a plot hole that’s plagued the MCU ever since Earth’s Mightiest Heroes first assembled back in 2012: anytime the world is in peril in one of the franchise’s solo entries, why doesn’t the solo hero in question just call in the Avengers? Sometimes this is lampshaded, like by Scott Lang in Ant-Man, other times it’s an issue that’s swept under the carpet as Marvel hopes we’ll forget about it.
It’s taken until now, though, for the MCU to come up with a genuinely brilliant, cast-iron reason for why the Avengers 100 percent cannot show up to save the day. And the award goes to… Secret Invasion.
When Rhodey (Don Cheadle) meets with Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), he criticizes Fury for trying to bite off more than he can chew on his own, asking why the former S.H.I.E.L.D. chief doesn’t just call in their powerful friends to help end the secret Skrull incursion of the planet. This is probably a question many fans have been wondering over the past week, but Fury actually responds with a very good point.
Fury warns that they “can’t jump the gun on that” because “we get them in a fight with the Skrulls and the next thing you know they find themselves duplicated and turned into terrorists.”
Of course, comic book readers will note that Fury is basically alluding to the plot of the original Secret Invasion comics event which did indeed see various Avengers members outed as Skrull imposters. We’ve long known the TV adaptation wouldn’t operate on this same scale, and it looks like we have Fury’s canny reasoning to thank for that.
Thanks to the Skrulls’ shapeshifting powers, Fury is absolutely right that this is one case where the world may be oddly better off without the Avengers helping out. It’s taken 11 years, but the MCU has finally — albeit temporarily — solved its most persistent plot hole.
Secret Invasion streams new episodes Wednesdays on Disney Plus.