Warning: The article contains spoilers for Secret Invasion episode 4.
Secret Invasion is shaping up to be Marvel’s bleakest serving ever — episode 4, “Beloved,” just confirmed that by murdering Talos in cold blood. But today’s heartbreak is actually the best news for someone who has possibly led a rather sad life the last 30-something years in the MCU.
Honestly speaking, Secret Invasion has been doing nothing but crushing hearts — killing Maria Hill, giving us a Nick Fury traumatized by the post-Blip era, a world where no one can be trusted, the confirmation that Captain Marvel never really fulfilled her promise of finding the Skrulls a home,…
… and now Talos is dead.
While that is understandably bad news for Fury, G’iah, the Skrulls who were betting on his success, and of course, us fans who love Ben Mendelsohn (and everyone who was busy shipping Talos and Fury), it is practically Christmas coming early (or well, 30 years too late) for one person. And that person is Keller — Fury’s boss — whose identity Talos stole back in Captain Marvel and who he has been impersonating for the last three decades.
Marvel has been happily refusing to acknowledge what happened to the original Keller. But we know what Skrulls do to humans whose identities they steal on a permanent basis — they keep them captive and tied up, in a coma of sorts. If that’s what Talos did to the real Keller — which Fury seems surprisingly okay with — maybe he will be released now that the Skrull impersonating him is dead?
What happened to Nick Fury’s boss, the original Keller?
As we said, he is either in captivity…. or he is in a government prison.
While Marvel never provided an official answer to Keller’s whereabouts, the reigning fan theory is that he was a HYDRA agent who was exposed during the events of Captain America and the Winter Soldier. So he was one of the many that were arrested at the end.
But even if we go with that running theory, wouldn’t the zillion intelligence organizations catch on to the fact that there is a Keller lookalike roaming the streets? Then again, the Skrull infiltrated the government with surprising ease, so yeah, I guess they are that careless.