All is not well in the Marvel Cinematic Universe: Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania was not a hit among critics or at the box office, and Bob Iger, now back in charge at Disney, is reigning in budgets. That Secret Invasion, the first of Marvel’s Disney+ streaming series planned for this year, even remains on the calendar (for June 21) is a testament to the power of its star, Samuel L. Jackson, and the significance of the show to Phase 5.
Secret Invasion, which will combine two of the more popular elements of the MCU—Jackson’s Nick Fury and the paranoid spy-movie vibe of hits like Captain America: The Winter Soldier—follows Fury’s return to prominence after a few years away from the action. We last saw him hanging out on a spaceship in the Spider-Man: Far From Home post-credits scene, after the events of Endgame. In the show, he comes back to Earth to root out a secret sect of Skrulls, the shape-shifting aliens first seen in Captain Marvel. During that film, a young Fury promised the Skrull leader Talos (Ben Mendelsohn, returning here) that he’d help them find a new homeworld. But in the decades since, a group of radicalized Skrulls led by Gravik (Kingsley Ben-Adir of One Night in Miami) have decided to conquer humanity instead.
The Marvel TV series have ranged wildly in tone, from the buddy-detective approach of Loki to the fourth-wall breaking sitcom style of She-Hulk. Secret Invasion most closely resembles the gritty, political espionage action of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. In keeping with the tradition of Marvel writers referencing series and films way out of the MCU’s league as inspirations, executive producer Jonathan Scwhartz mentioned Homeland and The Americans in an exclusive preview of the series that he gave to Vanity Fair.
The series looks to be light on superheroes and heavy on the government agents who’ve played key supporting roles in past MCU films: Fury’s stalwart second Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders), Everett Ross (Martin Freeman), Rhodey (Don Cheadle), plus an “old friend” played by a newcomer to the Marvel fold, Olivia Colman. Jackson told VF that Colman is “somebody that you’ve never seen her play before. She’s cold-blooded and just relishes being that person.”
And then there’s Emilia Clarke, adding another massive franchise to her resume as Talos’ disillusioned daughter G’iah, who has been radicalized by Gravik, gravely warning Fury in the trailer that the evil Skrull sect has nefarious plans for him specifically. As if the transformative abilities of the Skrulls aren’t enough, the trailer reveals in its final moments that Gravik has some sort of extra power outside of just shape-shifting, as he morphs his arm into a Groot-like tree branch in the midst of an attack. Comics fans will likely recognize that as a nod to the Super Skrull, who is imbued with the superpowers of the Fantastic Four.
How does Secret Invasion impact the rest of Phase 5? Given that many series are moving into release purgatory, it must be significant. Wakanda Forever tee’d up a conflict between Wakanda and the U.S., thanks to the machinations of CIA Director Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus). With Wakanda as a threat (in estimation of the U.S. Government, anyway) and shape-shifting aliens plotting, perhaps Val will get her very own superhero team—and we’ll end up with the Suicide Squad-like team of the Thunderbolts, who are scheduled to hit the screen in July 2024. Either way, expect the ramifications to be less, shall we say, multiversal in nature than recent MCU fare.