With One Episode Left, The Plot Of Secret Invasion Still Doesn't Make Much Sense
When the "Secret Invasion" comic book storyline was released in 2008, it was a massive crossover event, one that had huge revelations and consequences for the entire Marvel Comics universe. It showed big characters, from Captain Marvel to Elektra — as well as celebrities like Stephen Colbert and Tom Cruise — being Skrulls in disguise, with the invasion having significant consequences, like the dissolution of S.H.I.E.L.D. The reason for the invasion is clear: The Skrull Empire was destroyed in another comic book event the year prior, and they decide to invade Earth as vengeance for attacks on the Skrulls by the newly formed Illuminati. It's all comic book nonsense, but it made sense for what it was.
That is not the case for the Marvel Cinematic Universe's take on "Secret Invasion." The show is almost over, and for five weeks, we've seen Nick Fury desperately try to stop a plot that would destroy the human race in order to make a new home for the Skrull refugees on Earth. And yet, despite some spectacular performances by Samuel L. Jackson and Olivia Colman and a very personal story about Nick Fury, the actual plot of "Secret Invasion" still makes little sense.
That is because the whole story and its apocalyptic stakes hinge on the idea that the villain Gravik and his radical Skulls are angry at Nick Fury and Captain Marvel for not finding a new home for them in the past 30 years, and for humanity not being open-minded enough to accept them as aliens. The thing is, neither of these sticking points makes sense.
A people without a home
For one, Nick Fury's failure and Gravik's resentment both rely on the audience believing that Carol Danvers really spent 30 years looking for a suitable home for the Skrulls and could not find a single planet in the entire universe they could go to that wasn't Earth. Really? The whole universe, and there is not a single place big enough to support the Skrulls? What about the planet Thanos went to after the blip at the end of "Infinity War?" That seemed pretty empty!
Granted, as a recent EW article indicates, Carol is apparently a bit of a workaholic (as we'll see in "The Marvels"), but the notion that she would never really find a solution, or that she would find one but not tell Fury, signals a big problem of the late-stage MCU — that the universe has grown too big and convoluted to be cohesive. This is the same problem plaguing world-changing events like the Celestial sticking out of the ocean from "Eternals" that no one ever mentions, or the fact that the only MCU title that even referenced Wakanda revealing itself a superpower was "She-Hulk."
No matter what "Secret Invasion" did, it was never going to live up to the comic because the current MCU cannot accommodate truly game-changing stakes. Though, in theory, every MCU title builds up to the next thing, in practice, these entries are less connected and impacted by one another than "Agents of SHIELD" was by the movies.
What about New Asgard?
Though Gravik and the Skrulls are mad at Fury for not finding them a new home, that is not why they choose to annihilate humanity. Their reasoning is that humans are a hateful, bigoted species who would never accept aliens living among them.
Except we know that simply isn't true (at least in the MCU). While "Black Panther: Wakanda Forever" showed the lengths that the world's superpowers would go through to prevent an African nation from being wealthier than them, we've had two movies showing New Asgard as a peaceful, thriving community. Granted, most Asgardians look human, unlike the Skrulls, but what about Miek, or Korg? Or the other alien creatures that Thor brought with him from Sakaar?
A film like "Thor: Love and Thunder" has other things on its mind and a vastly different tone than "Secret Invasion," so it obviously did not spend a ton of time on how New Asgardians are treated by regular humans or what makes them special. They only showcased New Asgard in that movie because it was introduced in "Avengers: Endgame," a film that definitely did not have time to explore the ramifications of the town's existence.
"Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3" writer/director James Gunn was forced to course correct for events that happened in other movies, something that is becoming more common in the MCU. A title will introduce a massive, game-changing idea, like an alien being sticking out of the ocean, but leave it to other titles to either explore its ramifications or completely ignore them. In the case of "Secret Invasion," they're ignoring the existence of New Asgard. How long until the entirety of the Skrull invasion is ignored and forgotten by the rest of the MCU, or its audience?