You can’t have a debate about the MCU’s dumbest moments and not bring up ‘Secret Invasion’

It’s been more than two weeks since Secret Invasion concluded, and fans aren’t tired of ridiculing it. The much-hyped show was supposed to be a tense and complex espionage story featuring several top-tier actors, but proved to be a catastrophically plotted nightmare that many want Marvel to retcon out of existence as soon as possible.

So, when r/Marvel_Studios began debating “the dumbest thing that’s ever happened in the MCU”, we weren’t surprised to see Secret Invasion pop up. Gripes include killing Talos and Maria Hill “for nothing at all”, Nick Fury intentionally giving Gravik Super-Skrull powers and rolling the dice on G’iah being able to kill him, and – of course – the terrible idea that Don Cheadle’s James Rhodes has been a Skrull since Captain America: Civil War.

Other comments lay into the show setting “a new bar of stupidity”, that it has “very little redeemable qualities” and the smart suggestion that Marvel should “just rebrand the entire experience as a season of What If…?” and promptly ignore it forever.

That said, Secret Invasion doesn’t stand alone in a “dumbest Marvel moments” discussion. The decision to release Black Widow after the character had died in Avengers: Endgame is up there, as well as wasting actors like Christian Bale and Christopher Eccleston on bad Thor villains, and well, literally everything about Inhumans.

There will always be recency bias when it comes to fan debates like these, but we suspect Secret Invasion will be a mainstay on dumbest moments lists for years to come yet.