When it comes to Marvel’s Secret Invasion, the pipeline of movies to come from the Mouse House may have already spoiled a significant tension point in the show.
This week was the debut of the penultimate episode from the miniseries, which focuses on Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury vanquishing an alien uprising on Earth that threatens to plunge the world into chaos. Part of what makes the Skrull threat so menacing is the aliens’ ability to change their appearance to just about anybody. Don Cheadle’s Colonel James Rhodes, a high-ranking official in the U.S. government, turns out to be one of these conniving extraterrestrials.
Now if this were a stand-alone show, the question might be raised: Where is the real Rhodey, and is he in peril? There could be an opportunity for the audience to feel some kind of tension that Rhodey might die by the show’s concluding episode next week. However, because Secret Invasion is just one cog in the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe machine, this is a moot point.
Have the Disney Plus shows softened the MCU’s storytelling edge?
You see, we already know the answer to whether Rhodey will survive or die. The answer is unequivocal: he will survive because Disney has already announced that Cheadle’s Rhodey will star in an upcoming film, Armor Wars. Though Fury’s fate also seems uncertain in the show, he’s also likely to survive due to his forthcoming appearance in the film The Marvels.
All of this raises the question of whether the pre-emptive announcing of future projects inadvertently evaporates the stakes of Marvel’s Disney Plus shows. Maybe more importantly, it also raises the question of whether shows like Secret Invasion, which so far hasn’t even featured The Avengers themselves, are merely frivolous side distractions from the mainline story.
Who knows, maybe some Earth-shattering revelation that illustrates Marvel still isn’t afraid to take risks will unfold when the final episode of Secret Invasion comes to Disney Plus on July 26.