‘Secret Invasion’ episode 5’s funeral scene pours salt in the wound of Marvel’s most appalling oversight

Now that Ben Mendelsohn’s Talos has been given a final sendoff in the latest episode of Secret Invasion, it begs the question, how come we never did get a proper funeral for a much bigger character in the Marvel Cinematic Universe who died years ago?

At the end of Secret Invasion episode 4, Talos is stabbed by Kingsley Ben-Adir’s Gravik, putting an end to a character who we’ve seen in not only the espionage show currently playing on Disney Plus but also the 2019 film Captain Marvel. Don’t get us wrong, we love Talos and wouldn’t mind seeing him in more projects outside Secret Invasion, Captain Marvel, and his brief appearance in the post-credit scene from Spider-Man Far From Home. However, how come he got a funeral and Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow did not?

Granted, the humble funeral pyre scene in Secret Invasion episode 5 reflected Talos’ distaste for “pageantry,” as Charlayne Woodard’s Priscilla points out. But at least he did get some kind of ceremony in any capacity. Meanwhile, Natasha Romanoff saved the world numerous times to the point that she was a publicly-known celebrity. She’s even depicted as a character in Rogers: The Musical in the world of the MCU (as we see in Hawkeye) thanks to her hand at fighting back the Chitauri Invasion in 2012’s The Avengers. Talos, on the other hand, was not even a public figure at all as his identity was largely kept secret.

Black Widow’s selfless sacrifice

As we all know by now, Black Widow sacrificed her life to retrieve the Soul Stone in the events of Avengers: Endgame. And the public also knows of her sacrifice since some artwork on the walls of a vigil in a brief scene in Ms. Marvel at least acknowledges her death in some capacity. So why was a character considered a main hero in the Marvel franchise and appeared in nine of its films, including the titular Black Widow, not given a funeral of her own at this point?

Even in Endgame, Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark got a massive funeral but not Natasha. They could have easily made it a double funeral of some kind. For instance, in the shot where it pans past Tony’s old arc reactor suspended on water, the camera move could have easily continued to reveal Natasha’s trusty pair of Glocks lovingly resting on a pillow floating next to Iron Man’s first artificial heart.

At this point, the lack of Natasha getting a proper funeral scene is becoming a bigger and bigger insult as time goes on in the MCU. C’mon, Marvel.