Given that the title of the series is in fact Secret Invasion, you’d expect the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s upcoming Disney Plus series to deal in themes of stealth, subterfuge, and paranoia.
While that may be true to a certain extent, the fact Nick Fury has been off-world since at least Spider-Man: Far From Home indicates that he’s more than aware of what’s been going on, with the infiltration of Skrulls having been in motion since as far back as 1995 when the two-eyed rookie S.H.I.E.L.D. agent first crossed paths with Carol Danvers.
Speaking to ComicBook, returning MCU stalwart Cobie Smulders dropped hints that the intergalactic interlopers have been building an earthbound army for a lot longer than most people realize, even if Fury isn’t going to be one of them.
“When we think about the world that they’re in, the Skrulls have been around since we saw them in Captain Marvel. They’ve been building in numbers, are they good? Are they bad? We’re going to find out in the show. But there’s certainly a lot of them and so it sort of turns into this. Can I trust you? Can I not trust you? And it’s really cool. It’s certainly fraught with a lot of tension.”
With the Multiverse Saga in full swing, throwing shapeshifting aliens into the mix that could realistically overthrow any of the franchise’s marquee heroes is another intriguing storytelling wrinkle, especially when it’s giving Samuel L. Jackson what seems to be his most substantial story arc to date.
Who could be a Skrull? It could be anyone, it could even be the person next to you, but in the context of the MCU, we’ll find out in spring 2023 when Secret Invasion premieres.