Marvel Comics has often found creative ways to bring back heroes from the dead, but 18 years ago the company brought back multiple dead heroes in a way that actually made sense. In the early days of Marvel Comics, high tech or mystical actions were needed to bring characters back from the dead. In Avengers #9 in 1964, Wonder Man died, but the energy that gave him powers ended up somehow keeping him alive, but in a dead-like state. When Jean Grey died, Marvel had to change things to make it show that Dark Phoenix had only formed to look like Jean, while the real Jean weas alive somewhere else.
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On April 2, 2008, Marvel Comics released Secret Invasion #1 and one of the biggest reveals in that was the news that the Skrulls had infiltrated Earth and replaced many of Earth’s heroes, which means many of the dead Marvel characters at that time were in fact Skrulls who died, and the real heroes remained alive and were held as captives.
Secret Invasion Brought Several Heroes Back From the Dead
The revelation all started when Elektra died and then suddenly reverted into a Skrull. Of course, the big problem here is that Iron Man revealed to Redd Richards and Hank Pym what he discovered and asks them to find out why the Skrulls are undetectable, which was a change from the past. This was a problem because Hank was also a Skrull. The next thing that happens is a Skrull shop landing in the Savage Land. The New Avengers (who were still fugitives from the Civil War) and Iron Man’s team shows up, and before they can fight each other, the Skrull ship opens and several Marvel heroes come out.
This led to the revelation of who the Skrulls on Earth had been all that time. The first dead hero that was revealed as as Skrull was Elektra, which started the entire storyline. Black Bolt was also a Skrull, and he betrayed the Illuminati, and this was important since it was the Illuminati’s threats that caused the Skrulls to plan this attack anyway. Of course, Hank Pym was a Skrull, as he betrayed Reed Richards at the start of the story as well.
The biggest shock was that Spider-Woman was a Skrull, and she was, in fact, the Skrull Queen, Veranke. It turned out that Spider-Woman had been a Skrull since she returned to Marvel as a member of the New Avengers and Hank Pym had been a Skrull for several years, including during the entire Civil War, where he worked with Iron Man on the pre-registration side. One character who “returned from the dead” never returned at all, as this was Mockingbird, who was sent in to cause distrust, especially with her ex-husband Hawkeye. Other Skrulls impersonating heroes included Jarvis, Mar-Vell, Longshot, Bother Voodoo, Dum Dum Duggan, Contessa Valentina Allegra de la Fontaine, and several members of the Fifty State Initiative.
With the revelation of the heroes replaced, many of the original Marvel heroes came back to life, including Spider-Woman and Elektra. However, others remained dead (Captain Mar-Vell) and others ended up dying, including Janet Van Dyne (Skrull Hank Pym used her as a bomb) and Jarvis, who was killed by Bullseye after the Skrull impostor was exposed.
The MCU Failed Secret Invasion on Disney+
For Secret Invasion to become a successful adaptation, it never could have been presented as a movie. There were too many moving parts and moments to fit into a two or three hour movie. A streaming series seemed the best bet, and when the MCU announced it was happening, Marvel fans got excited. What resulted was one of the most disappointing MCU projects of all time and Secret Invasion was one of the worst Disney+ MCU series ever released.
There are multiple reasons this was a failure, and the biggest is that the MCU could only use a certain amount of heroes to keep the costs down. This was after Avengers: Endgame, so Iron Man was already gone, although as the comic showed, this could have been a way to bring back dead heroes. However, there was only one hero used here and it was War Machine, as a Skrull replaced Rhodey (and Everett Ross). There was one major death, and it was the much-derided murder of Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders), one of the most hated moments in the series.
Instead of focusing on the Skrull invasion, this was instead turned into a story about Skrulls on the run and in hiding, and a human population that feared them. This was a fantastic idea for a story, and it could have been great if it had been called anything other than Secret Invasion. Instead, it was a huge disappointment that didn’t do anything special like the comic book storyline did, and instead just meandered itself way through a story with some high points (the bigotry that should return in the X-Men movies) and some terrible lows (the Super Skrull was highly disappointing).
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