Brian Michael Bendis Reveals Hilarious Original Title for Marvel’s Secret Invasion

Secret Invasion is the latest Marvel Studios series streaming on Disney+. The Secret Invasion Disney+ show, set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, takes its title from the Secret Invasion comic series Marvel Comics published in 2008 (which the showrunners of Marvel Studios’ Secret Invasion were told not read). However, Secret Invasion wasn’t always the title of that comic book event, and it ended up sticking almost by accident. Marvel.com recently published an oral history of the original Secret Invasion comic book event (Marvel Comics published a Secret Invasion comic book sequel beginning in 2022-2023). In that oral history, Secret Invasion writer Brian Michael Bendis reveals that he had an even more retro and straightforward title in mind for the Skrull-focused Marvel Comics miniseries.

“At one point, it was just called Skrulls! with an exclamation mark with a 1950s logo, like an Aliens!, like a real B-movie alien invasion kind of thing, because we were like, ‘Let’s not be cheeky about it. Just say what it is,’” Bendis recalls. “And the idea of Secret Invasion, of what it is—it’s a secret invasion—and then that was the temp name: well, it’s a secret invasion, we’ll just call it that for now… And then it stuck, and now it’s a logo, and now it’s on Disney+. It’s the strangest feeling in the world when you see something that—like, it was the best title, but it kind of just became the title. It wasn’t selected. It just became the title, and that’s very weird… I was the only one who wanted to call it Skrulls!, by the way.”

Secret Invasion Resurrected Marvel Comics Characters

Part of the fun of Secret Invasion was guessing which Marvel Universe characters were secret Skrulls, beginning with the reveal in New Avengers that the Elektra leading the Hand at the time was a Skrull. The idea that the Skrulls had kidnapped some of the characters they replaced also offered the opportunity to bring back some dead or forgotten Marvel Universe characters, like Mockingbird. The oral history of Secret Invasion also revealed that Marvel considered using the event to restore Spider-Man’s long-dead love Gwen Stacy to life. Ultimately, Marvel didn’t go for it.

“Saying Spider-Woman has been a Skrull since the beginning of New Avengers, that’s not a problem,” editor Tom Breevort said. “Brian knew she was a Skrull when he was writing those stories. It’s baked in, so that’s okay. But you can’t go back and say Gwen Stacy is alive now because that was a Skrull that got thrown off that bridge, because as much as you want Gwen Stacy back, that’s a problem. There are too many stories in which that’s the fundamentals. The thing that’s appealing about it, of course, is it’s transgressive and therefore exciting and therefore dangerous and daring. Yeah, people are going to get upset, but they’ll be excited. That’s always the argument.”

“When it came to me, and I had the final vote, ‘bring Gwen back’ was up by one,” publisher Dan Buckley recalled. “My single vote created a tie. I then said, ‘We’re tied, and in order to change something you need to win the vote…,’ so I essentially gave myself two votes. Some people were not very pleased with me because I gave myself two votes at the end.’

Marvel Studios’ Secret Invasion on Disney+

The latest episode of Marvel’s Secret Invasion on Disney+ included an action-heavy set piece involving a flipping vehicle. The Marvel Cinematic Universe’s United States President Ritson was inside that vehicle. Dermot Mulroney, who plays President Ritson in .

“It was its own separate set, its own separate day. It had nothing to do with the cars and the helicopters and the guns and all that,” Mulroney told us. “They built a gimble. That’s what the machine is called and it spins this way like a clothes dryer, a front-loading clothes dryer. And so to these big iron wheels that they weld together and they make for this stunt shot, one shot, maybe there’s two cameras built into the car. They’ll strap me in. It’s been tested completely with stuntmen. With the way they strapped me in, double strap, clipped in harness, et cetera. This is how they would do it. And then they turn the mother on and we go. I’m in there alone like a Disney ride. It literally is. It was exhilarating.”

He continued, “I think we did it maybe a half a dozen times. It would go about four or five times. They had it perfectly programmed, but it’s an electric mode. I mean, it’s a guy with a stop button and a go button, but it had some either go faster or go slower. So they were refining that and tweaking camera. My tie landed in my face one time. That’s no good. We gotta go again.”

The MCU’s top superspy Nick Fury is back in Secret Invasion, the limited series that premiered June 21st on Disney+. Samuel L. Jackson returns in the new Marvel Studios series, showcasing Fury’s attempt to get to the bottom of a Skrull invasion that goes all the way to the most powerful positions in various governments and organizations on the planet. In Secret Invasion, Fury teams with allies Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders), Everett Ross (Martin Freeman), and Talos (Ben Mendelsohn), while James Rhodes AKA War Machine will appear in a mysterious capacity. Other newcomers to the Marvel Cinematic Universe include Emilia Clarke, Olivia Colman, and Kingsley Ben-Adir.