Secret Invasion
TV · 2023 · Phase Five
Nick Fury, aged and out of practice after years running S.W.O.R.D. from orbit, returns to Earth when he learns that a militant faction of shapeshifting Skrulls has spent years secretly infiltrating human institutions. Led by the disillusioned Gravik, this faction rejects the promise Fury once made to find the Skrulls a new homeworld and instead plots to seize Earth for themselves, triggering a bombing in Moscow that escalates tensions toward global war. Early on, Gravik — disguised as Fury — shoots and kills Maria Hill, and Fury is forced to work with his old Skrull ally Talos and agent Everett Ross to root out the infiltrators before the coup succeeds. The series is a paranoid espionage thriller in which nearly any character could secretly be a shapeshifted impostor, and it is later revealed that War Machine (Rhodey) has for some time actually been a Skrull impostor, Raava, who manipulates President Ritson toward a nuclear strike on the Skrulls' hidden colony — a plot Fury stops by killing the fake Rhodey. The season culminates in Talos's death at Gravik's hands and, later, Gravik's own death when G'iah — having secretly dosed herself with the Harvest, a cache of superhuman DNA gathered from the Battle of Earth — overpowers him, leaving Fury shaken and the Skrull refugee crisis unresolved.
Follows on from
- Captain Marvelprequel — Directly follows on from Fury's alliance with the Skrull Talos and his promise to help the displaced Skrulls find a new home, the broken promise that drives Gravik's rebellion.
- Avengers: Endgamecameo-only · optional — The Harvest, the vial of superhuman DNA central to Gravik's plan to create Super-Skrulls, is secretly collected from Avengers and other heroes who bled at the Battle of Earth.