‘Secret Invasion’s Super Skrull Battle Was Kevin Feige’s Idea

SPOILER ALERT- This article contains details from the finale of Secret Invasion. You have been warned.

Secret Invasion, and specifically the show’s finale, have proven to be extremely divisive among Marvel fans.

While expectations were high for the show, which saw Samuel L. Jackson’s Nicky Fury return from space in order to stop the Skrull Invasion, the end result has been labeled a missed opportunity.

Photo: Marvel

In fact, when the dust settled, Earth may have been worse off than when Fury arrived.

While the now Super-Skrull G’iah was able to defeat Gravik and stop his genocidal plans, after surviving an assassination attempt, the President of the United States declared war on all extraterrestrials.

Photo: Marvel

A Controversal Finale

Perhaps the most controversial aspect of Secret Invasion was the show’s ending and the new MCU power hierarchy that it created.

After injecting the DNA of various Avengers into their systems, both G’iah and Graveck became Super-Skrulls, beings with all kinds of superpowers.

Photo: Marvel

Not only did this ending provide for an overly CGI-reliant conclusion, but it also made G’iah, the battle’s winner, stronger than every other Marvel character.

For fans who have followed the development of various heroes over the years, it felt like a cheap shortcut.

Photo: Marvel

The Super-Skrull Fight Was Kevin Feige’s Idea

According to director Ali Selim, the idea of the Super Skrull battle, and specifically giving G’iah such immense power, came from MCU head Kevin Feige himself.

Source: Kevin Feige | Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic

“It starts with Kevin Feige, who says ‘We’re gonna have a Super Skrull fight and all superpowers are fair game. I think that is actually best communicated in the moment where Gravik takes the vial from Fury and puts it in the computer for analysis. We see oh, it is all the superpowers scrolling up here. Then honestly, it’s a discussion of paper, scissors rock, which superpower from G’iah is going to dominate a superpower from Gravik? Paper, scissors rock, which superpower from Gravik is going to dominate G’iah momentarily? It’s also just a little bit of choreography and visual elegance or beauty, just making it work. There were some transitions from a superpower to another superpower that made sense in story that just didn’t look good. So we shifted the story to accommodate the choreography.”

Photo: Marvel

Following its release, the final episode of Secret Invasion became the lowest-rated episode of Marvel television ever. As of this writing, the episode holds a disastrous 8% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Salim Defends ‘Secret Invasion’s’ Finale

While the overall story of Secret Invasion has largely been labeled as a missed opportunity, it was the final confrontation between G’iah and Gravek that received the brunt of the criticism.

Photo Credit: Marvel

In spite of the fact that the scene’s VFX effects were derided by fans and critics alike, Salim defended the battle.

“It’s a show that’s done on a human scale and, for me, the best way to achieve that is actors in an actual practical location. So I pushed for that as often as I could, because I think performance is different when they’re actually touching a door and not pretending to touch a blue screen door. It’s the same with that fight. We storyboarded that fight for months. We revised the storyboards. Stunts helped us revise how it would go, what was possible, what was a constraint. And we shot it mostly on location, but there’s some things that had to be blue screen,” Salim said.

Source: Marvel Studios

“But ultimately, I think the decision was made that as little of the Skrull power, as possible, would be practical, because there were constraints about shifting from this power to that power [because it] looks funny. There’s a more elegant way of choreographing it, I think that was just better done in visual effects. And so kudos to Aharon Bourland, the head of the visual effects department. Who really made that fight as elegant and beautiful as it ended up being.”

Marvel Turns to Loki

With Secret Invasion in the rear-view mirror, Marvel will turn its attention to Loki Season 2.

The show will hit Disney+ on October 6, 2023.

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