Seemingly over before it had even started, Kyle Bradstreet’s Secret Invasion has rolled the credits on its six-episode miniseries. Pitched as the long-awaited Nick Fury standalone for Samuel L. Jackson’s Marvel Cinematic Universe staple, we were warned this would only loosely adapt the 2008 comic arc of the same name. Still, did anyone expect things to go down quite like that?
With just six episodes and an average runtime of 40 minutes, critics feel that things were rushed toward July 26’s “Home.” Rounding off the stories of Fury, Gravik (Kingsley Ben-Adir), and G’iah (Emilia Clarke), as well as shoehorning in Super Skrulls AND setting up Nia DaCosta’s The Marvels and Julius Onah’s Captain America: Brave New World was a lot for just 38 minutes (including credits).
With the writers throwing the kitchen sink at the Secret Invasion finale, it makes sense that a seemingly glaring plot hole slipped through the net. Still, those eagle-eyed fans don’t miss a trick and have taken to Reddit to pull the whole thing apart. After the Secret Invasion finale aired, one viewer pointed out a pretty glaring issue: that the human hostages at New Skrullos didn’t seem to be affected by its deadly radiation.
Secret Invasion‘s first episode explained how due to the Skrulls being immune to radiation poisoning, the species was hiding out in the nuclear wasteland of a Russian power plant. When Fury went to see Gravik at the start of Episode 6, he was supposed to take iodine pills to counteract the effects. We saw a sickly Fury succumb to radiation poisoning and Gravik thinking he’d won. This didn’t actually matter, as this version of Fury was G’iah posing as him while the real Fury helped Sonya Falsworth (Olivia Colman) rescue President Ritson (Dermot Mulroney).
The finale ended with G’iah transforming into a Super Skrull alongside Gravik, having bested him using the powers of Captain Marvel and then freeing the trapped humans in New Skrullos. As a reminder, Skrulls had been masquerading as various political movers and shakers, while the humans were kept imprisoned in New Skrullos. G’iah rescued the likes of Martin Freeman’s Everett Ross and Don Cheadle’s James Rhodes, with Rhodey being warned to take it easy because he’d been “held hostage for a long time.”
Seeing how Gravik thought the radiation would quickly incapacitate Fury, disgruntled fans are questioning why Rodes and co. haven’t had their skin melted off. Some claim that the humans were likely held in an underground facility that might’ve had more protection, but as Faux Fury’s Geiger counter showed, the radiation levels in New Skrullos are off the charts. One sceptic grumbled, “This describes the entire Post-Endgame MCU. Almost every project has had some major issue that could be easily fixed if someone objectively just looked at it once.”
Someone else joked, “That’s a show written by an AI for sure,” mocking the show’s divisive AI opening. As someone else pointed out, “Something something alien technology…” Many suggested the Skrull pods kept them safe, with tubes for feeding and waste also potentially pumping an iodine solution into their bloodstream. The general consensus is that Skrull tech kept the hosts alive, but for many, it’s just lazy and convenient writing. If Skrulls absorb a human’s memories when they take their form, there doesn’t seem to be any reason to keep them alive at all.
This isn’t the only plot hole doing the rounds post-Secret Invasion. Elsewhere, it was pointed out that Ant-Man and the Wasp’s Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen) shouldn’t have her DNA in the Avengers database. The whole point of “The Harvest” is that Skrulls headed out onto the Avengers: Endgame battlefield to collect the DNA of the heroes and villains that bled there. This explains how Corvus Glaive and Thanos ended up in the mix, but unless we’re missing a trick, Ghost was nowhere near the battle. Was this just a way to remind us that the character exists ahead of Hannah John-Kamen reprising her role for Thunderbolts?
We doubt the writers are too fussed with the odd plot hole here and there, but with Secret Invasion not being the end of the story for the Skrull invasion – and them poised to play a part in The Marvels – we could revisit the cocoon conundrum again. Notably, the potential Secret Invasion plot holes hammer home the fact it feels like a rushed series that either left key details on the cutting room floor or was never that bothered with them in the first place. No matter what, there are sure to be those who think even if Secret Invasion had nine episodes like She-Hulk, it would’ve still ended up as a middling mess of plot holes and filler arcs.