Marvel's Secret Invasion Could Still Happen, Assures Kevin Feige

The Skrulls are some of the most famous villains in Marvel Comics, and it all lead to an epic comic book crossover storyline called "Secret Invasion" that ran through a self-titled eight issue limited series and several tie-in books from April through December 2008. With the introduction of the Skrulls in 2019's Captain Marvel, it was no surprise that fans expected the film to plant the seeds for an eventual Secret Invasion movie. But while evidence points to the contrary, Marvel studios chief Kevin Feige won't rule it out.

Spoilers for Captain Marvel follow.

The Skrulls have been around since 1962, with the shape-shifting aliens first making their debut in Fantastic Four #2. And while they played a central role in long-running Marvel Comics arcs like the Kree-Skrull war, they didn't present themselves as a truly fearsome threat until the 2008 "Secret Invasion" series by Brian Michael Bendis and Leinil Yu. The series revealed that the Skrulls had infiltrated Earth for decades, replacing many of the Earth's heroes and infiltrating the inner echelons of the Avengers. It was a game-changing series that had reverberations through all of Marvel's titles.

But, despite fervent fan theories that Ben Mendelsohn's Talos would be leading a similar invasion in Captain Marvel, it doesn't seem like we'll be getting Secret Invasion in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. In Captain Marvel, the Skrulls were revealed to be victims of the militant Kree Empire — not on Earth to stage a great invasion, but as refugees fleeing their impending annihilation. With the Skrulls now solidly portrayed as good guys, this seems to cancel out any chance of a Secret Invasion movie. However, in /Film's Peter Sciretta's interview with Feige, the Marvel Studios president hints that we shouldn't rule it out:

"I don't think it means that at all. I think it means that the Skrulls are as diverse and a multilayered as any other intelligent life form. Certainly like humanity itself. And we happen to see good ones. I think there are probably better ones out there as well, like there are with any fully realized characters. But yes, the idea is certainly was to subvert the expectation of the pointy eared green aliens. And Ben Mendelsohn and even subverting people's assumption that Ben Mendelsohn will be playing the villain."

So we may have seen the good side of the Skrulls, embodied by Mendelsohn's Talos, who is revealed to be a good-natured soldier fighting for the safety of his family. But there's a possibility that we'll meet more Skrulls down the line who don't have Talos' noble spirit, or sense of humor. Perhaps a Secret Invasion movie could play a major part in the mysterious Phase 4 of the MCU, which is set to go cosmic. We'll have to wait and see.