Phase 5’s biggest Marvel death yet is a huge disappointment – and incredibly frustrating

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Forget everything you thought you knew about the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Secret Invasion turns the massive franchise on its head. The gritty thriller that follows Spy stories à la John le Carré oriented, tells of a huge conspiracy that could turn the entire MCU inside out. For three decades, the earth has been infiltrated by aliens who are now taking control.

Secret Invasion, the latest MCU series to come to Disney+, comes with an extremely gripping premise and makes it clear in the first five minutes that we can’t trust any character. Even Martin Freeman’s innocent face hides a villain! Nothing and no one is safe in Secret Invasion. This should also clarify the end of the first episode. But the shot backfires.

Secret Invasion makes Maria Hill a pawn: Cobie Smulders deserves better

In the final minutes of the Secret Invasion opener, we find ourselves in a public square in Moscow. Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) and his team try to stop an attack. However, the former SHIELD boss miscalculates enormously and has to Death of his oldest allies watch: Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders) is shot by the Skrull Gravik (Kingsley Ben-Adir).

You can watch the trailer for Secret Invasion here:

It’s the first major death we witness in the fifth MCU phase – assuming it’s a real death and none of the many fake deathsthat we have experienced in blockbuster cinema in recent years. As of Episode 1 of Secret Invasion, it looks like Maria Hill is no longer among the living in the MCU. Blood spurts from her abdominal wound. But the moment doesn’t have penetrating power.

Cobie Smulders has been part of the MCU for eleven years. Her first appearance as Maria Hill was in Marvel’s The Avengers. To date, no film has succeeded in giving the character a level that goes beyond the mandatory SHIELD face walks out next to Agent Coulson (Clark Gregg). Secret Invasion would have been the great opportunity to deepen the character. Instead, she was simply presented as a pawn sacrifice.

Maria Hill’s death lacks any real fall and comes for the direst of reasons

Maria Hill’s death should shock and give Fury motivation for the rest of the episodes. It feels so unfair and wrong, bringing Smulders back for a supposedly big moment after all those years on the bench, only to bowl her character right out of the series. Neither Secret Invasion nor the MCU have done any preliminary work to give this event an emotional framework.

Once again, a female character from the second row is used to illustrate the character development of a male character who has played a key role for years. Apart from this the loss lacks any height of fall. It’s a calculated death that serves as a kickoff for a new series that hasn’t yet found a foothold in pop culture discourse. Big enough to give fans a quick wake-up call, but small enough to just keep going afterwards.

There’s one scene in Secret Invasion that explores Hill and Fury’s relationship: when the two meet after a long time – half estranged, half bonded by shared memories – sitting at a chessboard. Actually, this is a beautiful picture about two figures between friendship and strategy to position. But Secret Invasion never gets back to it.

In Secret Invasion it becomes clear what the MCU has been missing in recent years

The scene leaves an unpleasant alibi taste. It exists to give at least some meaning to eventual death. But something sincere that shows us the inner turmoil of the characters really felt, does not exist. Maria Hill’s death feels meaningless – but not meaningless in the style of a chilled spy thriller that makes desolate victims in solitude.

Hill’s death stems from effects thinking, not history. The 1st episode of Secret Invasion wants to end with a big bang and choose the easiest way. For a series that could work with so many nuances and ambivalences, this is a disappointing start. Instead of ripping the rug out from under our feet, everything suddenly feels indifferent.

In the middle of Phase 5, the MCU faces a problem: Characters that have never been properly expanded are supposed to create a big storyline out of nothing. However, they have no history to draw on to give weight to their current actions. Hill and Fury’s memories are pure claims. The pieces are just pushed around on the MCU chessboard, with no emotion and no strategy.

Podcast: Is Secret Invasion the Marvel Series Nick Fury Deserved After 15 Years of MCU?

Eight months after She-Hulk, the Marvel Cinematic Universe is back with the new Secret Invasion series on Disney+. The result is amazingly serious and brutal. In the podcast we reveal whether it’s worth taking a look at the series.

With no superheroes or multiverses, Nick Fury is drawn into a global Skrull conspiracy and gets to star in the MCU for the first time in 15 years. But is the series starring Samuel L. Jackson and Game of Thrones star Emilia Clarke any good? We took a closer look at this in the series check of the first two episodes.

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