The Marvels Binge List

If all goes well, I’ll finally be back to the movie theater in the coming month. We’re vaguely planning on taking our three-year-old to the new Paw Patrol movie, but you can probably guess from the title that I’m not writing about Paw Patrol today (note to self: blog post about why Rubble is the best pup on the Paw Patrol). So instead of the pups, let’s focus on three marvelous ladies headlining in the MCU’s next month. So here’s what you need to review to be ready for The Marvels.

Captain Marvel (2 hours 4 min)

By no means is she the first Avenger (see Captain America), but she was the one who inspired the Avengers Initiative. I don’t understand the hate that Captain Marvel gets and I don’t think I’ll ever understand. First time I saw this movie, I really enjoyed it. Now that I have two daughters, I like having a powerful female hero, who refused to lower herself to the standards of a man who had oppressed her.

Avengers: Endgame (3 hours 2 min)

I was vastly disappointed in how little Endgame used Captain Marvel. A bit at the beginning and then a power house during the final battle. I had expected her to be part of the main action (at least somewhat). Instead she was just somewhere up in space being underutilized by the Avengers. Disappointing. Biggest thing we got from her was a bad haircut.

WandaVision (9 episodes)

Pivot to another one of the Marvels, as Monica investigated Wanda’s incident in Westview. After multiple times going through the Hex, someone was blessed with super powers. Interesting to see her only exploring the beginnings of her powers in WandaVision before the series ended and she was taken away to Fury’s ship.

Shang-Chi (2 hours 12 min)

I’d watch this movie again just for the heck of it, but Captain Marvel only appears in the credit scene. Again, underutilized. Even for a credit scene. At least it establishes the continued connection between the Avengers (or at least between Wong, Captain Marvel, and Banner).

Ms. Marvel (6 episodes)

I had so many hopes for this series. Mostly hoping they’d have re-introduced Inhumans, but instead they hinted at Ms. Marvel being the first official mutant (and yet we’re no closer to getting the X-Men). But this is probably the part of The Marvels that I’m most excited for. Seeing Kamala fangirl over meeting Carol Danvers is going to be a sight to be seen. Especially after seeing Captain Marvel suddenly appear in the Khan home.

Secret Invasion (6 episodes)

Another series I had so many hopes for (but that was my problem, as I previously wrote about). Again, I hoped they’d re-introduce Inhumans (come on, Marvel, where’s Quake!?) but instead we got a weird super-powered Skrull. As if Skrulls aren’t powerful enough as it is. With how this series ended, I definitely lacked closure on everything with Fury and the Skrulls… but maybe some of that will be resolved during The Marvels. Please?

And in the meantime, while I wait for The Marvels, I’m going to keep watching Loki Season 2. I enjoyed the premiere, but we’ll see how the rest of the season goes. Curious how this season will proceed, as this may be the last time we see Kang before Phase Six. Who knows?

The Real Secret Invasion was my Expectations

Back when I watched Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, I looked forward to the Secret Invasion saga, as my brother had told me about it. There were some parts I thought could have been better, but overall I enjoyed it. So when Marvel announced they were doing a Disney Plus series for Secret Invasion, I was excited and immediately expected greatness. That was my first mistake. Expectations.

I’ve said in previous Marvel reviews (like Love and Thunder, for example) that the reason people like to complain about what Marvel puts out is because of their own expectations. Never having read the comics, I’ve been free to enjoy the content of She-Hulk, WandaVision, and other post-Endgame epics without comparing them to the source content. But with Secret Invasion, I had Earth’s Mightiest Heroes to compare.

I guess there were just a few parts of the version I’d seen that felt integral to the story, but weren’t present in the MCU. For example, I remember it being a much bigger deal in Earth's Mightiest Heroes to find the missing heroes. There was a whole saga of trying to find the real Cap and everyone. Of course they wouldn’t use Steve Rogers on this one, but they could have easily used Rhodey. We also didn’t get Fury’s Secret Warriors. Come on! Where’s my girl Quake? I had seen theories that Daisy Johnson would become Fury’s right hand after Hill’s death, but nope.

But again. Expectations. If I’d never seen Earth’s Mightiest Heroes (or if I’d been able to let go of my expectations) maybe I’d have enjoyed the MCU version more. As a spy thriller, it was intriguing and engaging. The conspiracy and uncertainty kept me coming back each week. I loved how they explained what Fury has been up to since the Blip. That being said, he was a different kind of Fury and I’m still not sure if I like the change. The only part of the spy thriller aspect that I have an honest issue with is the final battle.

So G'iah ended up being Super Skrulled and fighting Gravik. The fight itself was actually pretty great. But it started suddenly and ended pretty abruptly. For how much build-up there was, I expected it to last longer I guess. Meanwhile, Fury talks his way out of the stand-off with the President… and then the President decides to turn the country (and probably a good chunk of the world) against the Skrulls. And we still don’t have confirmation of a season 2. Or a movie sequel. It could have led into an “Avengers: Secret Invasion” film. Instead, we had one or two named characters as Skrulls and then we wrapped up the story.

No “Avengers: Secret Invasion” on the horizon as far as I know. Just Kang Dynasty and Secret Wars… I’ve seen Secret Wars in the 90s Spider-Man series and in Disney’s Avengers Assemble. I’ll start now to keep my expectations down. I mean I suppose we'll get G'iah and Sonya teaming up at some point.

I just have one question: How long were Ross and Rhodey in there?

Secret Invasion Binge List

As Secret Invasion approaches on Disney Plus, I’m excited to see what Marvel will make of this intriguing storyline. My brother had told me about this plot from the comics years ago and then I saw it play out in cartoon form in Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. Now we get to see it in live-action. I can only hope that Daisy Johnson (aka Quake) will return, as she was part of Fury’s team in the comics and cartoon. But since Agents of SHIELD is kind of semi-canon… we’ll see. There are two aspects of this show we know though: it will contain Nick Fury and the Skrulls. So let’s review Director Fury and his experience with these shapeshifters.

Captain Marvel

This prequel movie was Fury’s first encounter with the Skrulls, as well as ours. As a misunderstood faction of the shapeshifters infiltrated Earth, they sought only for the discovery and safety of their families. Along the way becoming allies with Carol, Fury, and Maria, they fought off the Kree before fleeing into space with Captain Marvel as their protector. We wouldn’t see the Skrulls again (knowingly at least) for many years yet.

Iron Man and Iron Man 2

This was our first present-day appearance of Director Fury. In the credits scene of Iron Man, he approached Tony Stark about the Avengers Initiative. Six months later, he set Black Widow undercover in Stark’s company to evaluate him. After helping Tony Stark save himself, Fury left as quickly as he’d arrived.

Thor

In the credit scene for Thor’s inaugural movie, we see Selvig in the aftermath of New Mexico, teaming up with SHIELD and Fury, leading directly into the events of The Avengers. Unfortunately, it’s obvious to the viewer that Loki is along for the ride with Selvig.

Captain America: The First Avenger

Again, Fury only makes a short appearance (he’s good at those). This time he appears in Times Square, welcoming Steve Rogers (aka Captain America) to the 21st Century. Defrosted after nearly 70 years, it understandably takes Steve a few minutes to acclimatize. 

The Avengers

A major player in this movie, Fury is the one who gets the Avengers together. It was his pet project after all, as we learned in Captain Marvel. First he was sending Widow to recruit Banner and then he was bringing Cap in himself. After Coulson’s death, Fury rallied them together and gave them someone to avenge (Coulson, of course) in the Battle of New York. He also helped them give the World Security Council the slip after the battle. 

Agents of SHIELD

Season 1, Episode 2

After assigning Coulson and his new team to the Bus, they got it wrecked leaving South America. So naturally Fury showed up to tell Coulson off, in a semi-humorous ending to the episode. Fury made a note to warn Coulson about his recruit, Skye. Things turned out okay in the end, so maybe that means Fury will recruit her as Quake to help in Secret Invasion (I’m going to keep dreaming).

Season 1, Episode 22

This episode takes place after Winter Soldier, but I’ll talk about it here while I’m already under the SHIELD heading. On his way to Europe after the events of Winter Soldier, Fury catches the signal of a stranded FitzSimmons. After rescuing them, it's off to help Coulson beat Garrett. And he does. And Fury goes off to do Fury-type stuff (starting to form his Secret Invasion team maybe?).

Captain America: The Winter Soldier

I loved this team up of Falcon, Cap, and Widow. This movie is largely considered one of the best MCU movies and it’s not hard to see why. In a way, this movie probably set in motion Fury recruiting his private team for Secret Invasion. With the fall of SHIELD and Fury’s supposed death, it creates a power vacuum and I wouldn’t be surprised if the Skrulls used this vacuum to begin advancing their invasion. It was also nice to see Fury in more of a major role, instead of making an appearance that lasted maybe five minutes like many MCU movies.

Avengers: Age of Ultron

So after the Avengers get their butts and minds kicked by Wanda, they take a little respite at the Barton Homestead. And it’s there that Fury shows up to give the Avengers the needed pep talk (and some intel about where to go next to fight Ultron). With the Avengers on the mission, Fury goes to pick up Coulson’s fleet of helicarriers (per the Theta Protocol in Agents of SHIELD). And with Ultron defeated and the New Avengers Facility up and running, Fury slips back into the shadows. 

Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame

While the Avengers are off fighting Thanos and the SHIELD team is off fighting Graviton, Fury and Hill are in Atlanta doing who-knows-what. Just as things are heating up, they start dusting into the air. But not before Fury can use his pager to call Captain Marvel. The next time we see Fury, it’s at Tony’s funeral. Or maybe it was never Fury… you’d never know if a Skrull got dusted instead of him. Peter Parker certainly didn’t know… but we’ll get to that in the next section.

Spider-Man: Far From Home

We’re led to believe that Fury is featured throughout this movie (only to find out in the credits scene that he’s off-world and Talos is covering for him). However, that doesn’t mean the appearance of “Nick Fury” with Spider-Man is meaningless. Fury obviously trusted Talos enough to leave him in charge and to play him. And this Skrull does a pretty good job (though I’d say he doesn’t have Fury’s instincts, or else he wouldn’t have trusted Mysterio). 

WandaVision

Season 1, Episode 9

After Monica Rambeau became super-powered during the events of WandaVision, a Skrull messenger was sent to touch base with her. This takes place during the mid-credits scene, so hopefully you didn’t miss it. It’s likely that she was recruited to help Fury. Only makes sense I suppose.

In addition to what I've already noted for Fury and Talos, we've also been told that Rhodey and Agent Ross will be appearing. If you want to watch Rhodey's story, I'd say to check out the Iron Man movies (all 3) and the Avengers movies (2-4). For Everett Ross, check out Civil War and both Black Panther movies.

So now we wait. Who’s a Skrull? Who’s human? And who’s a Skrull we can trust? And will we finally get to see Quake in the proper MCU? Come on and make Agents of SHIELD fully canon! But that could be a pipe dream. Only time will tell who’s in Fury’s inner circle.