Disney+'s SECRET INVASION show (2022?) 5 5

[Bosco685]

On 8/1/2023 at 9:40 AM, fantastic_four said:

I think that's wrong. 

Spoiler

Pretty much all of the directors have indicated that there's a limit they know to the ongoing Marvel story, and this director is explicitly indicating he doesn't know in the text you cited and that if his guess is wrong then the real answer will emerge by Armor Wars.

Which begs the question of who DOES know what the ongoing story across series is?  With Star Wars that was George Lucas, and Kathleen Kennedy has done a VERY poor job of curating the story--or assigning someone else to the task--since Lucas gave it up.  That used to be the Marvel Creative Committee back when Marvel Studios was under Ike Perlmutter, but I'm fuzzy on who that is now.  Is it Feige himself?  One of his main reports?  I don't know, but it's clear it's not the directors of the individual works.  I've heard too many of them now state they don't know the elements of stories outside of their own specific movie or series.

But I really would like to know the names of the people curating the ongoing storyline.  Anyone know?

 

I say right. You say wrong. And life goes on.

[fantastic_four]

On 8/1/2023 at 9:41 AM, fantastic_four said:

On 8/1/2023 at 9:31 AM, fantastic_four said:

Has anyone seen a list of the powers the super skrulls were using during their battle?  Saw some Hulk, saw some Korg rocks, saw plenty of Captain Marvel...who else?  What was the ice sword hand that Emilia Clarke had, whose power was that?

Oh, and it was clear Gravik was doing some Ebony Maw.  His arm turned into Maw's emaciated, gray-skinned arm, and he appeared to telekinetically hurl Emilia Clarke like Ebony Maw does.

Googled this a bit and can't find a comprehensive list, but some other ones I saw mentioned were Mantis when Emilia Clarke puts Gravik to sleep, Groot in previous episodes when Gravik uses his arm like it's made of tree vines or branches to impale someone (why did he have Groot's power back then, and was it the only one he had?), Drax and Abomination in addition to Hulk in some of the super-strength punchy scenes, Ghost when Emilia Clarke phased out of the way of an attack by Gravik, the Iron Man 3 Extremis mutation (I missed this, so if anyone knows when they had an Extremis glow please share), and I saw speculation that Emilia Clarke's Iceman arm was from the Jotunheim Frost Beast, which doesn't make sense to me since I don't recall them having ice powers in Thor or Thor 2.

If anyone recalls or reads of more powers please do share.

[Buzzetta]

On 8/1/2023 at 9:34 AM, Bosco685 said:

The director of the series speculating is the person working directly with Marvel Studios. If anyone is better informed about the influences to the series, it would be that individual (other than the producers). Right?

I think he said elsewhere that he was speculating, but that it is KF that makes the final decision as to when Rhodes was taken. 

[Buzzetta]

On 8/1/2023 at 7:18 AM, theCapraAegagrus said:

I'm not finishing the series. Where is the real Rhodey? Is it possible that the real one was at Stark's funeral? You know what, now that I think about all this, there's no way that if Rhodes was working with a Skrull he wouldn't tell Tony. Sounds like a bad retcon.

Rhodes was kidnapped.  He was not working with the Skrull. He was replaced by the Skrull against his will. 

 

[theCapraAegagrus]

On 8/1/2023 at 10:09 AM, Buzzetta said:

Rhodes was kidnapped.  He was not working with the Skrull. He was replaced by the Skrull against his will.

I inferred that later, yeah. At first I was expecting a 'good skrull' to have replaced him.

[Buzzetta]

I had mentioned that I felt this series was a missed opportunity and meh. 

However there is criticism that I easily dismiss.  Trying to make sense of every nuance and character reaction and emotion in even pivotal scenes is impossible under any character and any situation.  It's the same criticism when they ran Secret Invasion in the comics.  

I had to look it up as it's almost been twenty years.  I may have forgotten the characters but I remember rolling my eyes and them nitpicking all of it at the comic shop. 

The following characters were revealed to be Skrulls back in 2005.

• Jessica Drew / Spider-Woman
• Black Bolt
• Elektra
• Mockingbird
• Jarvis
• Longshot
• Doctor Voodoo

Some of them, like Elektra were kind of important to their storylines.  If you are going to do a storyline like this under any capacity, someone, has to be a Skrull and you just have to roll with it.   I think it would have been far more intrusive to the overall MCU storyline if it was any of the main characters.  If they picked a B or C List character like Rhodes, depending on how you view him, then perhaps that's the best possible narrative it could have. 

Again, I still say that this series missed a lot of notes.  It could have been MUCH better than what it was.  However, I do not think we can analyze each and every scene for something like this.   

[Buzzetta]

On 8/1/2023 at 10:13 AM, theCapraAegagrus said:

I inferred that later, yeah. At first I was expecting a 'good skrull' to have replaced him.

Got it.  Sorry. 

[Bosco685]

On 8/1/2023 at 10:07 AM, Buzzetta said:

I think he said elsewhere that he was speculating, but that it is KF that makes the final decision as to when Rhodes was taken. 

I appreciate your point. But I actually included his interview quote.

Quote

"A lot of people have asked about, 'Definitively, when did Rhodey...?'" Secret Invasion director Ali Selim said in an exclusive interview with ComicBook.com.

 

"I think his legs not working in the end of episode six and him being in the hospital gown points to [Captain America: Civil War]. And, from there, does it have to be definitive, or is it more fun for the audience to go back and revisit every moment, every Rhodey moment and look at it with a different lens now that they think, 'Oh, he might've been a Skrull there.' And make the decision for themselves, or it'll be answered in Armor Wars."

He makes clear reference to why it is Civil War due to the injury. But then keeps it vague assuming it would be fun for viewers to go back and watch everything all over again to figure it out for themselves.

[fantastic_four]

On 7/28/2023 at 2:07 AM, Juno Beach said:

I hated the standoff with the president. They know time is of the essence but they try to convince him that Rhodes is a Skrull. They know 100% he is, why not just shoot him immediately and save the planet? Fury should have walked in and popped him. Boom, over. But no, it's the trope "he is!" "no, they're crazy" scene with a confused president looking back and forth like he's watching a tennis match. Blah.

I thought he was going to shoot the skrull in a non-vital organ so that the president could see his blood color.  Ah well, I suppose the head worked as well.  

[fantastic_four]

Does anyone have an understanding of how skrull shape-shifting works with physical force?  It would make some sense that if skrulls can re-shape their flesh to match other beings that they can also take more punishment than a human could since their flesh is malleable, and there were several battles where skrulls seemed to take far more punishment than humans usually could.

So when Gravik impales that skrull with a Groot arm or when Emilia Clarke impales Gravik with her ice-arm can they hypothetically re-form their bodies around that damage?  Maybe they can brace their flesh in specific locations if they're prepared for it, but not if they're surprised by where the force will land?  

Either way there would be no bracing yourself for a Captain Marvel plasma blast, so that being the way Gravik died was easy to understand.

[fantastic_four]

A few panels from the big everyone vs. the super-skrulls issue #7 of the Secret Invasion comic.  I had hoped this was how this storyline in the show would end after some build-up across this series and future series or movies, but right now it doesn't appear that's the case.  Although there are plenty of skrulls left on Earth so it's not completely out of the question.

Stature punching Super Skrull Galactus in the second pic below is fun...  

[jsilverjanet]

the problem Disney/Marvel has had goes back to the decisions made to make these movies/tv shows (fit)

they made decisions that didn't go with the original story of the character and we are now seeing the results of those decisions

they paint themselves into corners and then the pieces no longer fit

anyone confident they will know how to fit the x-men (mutants) into this mess? didn't they determine ms marvel is a mutant or hint at it

look at what they've done in the past few years, zero confidence

[fantastic_four]

If you're born with genetic powers you're a mutant, if your DNA is altered after birth you're a mutate.  Banner, She-Hulk, and Kamala Khan in the MCU are all mutants in that they all were born with genetic potential that either gamma or Kamala's bangle unlocked, but I would expect that the gamma-altered forms of Bruce and Jennifer Walters make them both mutants and mutates.  I don't think Kamala is a mutate because her DNA is still unaltered, so she would be a mutant, sort of, albeit one with no powers of her own.

The distinction between a mutant and a mutate is functionally trivial.  Most Marvel heroes are mutates including Hulk, Cap, Spidey, Captain Marvel, etc.  In the House of X comics run only mutants are allowed on Krakoa, but they also allow mutates due to the functional triviality of whether your genetic powers were there at birth or induced later on.  It's certainly not the same life experience to be born as a mutant versus gaining your powers later and mutants are far more likely to be hated or feared since they have their powers for a larger part of their life and especially their young formative years--and in House of X many mutants refused to acknowledge mutates as equals due to that developmental distinction--but either way both mutants and mutates have genetically-determined powers.

Separate from Marvel's fiction every organism on Earth is a mutant strictly speaking if we're counting people like Kamala Khan as "mutants" who have no powers without something enhancing their physiology.  Mutation is the altering of DNA, and we all have a less than 1% amount of mutated DNA from birth.  Some of that mutation leads to noticeable changes, but the vast majority of it doesn't.  Some of us are also mutates from our original DNA due to radiation, viruses, cancer, or other epigenetic alterations to our DNA.  Eventually we'll all be mutates as genetic engineering advances and we gain the ability to alter DNA at will.

Edited August 1, 2023 by fantastic_four

[theCapraAegagrus]

Is that really what Marvel is going with now? Banner is somehow a mutant? That doesn't quite make sense, because they're creating a 3rd, new category of "human". Mutants, which are born different; Humans, which cannot evolve, and; Mutates, who are human until they become mutant. That's unnecessarily convoluted.

[Bosco685]

On 8/1/2023 at 12:24 PM, theCapraAegagrus said:

Is that really what Marvel is going with now? Banner is somehow a mutant? That doesn't quite make sense, because they're creating a 3rd, new category of "human". Mutants, which are born different; Humans, which cannot evolve, and; Mutates, who are human until they become mutant. That's unnecessarily convoluted.

So much creative potential and missed story logic because the MCU was bulletproof from critics and negative opinions.

Welcome to a self-fulfilling mess. That is where the hardcore fans failed themselves (and others).

[valiantman]

On 8/1/2023 at 9:04 AM, fantastic_four said:

 the Iron Man 3 Extremis mutation (I missed this, so if anyone knows when they had an Extremis glow please share)

Fury shoots Gravik after Gravik kills Talos. Fury watches Gravik do Extremis glow healing.

[fantastic_four]

Banner has been a mutant in every MCU film from 2003 Hulk onward.  His mutation is that he's highly resistant to gamma, so when he was barraged with it he wasn't killed but instead his DNA mutated in a way that made him the Hulk.  There's a scene in the 2003 film where Nick Nolte admits that he altered his own DNA trying to create powers within himself, and that Bruce inherited it.  Using the terminology Marvel currently uses that makes Nolte's Absorbing Man a mutate and Eric Bana's Hulk a mutant.

They had Banner point that out as well during the first episode of She-Hulk when his radiated blood didn't kill his cousin--that Jennifer must have some of the same gamma resistance that Bruce does for the blood not to kill her.  I've heard that this origin came from the comics, but I don't know when it was introduced.

I don't see it as convoluted unless we try to make sense of it from Stan Lee's overly-simplistic definition of a mutant as someone who is born with powers and a human as someone who isn't.  From a DNA-centric perspective we're all mutants, and we're all mutates.  A Cyclops or Professor X would never suddenly result from natural or epigenetic evolution anyway, so it never made any real sense which is what Kirby tried to fix with the Eternals by explaining it as what later authors named "the X-Gene" being deliberately inserted there by the Celestials.

[theCapraAegagrus]

I don't see the value in modifying the mutant definition so that anyone can be a mutant. Sounds like mutant erasure to me.

Edited August 1, 2023 by theCapraAegagrus

[fantastic_four]

Virtually every cell in every organism is mutated due to small numbers of copy errors during mitosis. We're all mutants/mutates, so calling anyone either of those terms seems more consistent with how DNA functions than using Stan Lee's definition of a mutant simply being someone who is born with powers.

But whoever wants to cling to those simplistic terms can do so, and within that context Bruce Banner isn't a mutant because he wasn't born with powers.  Neither is Kamala Khan who also has no powers of her own.  But clinging to Stan's oversimplification becomes convoluted as soon as we dive into how DNA functions, so I wouldn't recommend it.

[theCapraAegagrus]

A basic understanding of the difference between humans and mutants is precisely what the audience needs, right? We're talking about Marvel movies and shows, after all.