Is Marvel's Secret Invasion setting up the Fantastic Four to battle the Super Skrull?

This weekend, I started two new series (new to me) on television. The first was Marvel's Secret Invasion. The second was Silo which is an adaptation of Hugh Howey's Wool series that made a huge splash some ten or more years ago in the self-publishing world. Needless to say, Hugh is now a big name in the entertainment industry, and an inspiration to anyone who imagines themselves enjoying those kinds of accolades. In this blog post, I'm going to talk about Secret Invasion. I'm going to save the talk of Silo for the Wednesday post this week. So with that out of the way, let's talk (and there are spoilers ahead if you haven't watched the show yet).

First off, I'm not as familiar with the skrull threat as I am with some of the other things out there in the Marvel-verse. In the comics, they were mostly a Fantastic Four villain. So back in the day (a few years ago) when I watched Captain Marvel and we saw our first skrulls in the Marvel cinematic universe, I was wondering how we were going to get from "helpful comedic allies" to "these guys are the enemy." The pivot was done expertly in Secret Invasion in the episodes that I've seen thus far. Suffice it to say that I think it plays on all of that xenophobia that is so easily linked to the human spirit: the fear of the other. The skrulls can look just like us, and the part where you see the real danger happening occurs on a train car when Nick Fury (in talking with Talos) comes to understand that a million skrulls are now living in secret on Earth. That's a lot. So he's clearly lost control of the situation that he believed was fully under his control when nineteen skrulls in the eighties decided to be loyal to him and work for his organization called S.H.I.E.L.D.

So, to fast forward to the "post-blip" world of the MCU, that five-year absence of Nick Fury (he got dusted) was a long enough time for things to change drastically among the skrull population. They learned that they couldn't count on humans (who had made them a promise to find them a new world to inhabit) and made them susceptible to some pretty radical fascist beliefs held by some of the skrulls: that they didn't need to look any further in the universe for a habitable planet because Earth was just fine. And that's what we have going on in the modern MCU. 

It gave me chills in the latest episode of this show (we are halfway through its six episode run), when Talos made a threatening lunge for Gravik (the bad guy in the show) in a restaurant. In response to this, all the people who were dining in the restaurant immediately stopped and stood as one, showing themselves to be skrulls. This scene really added to the tension that things are becoming threatening on another level, and that humans need to really watch their back. Another thing that gave me a "nerd joy" moment happened when Gravik declared that he and his organization are working on a project aimed at giving skrulls "super powers."

The "Super Skrull" was a big deal in the Fantastic Four comics, having the abilities of all four of the Fantastic Four in one being. I don't know if they are going to copy that exact comic book model. However, whatever they decide on doing, the Super Skrull should be an impressive villain and worthy of a big movie with all of the trimmings. So maybe, the game plan is to set the table for a big Fantastic Four movie with Secret Invasion. That's (at least) what I think the studio is doing with this Disney+ series. It honestly would be refreshing to get an actual Fantastic Four series that was any good. The ones that were put out by Fox were terrible, and I've always believed that a good one is actually possible.

Anyway, I'm excited to see what the next three episodes of Secret Invasion reveal and whether they give me some hint that I'm right about this being what the Fantastic Four movie is going to be about. As a caveat, it would be just as cool if it somehow segues into an X-Men thing as well. To end this blog post, I have some random musings I want to share:

1) I wasn't expecting Giah (played be Emilia Clarke) to get killed in episode 3. I thought this was a big-name actress now. However, the fact that she never changed her outward appearance after betraying Gravik seemed stupid. Like...why wouldn't you change your shape? And also, she was on a motorcycle. Why didn't she swerve the cycle off the road and take her chances?

2) Gravik already appears to have some "super powers." He demonstrated that he has the same healing as we'd associate with Wolverine. So, he's obviously being set up as the first prototype "Super Skrull." But without any superheroes to battle a "Super Skrull," how will they deal with Gravik? Maybe there's going to be a cameo of sorts by someone with super powers. I wonder who that is? Or, maybe Nick Fury will just deal with it. Seems kinda/sorta reasonable.

3) Marvel used in-house a.i. (artificial intelligence) to create its intro to the series. I've watched it with two people who didn't know that the intro was a.i., and they loved the intro. However, people who knew it was a.i. going into it (and viewing it) say it is the worst Marvel intro that has ever happened, and that they should have hired "real artists." I think there's definitely a bias out there where people hate anything that is machine generated. I get it though...even if it looks pretty...people seem to want other people to be paid for that. Unless, of course (and here's the rub) the money is coming out of your own wallet. I've noticed at that point, feelings about "free" start to change. It's not entirely unreasonable though to experience mixed signals and messages from people. The "do as I say" and "not as I do" crowd are a tale as old as time.

4) Samuel L. Jackson was made to play Nick Fury. No one else can deliver lines like, "I'm tired of this bullshit!" and then shoot someone...exactly like he can. I hope Disney gives him a chance to say "Mother F*cker" at least once before its all over.

There may have been four Easter Eggs for the Fantastic Four dropped in Avengers: Infinity War.

There are a lot of things I'm excited about with regard to Avengers: Endgame. But even more so, going forward I'm excited to see how Disney incorporates the Fantastic Four and the X-Men into the MCU. And of these two, I think I'm more excited by the prospect of having the Fantastic Four incorporated first, because I've kind of gotten my fill of the X-Men from various Fox properties like "The Gifted" and through poorly done representations (Quicksilver aside) of the various mutants on the silver screen since X2 landed in theaters in the early 2000's.

My beef with the Fox adaptations of the Fantastic Four (done in three separate movies) is that they made Doom a kind of comic-relief villain (and the Thing looked terrible). In the third adaptation, they also decided to continue with an origin story and origin stories always end up bad (and it once again lashed Doctor Doom to the origin of the Fantastic Four, which I don't like). I also felt that Michael B. Jordan played the role of Johnny Storm too serious. Johnny is an incredibly immature character, and you have to have an actor that is essentially a "Peter Pan" to kind of nail him right.

In a rewatch of Avengers: Infinity War, I discovered that there was at least one line that I thought could possibly be an Easter Egg for the fact that Disney was pursuing talks with Fox Studios in obtaining the rights to the Fantastic Four. So I did a google search and saw if other people had come up with any others and the following is my list:

1) When the battle with Thanos's minions gets started in New York, Tony Stark (while talking with Doctor Strange) refers to one of the bad guys as "that rocky thing there...." It could be just a way of describing something, or it could be a way to allude to The Thing.

2) During a lull in the fight on their way to meet Thanos, Draxx is trying out a new power, hoping that by staying perfectly still, he can turn invisible. It's very funny, and I think may be a call out to The Invisible Woman.

3) When Thor is forging Stormbreaker (his new weapon), he screams, "Flame On!" as he asks to get the works hot enough to do what he requires for the forge to work. I think this may be an Easter Egg for Johnny Storm, a.k.a., the Human Torch.

4) When we first see the Guardians, they're rocking out to "Rubberband Man" from the Spinners. This could allude to Mr. Fantastic, right? If you follow my logic, sure.

Anyway, the MCU should at least mention the country of Latveria (where Doctor Doom is from) even if it is a headline on a TV news report discussing the Latverian ambassador's outrage over something. With the MCU already having gone cosmic, it would be so easy to sneak the Silver Surfer in there as well. And if they introduce the Silver Surfer, then maybe we will finally get a peak at what Galactus has been up to, which will give us the next big bad for all the characters to team up against.

Pixar knows how to handle family dynamics and emotions which is why the Incredibles is better than any Fantastic Four movie.

The Incredibles 2 is coming out this week, and I already have my tickets. If you're a fan of the Fantastic Four comic books though, it's hard to see how well Pixar does with essentially the same characters compared to how poorly conceived and managed the Fantastic Four movies have always been.

In the Incredibles you have:

1) Mr. Incredible. He has super strength and above average resilience to the elements.
2) Mrs. Incredible. She's able to stretch her body to unknown lengths.
3) Violet. She's able to go invisible and create force fields.
4) Dash. He's able to run at super sonic speeds.
5) Jak Jak. This baby has the ability to shapeshift, plus a lot of other things thrown into the mix that we haven't even explored yet.

In the Fantastic Four you have:

1) Mr. Fantastic. Like Elastigirl above, he's able to stretch his body to unknown lengths.
2) Invisible Woman. Like Violet, she has invisibility and the power to create force fields. She also has telekinesis.
3) Human Torch. He's able to turn his body into living fire and he can fly and shoot all kinds of projectiles out of his hands.
4) Thing. He has a body made of rock and he has super strength.

So, as you can see, it's a pretty close matchup between the two franchises. Of course, Fantastic Four did come first, but that really isn't any excuse as to why the Incredibles is so much better at its story on the screen than the Fantastic Four has been. If you've even bothered to watch any of the Fantastic Four incarnations, I think you'd agree with me that they are terrible...basically unwatchable...piles of steaming night soil.

Anyway, why do you suppose that is? Rather, what does the Incredibles do that makes it so much better?

Here's my thoughts:

Pixar is brilliant at breathing life into characters. They know how arguments, love, caring, and all the feels can really spin into a strong story. They focus on the characters and try to build layer upon layer of emotional impact so that you end up feeling it in your heart. The Fantastic Four films focused too much on story and powers and not enough on the relationships between the individual characters on the screen. When I watch the Fantastic Four movies, I see that they have no heart to them.

Fantastic Four as an intellectual property is also kind of ridiculous. Stretching (outside of animation) just never looks good (it's cheesy) and Doctor Doom is a strangely wild creation of a villain, being simultaneously a despot, an evil sorcerer, and a genius.

But all these criticisms aside, I think what does it for me with Incredibles vs the Fantastic Four is the family dynamic. If it isn't spot on then it's not going to be entertaining to watch. And in this arena, Pixar wins hands down.