The following contains spoilers for Secret Invasion Season 1, Episode 1, "Resurrection," now streaming on Disney+.
Disney+ and Marvel Studios' newest series, Secret Invasion, treats viewers to a fresher, darker side of the MCU. For fans who thought things couldn't get more grim than "the blip," it's time to think again. Secret Invasion is bleak, somber, and gritty in a way that is brand-new for Marvel.
Straightaway viewers will notice how dark the show is. Literally and figuratively. Not only is the cinematography visibly dark, with muted tones and heavy shadows that give it a film-noir quality fitting for the spy-and-espionage genre, but the subject matter is darker, too. Secret Invasion is set firmly in a world that feels unsettlingly all too real. Xenophobia, disbelief in science, isolation, constant war and violence everywhere -- these are the issues addressed in the opening scenes, ripped right out of headlines from the real world. Worst of all, the main characters of Secret Invasion don't know who to trust, not even each other.
Nick Fury Is Desperately Missing the Avengers
Whereas previous offerings from Marvel Studios have been growing grittier and more emotionally heavy in recent years, they have always remained mostly set in worlds that still reeked of the deus-ex-machina trope. A superhero would eventually come and save the day, and viewers could never forget that. In Secret Invasion there seems to be no such illusions. Most of the superheroes are nowhere to be found, and the rallying, uplifting effect of having a superhero around is palpably missing. A broken Nick Fury is virtually all that's left to repel the secret invasion of the Skrulls.
The only people standing between the world and destruction are the battle-scarred remnants of S.H.I.E.L.D. Make no mistake, every character in the series wears their wounds. No one, especially not Nick Fury, is the same since "the blip." There is no glossy bouncing back and walking it off. These heroes have been through the wringer, and they show it. The atmosphere created by setting the show up to remind viewers of very real-world problems like xenophobia and vicious mistrust of anyone and anything only adds to the world-weariness of the characters. These people are unmistakably not superheroes, they are survivors.
The Secret Invasion Is Already Looking Bleak For Marvel Fans
This is evident in the action scenes of Secret Invasion. While they are still Marvel-quality fight scenes, they pack a different energy. The good guys are not slick and dominating. They take big hits and fail, they don't get up so fast, and they don't always get the bad guy. Additionally, Secret Invasion carries different stakes than Marvel has played with in the past. The protagonists might not pull off a victory this time, and many of them may not even survive. The stakes are definitely higher, and Season 1, Episode 1, "Resurrection," makes this painfully clear.
Adding all these ingredients together creates a different kind of show than Marvel Studios and Disney+ have ever put out before. Viewers aren't transported to a slightly fantastical version of the real world, they are firmly in the real, modern world. There is no excitement of shiny superheroes rushing in to save the day, there is limping away from the fight or sometimes not making it out at all. Secret Invasion is by no means escapist entertainment, rather it is a reckoning with the issues of the modern global climate and a facing of real-world problems through the Marvel lens. Secret Invasion is a more mature side to the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
All the previous Marvel canon has always tied together beautifully, but never before have the effects of prior events been showcased so grimly as in Secret Invasion. Audiences are given a look at how "the blip" affected those who vanished and those who stayed behind differently than in Endgame. Fans will see familiar characters who just aren't their old selves anymore because of all they've been through. This all gives Secret Invasion a more grown-up, realistic, dark, more right-now feeling than anything that has come before it.