‘Secret Invasion,’ a Marvel mini-series without a ‘superhero solution’
FILE PHOTO: Samuel L. Jackson attends the 76th Annual Tony Awards in New York City, U.S., June 11, 2023. REUTERS/Amr Alfiky/File Photo
LOS ANGELES — Samuel L. Jackson is grateful that Marvel decided not to depict his role as the spy Nick Fury as a “swagalicious one-eyed guy that knows everything that will kill you in a hot minute.”
“He’s vulnerable and kind of finding his way in this,” Jackson told Reuters about his character, the protagonist with the eye patch in the TV action series “Secret Invasion.”
The six-episode show premieres on Disney+ on Wednesday.
It follows Nick Fury as he and his allies fight to stop the shapeshifting reptilian humanoids known as the Skrulls from committing international terrorist attacks and eventually invading Earth.
The cast includes Ben Mendelsohn as Talos, a Skrull ally of Nick Fury, Emilia Clarke as G’iah, Talos’ daughter, and Olivia Colman as agent Sonya Falsworth.
While the series, directed by Ali Selim, is based on other projects from the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), it takes a different direction from previous Marvel shows.
“Superheroes can’t fix the problems that we’re trying to fix. So, it’s innately human,” Clarke said. “There are people talking in rooms, which you’re not used to in the MCU. But they’re always trying to mess with convention. They’re always trying to create something genuinely new.”
Fury, along with other members of the spy organization known as the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division (S.H.I.E.L.D), doesn’t have supernatural abilities to lean on to help win the day.
“It happens in a very organic kind of way, to know that we’re inside something that doesn’t have a superhero solution,” Jackson said.
What it does have, from the first episode, is plenty of suspense, said Clarke.
“You really won’t know who is what and how and when, and there’ll still be a moment when they will get you and it will be shocking. And that, in itself, is just so juicy,” she said.
