Secret Invasion Setting An Embarrassing Marvel Record, Franchise Has Hit A New Low
It’s official: Marvel’s Secret Invasion has set a record for the lowest-rated Disney+ Marvel series so far. The Samuel L. Jackson-led series currently holds an embarrassingly low critics score of 13 percent on the review aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes.
Secret Invasion, as of right now, is the second worst-reviewed MCU production on RT—Disney+ or otherwise—only being beaten out by the abysmal Inhumans and its equally abysmal 11 percent rating. Is the Marvel bubble finally bursting?
Secret Invasion has set a new record as Marvel’s lowest-rated Disney+ series.
If Marvel’s 2023 output so far is any indication, the answer is…maybe? On one hand, we have the universally panned Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and Marvel’s other big failure of the year, Secret Invasion. On the other hand, both Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 and Across the Spider-Verse have been critically and commercially successful, with the former taking in almost a billion dollars globally and Spider-Verse raking in an impressive $600 million in ticket sales since its release.
With Guardians and Spider-Verse still generating a healthy revenue stream at the box office, it’s hard to subscribe completely to the “Marvel fatigue” narrative. The poor performance of movies like Qauntumania is due more to lackluster stories and janky CGI than because audiences suddenly don’t like Marvel. The truth behind Secret Invasion‘s failure, in particular, is much more nuanced.
Nick Fury’s a great supporting character, and Samuel L. Jackson kills it, but let’s be honest. No one was clamoring for a Nick Fury solo series.
Nick Fury
To begin with, Nick Fury isn’t a main character. Sure, ’60s comic book Nick Fury, with his psychedelic spy adventures, was more than capable of carrying his own series, but MCU Nick Fury? Not so much.
From the beginning, Marvel has set up Secret Invasion‘s Nick Fury as the guy in the shadows pulling the strings. While he usually helps the heroes, he’s always working on his own agenda. In other words, he’s a great supporting character, and Samuel L. Jackson kills it, but let’s be honest. No one was clamoring for a Nick Fury solo series.
The Skrulls
Building from there, you have the Skrulls, Marvel’s resident shapeshifting aliens, and Secret Invasion‘s main antagonists. As popular as the wrinkly-chinned green menaces are in the comics—and even that’s debatable—for a certain vocal minority of the Marvel fandom, they represent Captain Marvel, the “worst” movie in the MCU canon.
Add to that director Ali Selim’s admission that he was told not to read Marvel’s original Secret Invasion comic that the series is based on and the series’ use of an AI-generated opening sequence at a time when actors and writers are fearful that the new technology will replace them entirely and it’s no wonder that Secret Invasion isn’t that well regarded.
Of course, all of that could have been overlooked if the series was an amazing, groundbreaking, thrill-a-minute adventure, but it wasn’t. Far from it. Many fans found Marvel’s Secret Invasion slow going and a waste of all of the talent involved.
Indeed, Samuel L. Jackson, Emilia Clarke, Don Cheadle, and the rest of the incredible cast deserved something better than a glacially paced, half-baked thriller.
With Guardians and Spider-Verse still generating a healthy revenue stream at the box office, it’s hard to subscribe completely to the “Marvel fatigue” narrative.
We can only hope that Marvel looks at the poor performance of Secret Invasion and focuses its efforts on making the next few Disney+ shows, Loki Season 2 and the Hawkeye spinoff Echo, more in line with Guardians 3 and Across the Spider-Verse.
Fans aren’t sick of superheroes; they’re just sick of mediocre superhero properties. At least Secret Invasion was better than the 90’s made-for-TV Nick Fury movie starring David Hasselhoff.
