Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes “Secret Invasion” Review

In the newest episode of The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes!, the Secret Invasion goes public… Click “More” to read our review!

S2, Episode 12: Secret Invasion

The Skrulls are making their attack known. The AIM Scientist Supreme that was duplicated has taken over a satellite to wipe out humans. Henry Gyrich, who is also being impersonated, is sabotaging the Damocles base for SWORD. The fake Captain America is wiping out Tony Stark’s armor. SHIELD Agent Quartermain is sabotaging the Helicarrier, and Sue Storm is setting up to destroy the Baxter Building. When the Avengers return from Wakanda, they are told by their “Captain America” to go to Washington, DC where they are captured by Skrulls. When Maria Hill saves Nick Fury and Iron Man, the Skrull Queen escapes. They work to save Tony while the Avengers eventually fall to the Super Skrulls they encountered. They are taken to Cap and realize he’s been their traitor all along. Cap is televised telling humanity that the Skrulls are here to save the planet. The real people the Skrulls are impersonating return to take down the alien threat. When Iron Man comes to reveal the Skrulls for what they are, the Queen suggests none of them will make it out alive and they are overmatched. That’s when Thor returns to even the odds and finally put the threat to rest when the final protocols to wipe out humanity begins. Earth wins, but the trust that the Skrulls were able to break makes the victory a bitter pill to swallow.

As I stated over the last couple weeks, we’ve waited a long time to reach the finale of the Secret Invasion story that literally started last Summer. Despite how long we’ve had to wait, this final episode flies by as if it was a stand alone or two part story. In some ways, the brisk pace keeps things exciting, but in other ways, it is a bit of a letdown. I’ll get to that in a moment. For now, let’s talk about what was pretty darn cool in this episode.

The idea that just a handful of Avengers could take down an entire invasion from the Skrulls actually made a lot of sense. It took all the heroes banding together in the comics, but this was after years and years and even more years of the Skrulls building to this point and getting this plan in place. In this series, we’ve only introduced to these little green men and women over the course of this season. This, really, is their first full attempt at bringing down humanity. It kinda makes sense that a rag tag team of Avengers, and in particular, Cap, Thor, and Iron Man, to take down the threat. You have to think the Skrulls will be back and even more dangerous than before.

There are some rich character moments in this episode as well that plays well to the overall story. Even if he doesn’t deal with it right now, Tony learns just how important it is for the Avengers to build and grow without his leadership. Think about it, he was almost micromanaging to an extent that he leaves and the team goes to crap because they haven’t been able to grow without him constantly telling them what to do. Plus, the guy leading the new team was a stinkin’ Skrull. For Thor, it was pretty awesome to see him turn the tide so quickly when he finally returns to help his team. For him to entirely take down every satellite transmitting the signal that was killing all the humans was proof that he’s more or less Marvel’s own version of Superman. Finally, this was another good episode for Captain America. As he’s beating down his impersonator, for him to give what makes humanity so unique, he’s doing something that you’d expect Captain America to do – inspire. By the time we get to the end of the episode, the Avengers and all of us are wondering what happens next. How can things be put back to the way they were before paranoia exposed some of the feelings some have for others? Have the Avengers lost a bit of their innocence?

Overall, this is a pretty solid episode however, it isn’t as pefect or as epic as you might think after a long build. I think the weight of the story line should have been able to heighten the world’s concern over this invasion. Instead of seeing people in terror over these aliens coming to the planet and claiming they can save us all and so on, we get some people shocked over the news that there are people here to help us and they are hanging on Captain America’s every word about how they will save us from our selves and so on. We don’t get a chance to see what life would be like when people start realizing that this Captain America guy is full of crap. We get the idea that there could be strained relations between the Avengers themselves, as well as between the team and the public, but there’s not enough seen in the episode itself to really understand what the world would be like if the normal people of the world followed someone who turned out to be an alien in disguise. It’s a tad frustrating to not really get a big payoff.

The episode still succeeds on the idea of being a whiz-bang-boom action chapter. There’s some good heroics and some nice fighting. They do throw in some decent characterization, but I was left wanting a bit more than just an announcement from a fake Cap to trust these people only to be immediately opposed by the real version of the world’s greatest and most trusted hero. A little extra play out would have yielded a much higher payoff.

Tags: The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes!