What to watch before Secret Invasion: every Marvel film to rewatch to prepare for Samuel L. Jackson spy drama

Secret Invasion is just days away, with the latest Marvel series set to see Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury reunite with old allies like Maria Hill, Everett K. Ross, and Telos in a grand battle against the shapeshifting Skrulls.

If you read that sentence and thought “wait, what?”, that’d be fair enough – it’s easy enough to lose track of what’s going on with the Marvel Cinematic Universe at the best of times, let alone if there’s been, say, an entire global pandemic since the last time these characters were on screen. You might be wondering if it’s worth rewatching some of those films again, just for a little refresh on what you’ve forgotten since you saw them last.

As ever with a Marvel project, though, the question isn’t so much “what do I have to watch before Secret Invasion?”, but rather: how much time do you have?

If you’re only watching one movie…

Watch Captain Marvel. Secret Invasion is, more or less, a direct sequel to that film. That’s where the Skrulls – a group of shapeshifting alien refugees – were first introduced, as well as Nick Fury’s friendship with their leader Talos and his promise to help them find a new home. Secret Invasion picks up on that storyline some thirty years later, looking at how Fury’s failure to keep his promise has reverberated around the Skrull community, leaving Talos’ influence significantly diminished and his daughter G’iah involved in an extremist group preparing to make Earth their new home – by force if necessary.

If you’ve got time for a movie marathon…

Captain Marvel is still the priority, but you should probably add Spider-Man: Far From Home to the list, and maybe even Infinity War too. Infinity War – the big Avengers crossover event that saw Thanos erase half the universe, with Nick Fury amongst those ‘blipped’ from existence – gives you a sense of Nick Fury’s emotional state. When the Avengers initiative failed, Fury realises that there are some threats he simply can’t prepare for, raising questions as to what exactly his role is or should be in the new world. 

Spider-Man: Far From Home, meanwhile, was Fury’s most recent MCU appearance. He spends most of the film working with Maria Hill to help/antagonise Peter Parker, before a post-credits sequence reveals that the Nick Fury we’ve been watching isn’t Fury at all, but rather Telos in disguise. Fury, it turns out, has been in space – perhaps on holiday, perhaps in hiding – while Telos has been covering for him in key moments. Exactly why they’ve been doing this is one of the big questions Secret Invasion still has to answer.

(Of course, if you watch Captain Marvel and find yourself realising you had less time than you thought, there’s an easy way to speed this movie marathon along – the relevant scenes from Infinity War and Far From Home are both post-credits sequences, which you can find on YouTube here and here.)

If you’ve got time for none of that…

Hopefully this article has covered more or less all the headline stuff: Nick Fury has been helping relocate a group of alien refugees, and become close friends with their leader Telos, who has at times used his shapeshifting abilities to cover for Fury’s trips to space. 

There are a few other characters who show up here and there throughout Secret Invasion, each of whom have been introduced in previous movies – for example, Martin Freeman’s Everett K Ross (Black Panther), Cobie Smulders’ Maria Hill (The Avengers), and Don Cheadle’s James ‘Rhodey’ Rhodes (Iron Man 2). Generally speaking, though, you don’t really need to seek out their films before watching Secret Invasion, but just know that they’re all friends and allies of Fury’s from his days as director of SHIELD.

Secret Invasion begins on Disney+ on Wednesday 21 June. You can read more of our coverage of Secret Invasion here, and find our review of the first two episodes here.

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