“Evil people and imposters will become worse, deceiving and being deceived.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

What if the people around you weren’t who you thought they were? Maybe you’ve had that experience. You thought you knew someone really well, and then seemingly out of nowhere they did something so profoundly out of character as far as you had understood it that you were struck with a powerful sense that maybe you didn’t actually know them at all. Depending on how close you are to the person with whom you had this experience, this could be a pretty painful discovery. I know of a woman who discovered after more than two decades of marriage that her husband had a completely separate family including a woman he called his wife and kids. Learning people aren’t who we thought they were can be intensely disorienting for us. But what if we learned they weren’t simply not who we thought they were, but were in fact aliens who could assume the identity of anyone around them. Then we’d be living in a comic book world. It is this very comic book world that was the focus of Marvel’s latest streaming release, Secret Invasion. Let’s talk about what worked, what didn’t, and the Gospel implications of a series with enormous potential, but which couldn’t quite stick the landing. By the way, if you haven’t watched the series yet, proceed at your own risk. This is going to be full of spoilers.

I was really excited about this series. The initial previews looked amazing. It was going to be a turn back to the political/spy thriller style of Winter Soldier, one of my favorite entries in the MCU franchise. Their marketing was smart too. Before the series premiered, a URL was released that took you to a website that looked very secretive, and if you had the right code, you were able to watch a clip of the first five minutes of the series. The series opened with Agent Everett Ross having a conversation with another agent who was going on and on about how the shape-shifting alien species, the Skrulls, first introduced in Captain Marvel and whose existence has been hinted at only twice since then had successfully infiltrated all manner of positions around the world. Nick Fury and Carol Danvers (Captain Marvel) had promised to find them a new home world after the events of that story which took place some 40 years earlier, but had thus far failed to deliver. Now, they were angry and impatient and working diligently on secret plans to set the world on a course for nuclear chaos which would wipe out the human population, clearing the way for the Skrulls to take over completely as they could withstand much higher levels of radiation than we could. In other words, Marvel used a bit of convenient dialogue in the first five minutes to tell the audience the whole plot of the series. All we didn’t know at this point was how Fury was going to stop it (because, of course he would, because he’s Nick Fury).

As it turns out, Agent Ross was one of these Skrull imposters, something we discover when while on the run from what appears to be a Russian agent, but which turns out to be Talos, Fury’s close friend and leader of the Skrulls (well, former leader), who was working to find out the plans of this rebel Skrull group in order to put a stop to their plans to take over the world, he falls off a building and dies. From here, the series chases three storylines that actually all dovetail fairly nicely by the time the finale rolls around.

The first storyline is Fury’s return from the SWORD base in outer space and his subsequent efforts to find and stop Gravik, the new leader of the Skrulls. Gravik was a young Skrull back in the 90s who eagerly served as one of Fury’s super secret spies and had bought fully into his promise to find them a new home world. His disillusionment with the long delay in fulfilling this promise is what led to his taking control of the Skrulls and setting in motion the plans to set the world on fire. The primary way this was going to play out was through a series of terrorist attacks in Russia and against the United States, all designed to look like the other had committed them. Putting a stop to these plans ends up tragically costing the lives of Maria Hill, Fury’s long-time righthand agent, and Talos himself in an effort to prevent an attempt on the U.S. President’s life by Gravik’s forces.

The second storyline follows a new character, Sonya Falsworth. She is essentially Fury’s British counterpart, and is wonderfully played by Olivia Colman. The good folks at Marvel will be absolutely insane to not use her in as many more properties as they possibly can. She is trying to figure out the whole Skrull invasion thing and who is who. She ultimately comes together with Fury to remove the Skrull masquerading as Colonel Rhodes who has become one of the President’s closest advisors. Colman perfectly captures the character who is a delightful, grandmotherly, paradigmatically British woman who can and will put a bullet between your eyes without a second thought if she believes doing so will help her achieve her ultimate aim of safeguarding the security of her beloved kingdom.

The third storyline reintroduces us to Talos’ daughter, G’iah. She too has grown disillusioned with her dad’s and Fury’s promises to carve out a home world for the Skrulls through peaceful, patient means, and has become a high-ranking lieutenant in Gravik’s revolutionary forces. Her devotion to Gravik and his vision for the Skrulls fractures when she learns from Talos that he was responsible for her mother’s death. His growing radicalism and a willingness to throw away Skrull soldiers wantonly in pursuit of his radical plans further pushes her in the direction of Talos and Fury. The final straw is when Gravik kills her dad. By the end of the series, she winds up being the one to confront Gravik, disguised as Fury at first, and becomes a Super Skrull. I have a strong suspicion we will see her character show up several more times in Phases 5 and 6.

Speaking of her becoming a Super Skrull, the introduction of that comic book character for use in later MCU properties seems to have been part of the point of this series. Traditionally, the Super Skrull was a creation of Skrull scientists (in this series it is a human scientist who helps them achieve this goal) in order to enable them to have someone who could go toe to toe with the Fantastic Four by putting all four of their power sets into one, super powerful warrior. Given that we have yet to have Marvel’s First Family formally introduced into the MCU (minus a delightful cameo cut rather violently short by the Scarlet Witch in Dr. Strange 2), they couldn’t very well simply copy the comic book script. Gravik, and later secretly G’iah, become the first two Super Skrulls by infusing their DNA with bits of DNA from Groot (Mr. Fantastic), the Extremis molecule from Iron Man 3 (Human Torch, which also, rather conveniently, allows them to heal from otherwise deadly wounds), Cull Obsidian, Thanos’ super strong lieutenant (Thing), and a Frost Giant (Invisible Woman…sort of). In the finale, the two become Super…Super Skrulls when they gain access to The Harvest, the series MacGuffin which is a vial that contains samples of DNA from 23 other Avengers including Captain Marvel herself. In the rather fun, if silly, fight between the two, these mostly manifest themselves by turning their arms into the arm of various other characters including Drax, Groot, Cull Obsidian, a Frost Giant, and various others. They can also glow with energy, fly, and shoot energy blasts like Captain Marvel.

In the end, Gravik is stopped. That’s good. But, U.S. President Ritson, whose life was saved by Fury and Falsworth from what turned out to be an attack by the Skrull impersonating Colonel Rhodes, goes on TV to announce that, yes, Skrulls are here, yes, they are impersonating all manner of people in high places around the world, yes, they know how to identify them as Skrulls (a rather dramatic announcement that gets absolutely no context in the series), and that now, not just Skrulls, but all off-world alien species will be considered enemy combatants. The series closes (without a single post-credit scene in the entire series!) with Fury going back into space alongside his Skrull wife (which was a nice plot twist about halfway through the series) to work on a peace treaty between the Kree and the Skrulls that would finally achieve his goal of finding the Skrulls their own home world.

From the standpoint of what worked, the series featured some top-notch acting talent who mostly did a tremendous job playing their characters. Olivia Colman stood at the absolute pinnacle of that particular pile. Ben Mendelsohn returning as Talos was terrific as well. Gravik, played by Kingsley Ben-Adir, was a villain in the line of past MCU fan-favorites like Eric Killmonger. And while he didn’t have quite the gravitas of Michael B. Jordan, he was really pretty compelling. By the end of the series, while you hated what he was doing and how he was doing it, you could at the very least understand what pushed him there in the first place. Marvel has delighted in recreating several comic book villains into people whose rationale seems not totally unreasonable, but whose methods are problematic. Mostly gone are the days of villains who are just pure evil for evil’s sake. Those are apparently too unrealistic for modern appetites. Emilia Clarke’s portrayal of G’iah was usually pretty emotionally flat, but if Marvel will give her the chance, I think she will be able to be a pretty compelling character in the years to come. She also happens to currently be the single most powerful character in the entire MCU seeing as how she has the full powers of 27 different superheroes at her disposal.

Besides a host of tremendous acting jobs, the initial storytelling was great as well. The series sucked you straight in from the beginning and kept you sitting on the edge of your seat, waiting to find out what happens next. The CGI was mostly pretty good where they needed to use it. With a $200 million budget, I would have expected no less. That being said, they could have spared at least a little bit more for the final fight scene between G’iah and Gravik. That got a little silly at times.

On the side of things that didn’t work quite so well, the ending was the biggest disappointment. In fact, the ending has been pretty wildly panned by critics of every shape and size. I actually have yet to hear from someone who liked it. The criticisms mostly focus on two things. The first and most important is that it is G’iah who goes to confront Gravik. From a storytelling standpoint and where they ultimately took things, I understand why they did it this way. It let them create a Super…Super…Skrull bad guy as well as a good guy (well, good girl) to stop him. I’m sure they could have thought of something, but Marvel needed the Super Skrull for later properties and Fury couldn’t have stopped Gravik on his own. But, because it wasn’t really Fury, all of the emotional punch of the conversation between Fury and Gravik was lost. Gravik spoke some really hard truths that Fury arguably needed to hear. Fury spent much of the series struggling with the events of his past, and most notably the Blip. He struggled with mistakes he had made in using Skrulls as pawns for his own career advancement. In his earlier conversations with Talos, his Skrull friend reminded him several times of the debt he owed to his people for all of the sacrifices they had made to get him where he was. He did not become the super spy we all know him as on his own merits. They all helped him willingly because they believed in his promise to get them a home world, but he couldn’t have done what he did without them.

In the final confrontation, Gravik set even more of that before Fury, and revealed the depth of his own internal anguish and pain over the things Fury sent him to do. He wore the face he did because it was the face of the first man Fury had him kill. For perhaps the very first time in the MCU, we were treated to a character who was genuinely struggling with having taken a life. Tony Stark in Captain America: Civil War is perhaps the only other character we have seen similarly struggle. How interesting that while he didn’t become a villain, he took a bit of a darker turn because of it. Taking life is a serious business and action movies far too often treat it far too lightly even when it is “only” the bad guys being killed.

These were all things Fury needed to hear, but because it was really G’iah, he didn’t hear any of them. Instead, he goes on to regain his self-confidence and never has to take responsibility for or even face the consequences of his past decisions. Marvel missed a huge opportunity here to do a ton of positive character development for the man who is perhaps the most important character in the MCU, at least the most important character on (or just a little ways off) earth.

The second major problem is the discovery that Rhodey is a Skrull. This immediately raises questions as to how long Rhodey has been a Skrull. Was it before the events at the end of Civil War or after? Was it before the events at the end of End Game or after? Throughout this series, Rhodey is moving around like he was never injured in Civil War. However, while we know that his best friend, Tony Stark had created some technology to help him be able to walk again, he was still walking with an exosuit in End Game. Did no one notice that he suddenly didn’t need this anymore? But, if the real Rhodey was replaced before End Game, not only did he manage to fool his best friend in the world (not to mention all the medical scans he would have gone through that Stark would have seen), but the incredibly emotional goodbye he gives to Tony as he is dying after he sacrifices himself to save the universe is completely robbed of all its punch. There are similar, if less emotionally charged, questions about how long Agent Ross was a Skrull as well.

Ultimately, while this series could and even should have been great on its own, and while it was about time Marvel did a story in which Fury was the main character rather than merely a supporting one given that he’s been in more MCU properties than anyone else, this series wound up feeling like it mostly served as a way to set the table for Marvel properties yet to come. It positioned Fury back in the off-earth SWORD base which is where we already knew he was going to be thanks to previews for The Marvels, the second Captain Marvel movie coming this November. It created a Super Skrull good guy who will no doubt appear in several more films and series. It introduced Sonya Falsworth who surely will appear several more times (unless Marvel totally loses their marbles). And it set the stage for the now deeply antagonistic relationship between at least the U.S. government and anybody who is not fully human which will come powerfully into play in the next Captain America movie, Brave New World (featuring Falcon as the new Captain America), The Thunderbolts, and whatever mutant stories the MCU finally gets around to telling. One of the things that has made the Marvel streaming series so good is that while they all fit squarely within the larger MCU, they have also all been able to stand on their own two feet rather than being merely a setup for future movies. This is the first one that really couldn’t.

This having now gone on entirely too long, let me briefly address some of the Gospel implications of the story here at the end. The idea of people not being who we think they are, is one that was introduced to us by the apostle Paul. He wasn’t talking about an alien invasion, though. He was talking about the church. The church was designed and intended to be a body of the redeemed. It is the body of Christ. The only people who are part of Christ’s body are those who have accepted His offer of salvation and been converted by the Holy Spirit into sons and daughters of God. Unregenerated souls have no place in Christ’s body. Of course, they are welcome and encouraged to come to church meetings and worship alongside the saints in hopes that the message of the Gospel penetrates their hearts and they actually become a part of Christ’s body, but they should not be considered a part of His body until that happens.

And yet, we can only see what we can see. It is remarkably easy to put on a display of righteousness that is terribly convincing. I’ve talked before about Gina Welch. She is culturally Jewish and an atheist. Yet in order to write a book about evangelical culture in America, she started attending Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, VA. That’s the church started by Jerry Falwell and now pastored by his son, Jonathan. She went there for two years. During that time she joined the church, got baptized, joined a small group, and served on various ministry teams in the church. I am certain that most of the members she rubbed elbows with on a regular basis considered her a beloved member of the body of Christ. But she wasn’t. Now, she wound up far more impressed by the loving and accepting nature of the community than she expected she would be, but she was never a believer the whole time they were totally convinced she was.

She was kind of like a Skrull. She was there dressed in one skin, but underneath she was someone else entirely. I wonder how many Gina Welch’s are in churches across the country. Now, she meant no harm to the church, and came to really like some of the people there, but she was never really one of them. She was unknowingly an agent of the enemy. I wonder just how many agents of the enemy we have in our churches who could be activated by him at any time to do incredible damage to unsuspecting congregations.

So, does this mean we should be far more cautious and skeptical of people who come in our doors. Should we make it harder for outsiders to get in and feel accepted? Should we look at each other with doubt and mistrust? No, not at all. Taking that kind of a route means the enemy has accomplished his goal. The reaction of President Ritson at the end of Secret Invasion meant that in a sense, Gravik was right. He kind of won even though he lost. We must never operate toward the people around us with anything less than the love of Christ. After all, it is by our demonstration of His love that people will know we are His disciples.

No, what this means is that we need to be a whole lot better about defining what membership really means and how it works in our churches. We should be more discerning about who is a member and who isn’t. We should have higher expectations for our members not simply in terms of their involvement and commitment, but in terms of their discipleship and spiritual growth. Growing in Christ and displaying the fruits of the Spirit in our lives should be a natural outworking of a genuine faith in Him. If that’s not happening, guys like Paul and even Jesus Himself openly question whether or not such a person is really following Him. In fact, Jesus is rather insistent that without fruit, claims to be His follower are empty and false. So then, should we as churches hold to anything less than such a standard of expectations as this? We should expect to see fruit coming to bear in the lives of our members. And if we consistently don’t see any fruit, from the kinds of things we see across the New Testament, we should put their membership first on probation, and then revoke it entirely if the lack persistently continues.

This sounds terribly scary and even unloving of a thing to do, but in truth, it is just the opposite. It is loving to create contexts of humble accountability in our churches that actively urge our members on to real spiritual growth. This also helps to safeguard our congregations from those whom the enemy might use to do us harm. Paul warned us nearly 2,000 years ago that the presence of folks like this was going to continue and get worse. Jesus told us to be as shrewd as serpents and as innocent as doves. We need to hit both of those marks. The health and integrity of our churches depends on it. Love must be our constant guide and nothing short of that. We must accept all people just as they are. But we must commit at the same time to not leaving them as they are. We must be insistent on the fruit of the Spirit in all of our members. If we don’t see it, that’s a signal we cannot afford to miss. We must reject Ritson’s path entirely, but we cannot afford not to walk Paul’s. The enemy is trying to invade our churches and there’s nothing secret about his intentions. Rather than rejecting people, though, we must work all the harder to make them truly a part of our family. That’s the goal.