Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) battles a well-hidden threat in Secret Invaders.
There was a lot of Marvel goodness at this weekend’s D23 Expo. The studio has released the first teaser trailer for Secret Invasionthe six-part crossover event series starring Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury, as well as a trailer for a Halloween TV special, Werewolf at night, based on the Marvel Comics character. Attendees were also treated to sneak peek images of some upcoming Marvel projects: Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Loki S2, The Marvels, Ironheartand Echoamong other things.
Secret Invasion
Secret Invasion is based on the 2008 storyline from the comic books. It’s part of Phase Five of the MCU, and Feige has said the crossover event will tie in with future Marvel movies. The scope won’t be that big in terms of the number of characters, and will instead focus on Fury and the comic bookline’s political intrigue and intergalactic espionage, as well as illuminating things that happened during the Blip. Don Cheadle’s James “Rhode” Rhodes will appear, as will Coby Smulders as Maria Hill, Martin Freeman’s Everett K. Ross and Dermot Mulroney as US President Ritson. The cast also includes Kingsley Ben-Adir as the main villain, as well as Olivia Coleman, Emilia Clarke and Killian Scott.
The premise is that a rebellious faction of shape-shifting Skrulls has infiltrated Earth. Fury will team up with his former Skrull ally, Talos (Ben Mendelsohn) to thwart the invading Skrulls. The teaser shows a bearded, rather scruffy-looking Fury returning to Earth after a long absence, much to the surprise of Maria Hill, who has been trying to contact him for years. There is clearly a serious threat. We see Fury meet Rhodes and ask how well he really knows his security details. Since Skrulls can turn into anyone, how can you tell if someone is a human or a Skrull? “I’m the last person standing between them and what they really want,” Fury says, but we don’t know what that could be yet.
Werewolf at night
Gael Garcia Bernal plays Jack Russell in Werewolf at nighta special Marvel presentation.
One of the best things about expanding Marvel to streaming TV is the creative risks the studio occasionally takes with those series, such as WandaVision and She-Hulkfor example, both of which are very different in tone and scope from the usual Marvel fare. Werewolf at night seems to be in the same line. It’s the first time Marvel has dipped its toe into “special presentations” and the trailer, shot almost entirely in black and white, seems to be channeling classic old Universal horror movies — with a bit of grindhouse for the record.
There are two incarnations of Werewolf by Night in the comic books, and the Halloween special will feature Jack Russell, played by Gael Garcia Bernal (Old). Laura Donnelly stars as Elsa Bloodstone, a monster hunter. In the comics, Russell is the descendant of a long line of werewolves, dating back to a conflict with Dracula in Transylvania, who discovers his shape-shifting nature after his mother is killed in a car accident. The trailer doesn’t go into that, but it’s visually striking with just a hint of cheese, complete with a haunted castle and a pun-making animatronic zombie who claims to “rot” for a group of hunters who’ve come to say castle.
Other Amazing Facts
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. We loved the somber, elegiac first teaser for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever screened at Comic-Con in July; it captured the grief and sense of loss related to the death of T’Challa (and the actor who played him, Chadwick Boseman). Visitors to the D23 Expo were treated to new images showing the wider impact, especially the political ramifications.
At the end of Black Panther, T’Challa revealed the true nature of Wakanda and its vast vibranium sources to the assembled representatives at the United Nations. The new footage begins with Queen Ramonda (Angela Bassett) facing an angry UN to defend the concealment of Wakanda’s resources. This is interspersed with scenes of soldiers invading a vibranium plant, which are thwarted by Okoye (Danai Gurira) and a host of Dora Milaje. The rest of the footage involved Atlantis and Namor (Tenoch Huerta), who fears T’Challa’s big reveal has put his own country in danger.
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. Wakanda forever marks the end of phase four of what is officially called The Multiverse Saga (comprising phases four, five and six). Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania will kick off Phase Five with the release on February 17, 2023. The footage shown at D23 was essentially the same as that shown at Comic-Con, with one major addition. When Scott (Paul Rudd) confronts Kang (Jonathan Majors) – who kidnapped Scott’s daughter Cassie – and identifies himself as an Avenger, Kang asks, “Did I kill you before?” He releases Cassie when Scott helps him retrieve something stolen from him. Scott refuses. A place of torture follows.
Loki S2. In the S1 final of Loki, Sylvie (Sophia di Martino) killed He Who Remains (aka Kang) and pushed Loki (Tom Hiddleston) through a time door. This sent him to an alternate version of the Time Variance Authority (TVA). The second season, slated for a summer 2023 release, picks up where we left off. It’s still in the midst of filming, but Marvel showed a teaser (not publicly released) featuring Loki on TVA before he was whisked away by a time looper. Sylvie and Mobius (Owen Wilson) also perform, along with new cast member Ke Huy Quan (Everything Everywhere All at once), who appears to be the TVA librarian. Loki warns of a coming multiverse war and reveals a hidden image of Kang in a wall behind a TVA mural.
the miracles. To remind Mrs. Marvel‘s end credits scene, where Brie Larson’s Captain Marvel suddenly appears in Kamala Khan’s bedroom? Judging by the new footage shown at DC23, that scene is part of the miracles, a Phase Five film directed by Nic DaCosta. It’s the direct sequel to 2019 Captain Marvel and scheduled to release on July 28, 2023. Apparently, Captain Marvel, Mrs. Marvel, and Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris) are somehow connected and can randomly switch places when their energies get entangled. So while Captain Marvel is in Kamala’s bedroom, Kamala is on a spaceship with Goose (the cat who really is a Flerken).
Echo. As we reported before, we’ve already met Maya Lopez (Alaqua Cox), aka Echo, in hawkeye. She was the deaf commander of the tracksuit mafia, able to perfectly copy the movements of another. And she was looking for the true identity of Ronin, the killer who killed her father. That put her on a collision course with Clint Barton/Hawkeye. Barton revealed that Wilson Fisk/Kingpin (Vincent D’Onofrio) wanted her father dead. In the hawkeye finale, Kingpin escaped, only to be confronted by an angry Maya. We heard a shot, but who got shot? And was it a fatal wound? D’Onofrio reprises his role as Kingpin. Other cast members include Devery Jacobs, Graham Greene, Cody Lightning, Chaske Spencer and Zahn McClarnon as Maya’s late father, William Lopez.
According to the official premise, the character’s relentless behavior in New York City is catching up with her in her hometown. She must face her past, reconnect with her Native American roots and embrace the meaning of family and community if she ever hopes to move forward.” Both elements appeared in the new footage, shot partly in black and white. a scene where Maya gets a new piece for her prosthetic leg at a tribal ceremony, and another where she takes out a group of bad guys at a dance club, ending with a Kingpin voiceover: “It’s been a long time.” The series is scheduled to air a release in the summer of 2023.
iron heart. Ryan Coogler, a producer on iron heart, introduced new imagery for this series starring Riri Williams (Dominique Thorne), a teenage tech genius who is a protégé of Tony Stark in the comics. We saw her briefly in the Comic-Con teaser before Wakanda forever, bonding with the equally brilliant Shuri (Letitia Wright). These new images showed Riri in a classroom at MIT, expressing her love of taking things apart to see how they work, as a born engineer. Back to scenes at home, where Riri builds her own armored suit and explains her work to Parker Robbins (Anthony Ramos) – aka The Hood (in the future), ending with a silhouette shot of Riri as Ironheart. The six-episode series is scheduled for late 2023.
