There has been quite a bit of speculation about who Game of Thrones star Emilia Clarke will be playing in the upcoming Marvel series, Secret Invasion. With reshoots now said to be over, there is a possibility that Clarke’s character could be playing a Skrull character called G’iah/Gloria Warner, who will be familiar to comic book fans after making her debut in 2019’s Meet The Skrulls comic series.
While this information has been shared by insider Daniel Richtman, who has been a consistent provider of Marvel secrets, there has not yet been any official confirmation of who any of the newcomers to the franchise will be playing and is still only a rumor at this stage. If this is true, then Clarke’s character plays a Skrull who initially is part of the race of aliens’ invasion of Earth, but then switches sides after becoming disillusioned with the brutal ways of her people.
There have been a number of behind the scenes images revealed from filming that have shown Clarke’s character seeming to meet in secret with Cobie Smulders returning Maria Hill, which would tie into the idea of her playing G’iah and approaching Smulders as she provides information on the Skrull plan. Although there have been very few details revealed about the series so far, Secret Invasion is based on the 2008 Marvel Comics storyline of the same name, and is expected to play out a plot that sees Skrulls taking the identities of a number of Earth’s superheroes. The first hint at all of this came in Spider-Man: Far From Home, when the post-credits scene revealed that Nick Fury had been on a space station for the entire duration of the movie and Peter Parker had been interacting with Skrull Talos in the form of Fury.
The Skrull Invasion Of Earth Has Been Ongoing For Some Time In The MCU
Secret Invasion has been teased for a few years now, and gives Samuel L. Jackson his first lead in the MCU after always working behind other characters. With Spider-Man: Far From Home having already set a small tease for the show, other details that have been released suggest that the series will take place, at least in part, during the Blip. This has raised a few questions as to how Nick Fury and Maria Hill are prominent characters considering they were both snapped away by Thanos.
However, this opens up the prospect that, just as in Spider-Man: Far From Home, the pair will for some of the show be Skrulls in disguise. Speaking about the show previously, Cobie Smulders explained that the premise of the series has been building since the Skull’s introduction in Captain Marvel. She said:
"I mean when we think about the world that they're in, the Skrulls have been around since we saw them in Captain Marvel. They've been building in numbers. And are they good? Are they bad? We're gonna find out in the show. But there's certainly a lot of them and so it sort of turns into this, 'Can I trust you? Can I not trust you?' And it's really cool. It's certainly fraught with a lot of tension."
Secret Invasion is now expected to arrive on Disney+ early in 2023.