‘Secret Invasion’ review: A closer look at Nick Fury and the Skrulls

I’ve said it before and, barring the collapse of the franchise, will have cause to say it again, but I find the Marvel Television Universe parsecs more interesting, watchable, smarter, affecting and fun than its big-screen, big-everything theatrical component. In the ensuing six decades of elaboration, retconning and world-building, he has become the man who conceived the Avengers, Marvel’s answer to D.C.’s Justice League; that pack of superheroes are currently off-world doing … something or other … which leaves “Secret Invasion,” its alien characters notwithstanding, refreshingly life-sized. “Humans can’t coexist with each other, Talos — you’ve been here long enough to know that,” says Fury. They’re led by Gravik, who “preys on the collective rage of young, displaced Skrulls,” whose ranks include Talos’ own daughter G’iah ; his plan — long popular among the unfriendly fictional space races — is to take over the planet from its current residents. Gravik is planning to take over the planet from its current residents in “Secret Invasion.” A plot in which a third party is sowing discord between two superpowers to its own advantage has, among other iterations, animated at least two Bond films — “You Only Live Twice” and “Tomorrow Never Dies” — as well as the Jack Ryan feature “The Sum of All Fears.” Stories in which an enemy walks among us — be they aliens in human form or ordinary human terrorists — have been used as many times as there are letters in this paragraph.