After almost a year of build-up, the much-awaited first Marvel television series of 2023 has finally arrived.
The Samuel L. Jackson-led mini-series Secret Invasion follows Nick Fury as he and his allies fight to stop the shapeshifting reptilian humanoids known as the Skrulls from invading Earth.
Set in present-day MCU, the six-episode series sees Fury recruit allies, including Everett Ross (Martin Freeman), Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders), and Skrull ally Talos (Ben Mendelshon), to stop the renegade Skrulls, led by Gravik, from committing international terrorist attacks assuming global positions of power.
Since it was announced back in July 2022, the show’s plot was kept secret for quite some time, with ample speculation online.
The star-studded cast list also includes Emilia Clarke as G’iah, Talos’ daughter, and Olivia Colman as agent Sonya Falsworth.
So far this year, two films in the MCU have been released — Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 — with The Marvels movie and Echo, Loki Season 2, and Ironheartstill to come.
As otherworldly as the plot of Secret Invasion may seem, the inspiration for the Skrull species actually has its roots far closer to home than you may think — namely from a real reptilian conspiracy theorist fronted by infamous British conspiracy theorist David Icke.
What is the reptilian conspiracy theory behind the Skrulls?
In the world of Marvel Comics, the Skrulls are a fictional race of extraterrestrial humanoid shapeshifters.
The alien species predates another race of extraterrestrials, the Chitauri, who play a similar role, specifically in Ultimate Marvel.
Writer and producer Mark Millar, who conceived of the Chitauri, was inspired by prominent British conspiracy theorist David Icke.
Icke believes the world is secretly run by a secret and powerful elite establishment called the Illuminati who are, in reality, shape-shifting reptilian humanoids.
Speaking on the TV series The World’s Strangest UFO Stories in 2006, Icke said: “From 1998, I started coming across people who told me they had seen people change into a non-human form. It’s an age-old phenomenon known as shape-shifting. The basic form is like a scaly humanoid, with reptilian rather than humanoid eyes.”
The 71-year-old essentially thinks that a shape-shifting Chitauri-like race has controlled Earth for thousands of years, and that they have hijacked the planet to stop humanity from realising its true potential.
The term Chitauri comes from the Bantu language of the Shona people of Zimbabwe, and means “talker” in reference to the reptilians.
“It’s funny because the Hollywood guys don’t know this and I love that,” Millar told the Guardian in 2013. “I didn’t tell them. I’m a huge David Icke fan and I took the Chitauri from there. I love the fact that it’s in a $1.6bn grossing movie and it’s straight from David Icke!”
