The latest Marvel TV series, Secret Invasion, opens with an uncharacteristically timely monologue. “Imagine a world where information can’t be trusted,” rasps a CIA agent in present-day Moscow. “Not very hard, is it? News service says one thing. Website says another. Society starts to fray. All we can turn to are the people we care about. But what if those people weren’t who we thought they were?” So far, so chillingly authentic to this era of information bubbles and conspiracy thinking. But then Agent Prescod (Richard Dormer) continues: “What if they weren’t even human?”
It turns out he’s talking about Skrulls: reptilian space aliens who hide behind human faces on earth. According to his theory, a series of international terrorist attacks, each claimed by a different group of militants, are