All ‘Secret Invasion’ Easter Eggs Explained

One of the things that we know about the MCU is that it has a habit of putting easter eggs in different productions to tease fans about what’s going to come in the future. Of course, some easter eggs are simply there for fun. Meanwhile, other easter eggs allow us to connect certain events, especially because the MCU is a huge fictional universe with many interconnected characters and events.

In that regard, ‘Secret Invasion’ has its own fair share of easter eggs. There have been a lot of easter eggs in the series lately, and we’ve seen quite a good number of them in the first five episodes. So, now that we only have one more episode for ‘Secret Invasion,’ let’s look at the different easter eggs we’ve seen in the show so far.

1. Civil War location cards

The storylines of Earth-based MCU movies are not the same without using location cards, which are basically the words we often see whenever a scene in an MCU movie moves to another location. Of course, because ‘Secret Invasion’ is based on Earth, the location cards we’ve seen so far are similar to those we saw in ‘Captain America: Civil War.’

We first saw the location card in the cold open of episode 1 when we saw fake Everett Ross meeting up with Agent Prescod. From then on, the same location card has been used for the entire series as we moved from different places worldwide, such as Moscow, London, and Finland. And the location cards may be similar to ‘Civil War’ due to how similarly dark the two shows are.

2. S.A.B.E.R. reference

S.A.B.E.R. is going to be one of the most important organizations in the entire storyline of the MCU because this is the spiritual successor of S.H.I.E.L.D. At the helm of S.A.B.E.R. is Nick Fury, who spent years up in space where the main headquarters of S.A.B.E.R. is. And S.A.B.E.R. is an organization that’s more concerned with extraterrestrial threats because Fury has been concerned with threats from different planets ever since he felt useless when Thanos attacked Earth.

Episode 1 of ‘Secret Invasion’ referenced Saber when Prescod discussed his theory about the Skrulls. Meanwhile, it was mentioned a few more times in the episode in relation to what Nick Fury had been doing ever since he left the planet years ago in the wake of Thanos’ defeat at the Battle of Earth.

3. Ritson is president, not Ross

We know that there will be an upcoming movie entitled ‘Thunderbolts’ in the future. The movie will be helmed by Harrison Ford’s Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross, who is often known as the main antagonist to Bruce Banner’s Hulk character. In the upcoming movie, Thunderbolt Ross is set to take over the role of the president of the United States and will eventually create a group composed of former villains and criminals.

But in ‘Secret Invasion,’ Ross is yet to be president. That’s because the current president is Ritson, who has been featured a few times in the series due to how important the political side of ‘Secret Invasion’ is. Gravik has been trying to force Ritson into going to war with Russia by allowing Raava, the Skrull posing as Rhodey, to convince him that the Russians and Skrulls have been working together to bring the US down. And this may be his final run as POTUS before Ross takes over.

4. Avengers references

The Avengers have always been important to the safety of Earth because these superheroes are the protectors of the planet, especially when it comes to superpowered beings. In that regard, we know they should be as involved as possible in the events of ‘Secret Invasion.’ But for some reason, there are no Avengers in the storyline because Nick Fury believes this is a personal battle between him and the Skrulls.

Nevertheless, the Avengers have been referenced a few times in the storyline. Gravik constructed a machine that could turn Skrulls into superpowered Skrulls so that they could become strong enough to fight the Avengers. Of course, several people have asked Fury whether or not he wanted to involve his “special friends” in this war against the Skrulls. And there’s also the fact that Gravik wants to get his hands on the Harvest, a collection of the DNA of all of the Avengers members.

5. The Promise

Back in 1995, we found out that the Skrulls that were on Earth were actually nice and were simply running away from the Kree Empire, which was trying to eradicate them from the universe. Led by Talos, the Skrulls worked together with Carol Danvers and Nick Fury to defeat the Kree that attacked Earth. And after that, Fury and Danvers promised that the Skrulls were safe on Earth and would work together to find a new home for them.

But there were flashbacks in ‘Secret Invasion’ that pointed to the fact that Fury made a pact with them. He wanted the Skrulls to use their powers to help Fury keep the planet safe while he was looking for a new home for them. But Fury’s failure to deliver his promise was the final nail in the coffin for Gravik, so he decided to take matters into his own hands.

6. The Skrulls and Emperor Drogge

In episode 2, Nick Fury asked Talos how many Skrulls were on Earth because he was seemingly unaware that the Skrulls were growing in numbers. That was when Talos admitted that all of the Skrulls that managed to escape the destruction of Skrullos were on Earth because he called them all to the planet years ago. And Fury was furious (pun intended) after learning that his friend had kept him in the dark.

Talos also said that the only Skrulls that didn’t join them were the ones belonging to Emperor Drogge’s colony. That means there are more Skrulls in the future and a Skrull emperor is leading them. There’s a possibility that this is the more extreme group of Skrulls because of the fact that Talos and the Skrulls that he used to lead were not part of his group. As such, there’s a chance that Drogge’s Skrulls are true villains, even when compared to Gravik and his Skrulls, who are just trying to find a home.

7. Extremis

In episode 2, we learned that the Skrulls were building a machine that could give them powers, and that was when G’iah infiltrated Dr. Dalton’s computer to find out more about what they were building. On the computer, she found out that the Skrulls had access to the DNA samples of several creatures and organisms, including someone who had Extremis in their body.

Back in ‘Iron Man 3,’ we saw Extremis in play as it was a creation of Aldrich Killian, who was Tony Stark’s rival. Basically, Extremis was a kind of technology that allowed human beings to heal and regenerate wounds and limbs while providing them with superhuman strength and abilities. However, Extremis can be quite extreme in the sense that it could cause the person’s body to produce tons of heat and expel thermal energy. And we’ve seen Gravik using the regenerative powers of Extremis a few times in ‘Secret Invasion.’

8. Groot

On top of the fact that Gravik and the Skrulls could get their hands on Extremis, they also had samples of Groot’s DNA because our favorite tree-like alien left a few of his roots on Earth. In that regard, the Skrulls harvested his DNA and used it to their advantage to obtain a fraction of Groot’s powers.

Of course, we’ve seen Gravik use Groot’s powers a few times already because this has been his go-to power from all of the DNA samples that the Skrulls have collected. In fact, he used the same power to kill Pagon, one of the top lieutenants working for him.

9. Frost Beast

Another one of the DNA samples that Gravik and the Skrulls collected came from the Frost Beast. This is a creature that is native to Jotunheim and was able to find itself on Earth during the convergence event that happened in ‘Thor: The Dark World.’ A portal from Jotunheim opened up and allowed a Frost Beast to enter the planet, where it was eventually killed.

Frost Beasts are powerful creatures with incredible physical abilities beyond what the regular Asgardian could handle. Of course, their strength pales in comparison to Thor. But we know that Frost Beasts can survive extremely cold temperatures. We are yet to see how important the Frost Beast DNA is to the Skrulls.

10. Cull Obsidian

Cull Obsidian was among the members of Thanos’ Black Order, his elite group of operatives. We saw Cull during the ‘Avengers: Infinity War events,’ where he went against Iron Man and Spider-Man. However, Wong used his sling ring portal to trap him in another location and closed the portal before Cull Obsidian could return. In doing so, Wong cut off one of his arms.

The Skrulls collected this arm as part of their DNA collection. Of course, Cull was supposedly the powerhouse of Thanos’ Black Order because he was supposedly strong enough to take on the Hulk. That means the Skrulls must have acquired some of Cull Obsidian’s superhuman strength by using the DNA sample they collected from his severed arm.

11. Skrull Rhodey

We all knew that Colonel James “Rhodey” Rhodes, the man under the War Machine helmet, would be in ‘Secret Invasion.’ We first saw him in episode 1, wherein he was clearly one of the closest men working for and under President Ritson as a top adviser. But while that may be true, there was something odd about him, especially after he fired Nick Fury and asked him to keep himself away from the investigation involving the Skrulls.

In episode 4, we learned that Rhodey was the one that contacted Varra and was actually working for Gravik. Later in that episode, we learned that he was actually a female Skrull, whose name was revealed in episode 5 as Raava. In that regard, the Rhodey that has been working under the president the entire series was a Skrull spy installed by Gravik. Of course, this isn’t the real Rhodey because we believe that the Skrulls were able to kidnap him at one point before the events of ‘Secret Invasion.’

12. ‘Black Panther 2’s’ “Show Them Who You Are”

In episode 4, we learned that G’iah turned herself into a Super-Skrull to survive Gravik’s attempt at her life. She eventually met up with her father, who told her why she was siding with Fury and the humans. Talos told G’iah that his goal was to defeat Gravik and his people so that he could convince the people of Earth that the Skrulls weren’t evil invaders. While doing so, Talos said the words, “We just have to keep showing them who we are.”

This is a direct reference to ‘Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,’ which allowed us to see Queen Ramonda telling T’Challa and Shuri to “show them who you are.” In that regard, this was a nod to one of the best lines in one of the best MCU movies released so far. And this phrase means that both the Skrulls and Queen Ramonda’s children should show the world that they weren’t evil.

13. Stark nanotech

We’ve always known that Tony Stark was the brightest mind on Earth when it came to technology, as he could develop nanotechnology, which he incorporated in the last two suits that he used in the MCU. Of course, we saw the return of his nanotechnology in ‘Secret Invasion’ but in a totally different way.

In a tense stalemate between Fury and fake Rhodey, the former SHIELD director gave the Skrull-in-hiding a bottle of fine bourbon. Fake Rhodey didn’t want to drink it until Fury drank some himself to prove that there wasn’t anything suspicious in it. That was when Fury eventually told Talos that the bourbon had ingested a liquid tracker that was created using Tony Stark’s nanotechnology.

14. Widow’s Veil

Episode 5 allowed us to see Nick Fury needing to hide from the authorities because he was now a wanted fugitive after a video of him (Gravik in disguise) killing Maria Hill was released. In that regard, he made use of a disguise that allowed him to hide in plain sight as a Finnish man when he had to go to Finland to collect the Harvest there.

Fury, of course, used the Widow’s Veil to keep himself hidden from the authorities while he was on his way to Finland. We’ve seen the Widow’s Veil in the past when Natasha Romanoff used it in ‘Captain America: The Winter Soldier’ to disguise herself as a member of the Security Council. Of course, Sharon Carter also used it in ‘The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.’

15. The Battle of Earth

The Battle of Earth is basically the big battle involving the good guys (the Avengers and their allies) against Thanos and his large army. This battle occurred in the ruins of the Avengers headquarters in New York. Of course, as Fury said, all of the Avengers shed blood in this fight, and that was how he collected their DNA for the Harvest.

It was important for Fury to reference the Battle of Earth because doing so allowed us to understand how he got his hands on the DNA of the Avengers. Of course, because Fury was, at one point, very paranoid about the possibility of another universal threat attacking Earth, he made sure to collect the DNA of the Avengers in case another similar threat were to arise.

16. Dr. Dalton

Dr. Rosa Dalton has been around since the earlier part of the series because she was the professor in charge of the machine Gravik needed to turn his men into Super Skrulls. But she had a bigger role in episode 5 when Sonya Falsworth obtained the location of her laboratory and raided it.

Falsworth met Dalton in her lab and killed the Skrull that was installed to be her bodyguard. Of course, Falsworth’s goal was to get as much information as possible from Dalton regarding the machine she created. It is worth mentioning that there was a certain Professor Dalton in the X-Men comics. In that storyline, Dalton created a facility to create superpowered people.

17. Rick Mason

Another obscure character that we saw in episode 5 of ‘Secret Invasion’ was the pilot of the jet that Nick Fury boarded so that he could get to Finland. When he boarded this jet, the pilot greeted him and gave him the necessary tools to enter Finland. This pilot was Rick Mason.

Of course, we know that Rick Mason was the very same pilot that provided Natasha Romanoff the same services during the events of the ‘Black Widow’ movie. This means that he was basically recycled from the ‘Black Widow’ movie, as Fury must have learned about him through various sources.

18. Fury’s graves

In episode 5, we learned that Nick Fury kept the Harvest hidden in a grave in Finland. It was revealed that this grave was actually his, as Varra might have dug up this grave after his “death” due to Thanos’ Snap. Fury eventually joked to Sonya that he had a lot of different graves around the world.

Of course, he wasn’t joking because we learned in ‘Captain America: The Winter Soldier’ that he indeed had more graves. That’s because Natasha Romanoff, Steve Rogers, and Sam Wilson visited one of Nick Fury’s graves at the movie’s end. And he may have more graves around the world because his spy work can be very dangerous.

19. The Harvest contains more DNA

In the earlier scenes involving Nick Fury (G’iah in disguise) and Gravik, we saw Fury giving the Skrull General the Harvest so that he could use it to become even stronger, as this contained the DNA of Carol Danvers and all of the other Avengers that fought during the Battle of Earth. So, in that regard, we were made to believe that it only had the powers of the good guys.

But when Gravik placed the Harvest in the machine, the computer screen of the Super Skrull machine allowed us to see that there were DNA in the Harvest than we originally thought. In that regard, it contained samples from heroes and villains alike, regardless of whether or not they participated in the Battle of Earth. It even had samples from the Abomination and Ghost, who were both absent in ‘Avengers: Endgame.’

20. The Powers that G’iah and Gravik used

In line with the abovementioned fact that the Harvest had more DNA samples than we originally thought, we were able to see G’iah and Gravik using some of those powers to full effect against one another during their battle in the finale. And it was a cool back-and-forth battle that allowed us to see just how creative they were in the use of their powers.

G’iah and Gravik didn’t use all of the powers of the Harvest, however, as they were more discriminating in the powers that they used. As such, they used the powers of the Hulk, the Abomination, Korg, Drax, the Frost Beast, Extremis, Ebony Maw, Mantis, and Captain Marvel, among others. Of course, if they used all of their powers, we would have run out of time.

21. HYDRA Siberian facility

During the time that Rhodey was trying to convince President Ritson that he needed to bomb New Skrullos to make a statement to Russia and the Skrulls, we were able to see several soldiers preparing to launch what seemed to be a nuclear strike aimed at Russia. In fact, we were able to see a nuclear silo that was about to launch a missile.

This silo was eerily similar to the same one that we saw during the events of ‘Captain America: Civil War.’ We are talking about the HYDRA facility in Siberia, where Tony Stark, Steve Rogers, and the Winter Soldier fought. It is possible that the US government found out about this facility and repurposed it.

22. Rhodey in a hospital gown

We all found out earlier in the series that Colonel James “Rhodey” Rhodes that was featured in ‘Secret Invasion’ was a Skrull named Raava. She was the one influencing Ritson the entire time that she was playing Rhodey’s role. And that means that the Skrulls were able to kidnap Rhodes.

The thing is that Rhodey was seen wearing a hospital gown and without his leg braces when he was rescued from the Skrull facility in New Skrullos. We don’t really know the significance of the hospital gown. But there are some fans that believe that he was kidnapped from a hospital after he sustained injuries during the events of ‘Civil War.’ If that’s the case, then maybe there’s a good chance that he was held captive by the Skrulls since ‘Civil War,’ which makes his final moment with Tony Stark sad because that may have been Raava the entire time.

23. “One-term president stuff”

After President Ritson survived the Skrull attack and was told about the existence of these shapeshifting aliens, he was so traumatized by the fact that he was nearly manipulated into starting World War III that he decided to act on the Skrull threat immediately. That was when he called a press conference wherein he unilaterally declared war on all of the Skrulls and announced that he would never stop until all of them were dead.

Shortly after that, Nick Fury called Ritson to tell him that his decision was a one-term move. This means that Ritson won’t get re-elected in the future as we all know that Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross is set to sit as the POTUS probably as early as ‘Captain America: Brave New World’ or ‘Thunderbolts.’

24. Evan Peters’ Quicksilver

Near the end of ‘Secret Invasion,’ we saw Sonya Falsworth and G’iah discovering a secret location that had thousands of humans that were being kept in Fracking Pods by the Skrulls. This hints at the possibility that there are more Gravik supporters out there in the world.

But the thing that struck us the most was the fact that there was a human that became the subject of the camera’s focus in that scene. We are talking about the man that looks eerily similar to Evan Peters’ Quicksilver, who appeared in WandaVision as a “recast” version of Pietro. Of course, we don’t know what this means for Quicksilver in the future of the MCU if this man was actually Evan Peters’ character.

25. Skrull-Kree peace talks

We all know that this entire mess involving the Skrulls was the result of the Kree-Skrull war that took place decades ago. The Kree wanted to wipe the Skrulls off the face of the universe, and that’s why Talos and his Skrulls hid on Earth, where all of the other Skrulls eventually retreated to.

But near the end of ‘Secret Invasion,’ we learned that Nick Fury heard from SABER that the Kree were now willing to enter into peace talks with the Skrulls. That’s why Fury wanted Varra to come work with him, as she was the best negotiator and diplomat in the history of the Skrulls. As such, there’s a good chance that we will finally see peace between the Skrulls and the Kree, thus allowing the Skrulls to have a home they can call their own.

26. Varra’s work

Before Varra accepted Fury’s offer to go to space so that she could facilitate the peace talks between the Skrulls and the Kree, she told her husband that she wasn’t going to stay with SABER long because her work on Earth was very important. And we all know that Varra simply continued living the life of Priscilla Davis, who died of a terminal illness long ago.

As we saw in the previous episodes, we know that Varra has been working on something that’s related to the superhuman gene, which we know already exists. That’s because Namor and Kamala Khan were confirmed to have genes that were different from regular humans. In that regard, this work that Varra has been so focused on might be related to the Mutants. And we all know that the Mutants are coming because the MCU has been teasing us for a while already.

Have an easter egg to add? Let us know in the comments!