Warning: Major spoilers for Secret Invasion to follow from the off.
It’s no bold statement to say that Secret Invasion came out of the gates swinging hard with its first episode, which just aired on Disney Plus earlier today; from revealing Everett K. Ross as a Skrull, injecting the scene-stealing Sonya Falsworth into the mix and throwing a wrench into G’iah’s rebellious vocation early on, the pace at which the dominoes are being set up is only matched by the tenacity with which the rug is being pulled out from under us.
But none of the first episode’s events hit quite as hard as Maria Hill’s shocking demise. After she, Nick Fury, and Talos failed to stop the Skrull’s attack on Russia, the former S.H.I.E.L.D. agent was seemingly fatally shot by Gravik, who was impersonating Fury in all the chaos. Needless to say, fans aren’t happy with Secret Invasion‘s treatment of Maria Hill at present, and I can’t really say they’re in the wrong for feeling that way.
That said, we shouldn’t be too quick to decry Marvel just yet, as, among other possibilities, Maria could yet find an unlikely savior in the studio’s commitment to consistent timelines. Cobie Smulders is set to appear as Maria Hill in The Marvels, which is due in theaters in November. Now, normally, this would be a dead giveaway that Maria isn’t really dead, but there are still a few complicated hurdles at play here.
For starters, The Marvels was originally due to release on Feb. 17, the date that Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania ended up getting, so the original plan, at least, was to release The Marvels before Secret Invasion. This would have, and might still, explain Maria’s presence in The Marvels despite her death in Secret Invasion, and given that Fury seems to be more aged in Secret Invasion than in The Marvels judging by the latter’s trailer, it could be the case that The Marvels simply takes place after Secret Invasion despite now releasing after the Disney Plus series.
Nevertheless, it would be rather bold of Marvel to haphazardly mess with the MCU’s timeline by releasing properties without regard to their chronological occurrence, especially considering how important to the narrative Secret Invasion, in particular, will be. And, given that both The Marvels and Secret Invasion were subject to reshoots, to say nothing of the former’s recent delay from July to November, those could all have very well involved some changes that put Secret Invasion before The Marvels in the MCU’s official timeline. Furthermore, recent comments by Samuel L. Jackson himself, in which he stated that Secret Invasion “has to happen so that The Marvels can happen,” seems to heavily imply a chronology that puts The Marvels after Secret Invasion, which would therefore prematurely prove that Maria’s still kicking.
Ultimately, we’ll just have to wait and see if this really is the end of the road for Maria Hill, especially considering the way she’s talked about her character’s role in Secret Invasion during interviews, to say nothing of the uncanny timing of Maria’s demise, I see no reason to believe that this is the last we’ve seen of her.
Secret Invasion is now streaming on Disney Plus, while The Marvels is set to hit theaters on Nov. 10.