When it comes to comic book properties, the two certainties in life get shaved down to just one, and thanks to The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, we all know that it isn’t taxes that superheroes are immune to.
Indeed, death is something of a laughing stock when it comes to comic book characters, and that norm has slowly been trickling into the Marvel Cinematic Universe as of late, mostly in the form of the dead-but-not-really Loki, whose rave reviews for his solo show prove that you don’t need comprehensible stakes to tell an engaging story (a lesson we can’t quite get on board with, but we digress).
All this to say that newcomers to the MCU need to flip their mindset when it comes to understanding death, a memo that one Ben Mendelsohn apparently missed when he first got called into the franchise. In an interview with Collider, the actor admitted to naively assuming that his character Talos was done and dusted after Captain Marvel, since Talos’s death occurred on page 56 of the film’s script.
“No. He died on page 56. I was doing it because Ryan [Fleck] and Anna [Boden] had directed Mississippi Grind, which was the first lead I got. They asked me if I’d do it, and I was like, “Yeah, of course, I’ll do it for you guys.” I have loved being a part of that world.”
Of course, Talos is still alive and well, and he’s all set to spearhead what will no doubt be a Phase Five powerhouse in Secret Invasion, where he’ll be teaming up with Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury to wage a quiet war against an antagonistic sect of Skrulls led by Kingsley Ben-Adir’s Gravik. Mendelsohn may not have known what he was getting himself into back when he signed on for Captain Marvel, but he sure is happy to be here, in any case.
Secret Invasion will release to Disney Plus on June 21.