Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Samuel L. Jackson, Emilia Clarke, Don Cheadle, Kingsley Ben-Adir, Killian Scott, Ben Mendelsohn, Olivia Coleman, Charlayne Woodward, Samuel Adewunmi, Katie Finneran, Irmena Chichikova, Cobie Smulders, Dermot Mulroney, Michael Epp, Anna Madeley, Mark Bazeley, Mark Lewis, Christopher McDonald, Martin Freeman, Nisha Aaliya, Uriel Emil, Tony Curran.

There was a time when artists, actors of all persuasions and abilities, were being dragged to the Senate to give evidence, and to name those to whom they ‘suspected’ of what was euphemistically called ‘Anti-American Activities’, essentially of harbouring the supposed ill-will against the United States of America in the fight against America.

“Reds Under The Bed”, ran the headlines, with some major players of the time standing firm, at a cost to themselves, against the zealot, the perilous and unsafe mind of Senator Joseph McCarthy. Those that folded, those that saw the hearings for what they were, the cowardly act of a nation’s ill-temper and hazardous regime unnerved by the association, of a backward gullible mind who’s own ambition far outweighed his ability, have never truly recovered their status; and yet the whole era has given writers ever since the fortitude and imagination to channel the moment into that which resembles the act of the witch hunt in political form.

Marvel’s Secret Invasion, when it was originally published in graphic novel form, was a sensation, the unnerving storyline demonstrated with fierce drama that there were those who sought to overthrow humanity by posing as their greatest heroes, for if you cannot trust Elektra, Henry Pym, and a whole host of Earth’s mightiest heroes, can you even trust those in your own government, your neighbour, your husband, wife, or child?

To take one of the most admired crossovers of all time and turn it into six parts mini-series under the MCU umbrella could be seen as overreaching, for the act of deception and suspenseful trickery involved would be to liken it to the McCarthy era, of expanding the paranoia that threated to bring down a President, into a world of comic book subtly in too short a time frame.

That said, when Marvel puts its mind to it, it comes up with the goods, and with a cast that includes the ever concise and edifying Samuel L. Jackson, the talented and acutely sincere Emilia Clarke and Olivia Coleman, and Ben Mendelsohn and Kinglsey Ben-Adir in daring pivotal roles, the show’s grip on the sense of the historic and future of the franchise sees the next step being taken as one of the most important yet. For if this particular series had failed in the light of expectation, then what is to come, will surely have floundered and withered into comic book adaption purgatory.

When there is a fifth column, a secret group of combatants in your country, it is reasonable, so it was once thought, to assume that everybody could be a spy, could be plotting to bring down the country and what it stands for. History has shown us that the paranoia of momentum is a weapon far greater than that of the bullet of the bomb, and in Secret Invasion that momentum is going to have far and wide sweeping effects that possibly will only enhance the future.  

Ian D. Hall