‘Secret Invasion’ Director Confirms Since When James Rhodes Was a Skrull

This article contains spoilers for the ‘Secret Invasion’ series!

The latest series set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, ‘Secret Invasion,’ concluded this week after six episodes. The episode finished with G’iah becoming one of the most powerful MCU characters thanks to the Harvest and Gravik’s machine that transformed into a Super Skrull. She defeated Gravik and freed all his human prisoners, including Colonel James Rhodes.

One of the plot twists the series provided was that James Rhodes had been Skrull all along, but the series didn’t reveal when was the real Rhodes kidnapped by Skrulls and replaced with one of their own. We found out in the series that the Skrulls have been present on Earth since 1995, and that’s a pretty long period when the real Rhodes could’ve been kidnapped.

‘Secret Invasion’ director reveals when the Skrull replaced the real James Rhodes in the MCU timeline!

Immediately after the finale started streaming on Disney+, the fans started with their theories of when the alien invader replaced the real Rhodes. Definitely, the most popular theory is that he was replaced after his accident in Germany in ‘Captain America: Civil War.’

We remember that during the battle at the airport in Leipzig, Vision tried to take Falcon down with the Mind Stone, but he accidentally hit War Machine. Rhodes survived, and he was quickly taken to a hospital. Since the real Rhodes in ‘Secret Invasion’ wore the same hospital gown when G’iah saved him, the theory that Rhodes was kidnapped during the events of ‘Civil War’ actually makes sense.

In a recent interview for ComicBook.com, here’s how the series director Ali Selim commented on this issue.

“A lot of people have asked about, ‘Definitively, when did Rhodey…?’ I think his legs not working in the end of episode six and him being in the hospital gown points to [‘Captain America: Civil War’]. And, from there, does it have to be definitive, or is it more fun for the audience to go back and revisit every moment, every Rhodey moment and look at it with a different lens now that they think, ‘Oh, he might’ve been a Skrull there.’ And make the decision for themselves, or it’ll be answered in ‘Armor Wars.’”

Ali Selim for ComicBook.com

The character of James Rhodes has been a part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe since its beginning in 2008’s ‘Iron Man,’ in which Terrence Howard played the character. In 2010’s ‘Iron Man 2,’ Don Cheadle replaced Howard and kept playing the character ever since.

Cheadle has been officially confirmed to return in ‘Armor Wars,’ a project that was initially announced as another Disney+ mini-series, but it was later decided that the project would be developed as a feature movie instead. The upcoming movie’s release date and plot details are still unknown.

The ‘Secret Invasion’ series finished its run with mixed reviews from fans and critics. Although some fans praised it for returning to the action thriller genre, the criticism was aimed at the AI-created opening sequence and the writing of the final episode, particularly because of the rushed conclusion and G’iah’s character development.

All six episodes of ‘Secret Invasion’ are now streaming on Disney+.

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