Highlights
- Nick Fury's secrets are exposed in Secret Invasion, including his use of Skrulls as a personal spy network and his creation of "the Harvest."
- The Harvest is a mixture of DNA collected from the Battle for Earth, including heroes like Hulk, Captain Marvel, and Thor, as well as villains like Thanos and Ebony Maw.
- The creation of the Harvest raises several questions that Secret Invasion doesn't answer, such as why it seems to include the DNA of some heroes but not others.
Warning: The following contains spoilers for Secret Invasion on Disney Plus.The Disney Plus series Secret Invasion doesn’t just detail a shapeshifting race of aliens hiding on Earth; the show also exposes some of Nick Fury’s secrets. The audience learns a lot about him in the six-episode limited series. Nick Fury, for example, has a wife who was a Skrull diplomat before living as a human professor. He also employed Skrulls to act as his own personal spy network, which is how he stayed ahead of his enemies. One of the big secrets, however, is that concerning “the Harvest.”
The Harvest is what Gravik truly wants in the series in order to make himself powerful enough to take over Earth. He thinks the Harvest will allow him to get rid of any hero that might get in his way. It’s created from a plan hatched by Nick Fury during the events of Avengers: Endgame. He asks Skrulls to infiltrate the Battle for Earth and collect the blood spilled by the heroes, giving him access to the DNA of very powerful individuals. Nick Fury’s idea for the Harvest, however, creates more questions in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Every MCU Character Whose DNA Is In The Harvest
When Nick Fury and Gravik talk about the Harvest in Secret Invasion Episode 5, they speak as though it only contains the DNA of the heroes who belong to the Avengers. Specifically, they talk about gathering DNA from the battlefield where the Avengers and their allies fight Thanos and his forces in the “battle for Earth.” That makes it sound as though the Harvest is several different DNA samples from characters like Hulk, Spider-Man, Captain Marvel, etc. That’s not exactly the case. Instead, the Harvest is a single bottle of combined DNA. Not all of the Avengers members have DNA in the mixture, but there are a lot of other MCU characters that do.
When Gravik tests the Harvest in Secret Invasion episode 6, it quickly runs through the sample and identifies the DNA of 21 different MCU characters. The audience can suspend disbelief that the computer is able to somehow match the DNA with nothing to go on, but the mix of samples is an interesting one. Among the Avengers, or really, the collection of heroes’ DNA is Hulk, Captain America, Winter Soldier, Captain Marvel, Thor, Valkyrie, Korg, Groot (labeled as Flora Colossus), Gamora, Drax, and Mantis.
Frost Beast and Cull Obsidian DNA are also tracked, but the audience knows that those are already in the Skrull computer. In addition to those, Thanos, Proxima Midnight, Corvus Glaive, Outrider, Chitauri, and Ebony Maw. Those species and characters are all expected to have DNA left on the battlefield since they were involved in the conflict in Avengers: Endgame. There are questions about just when and where Thanos and Captain Marvel left DNA behind since neither actually appeared to lose any blood on the field, but that, again, requires a small suspension of disbelief from the audience.
The final two sets of DNA included in the Harvest are characters who were never known to be at the Battle for Earth: Ava Starr’s Ghost and Emil Blonsky’s Abomination.
Why Did Fury Create The Harvest In The First Place?
The fact that all of this DNA is harvested by Fury’s spies, who just happen to be Skrulls, is a little concerning. Fury plays the long game in the MCU, always trying to stay one step ahead of everyone else. While it’s likely he knows that advancements in technology mean that the DNA of any single superpowered human or alien could lead to experimentation by interested parties, his decision to take all the harvested DNA and combine it into a single cocktail is a strange one.
Not only does this mean all the DNA he’s harvested is in one place, but it also means the most powerful abilities can be gleaned from it. Captain Marvel’s DNA is the one most often referenced in the show, and both Gravik and G’iah end up with her abilities as Super Skrulls (and the abilities of all the other beings whose DNA is included in the Harvest). Nick Fury deciding to make the most powerful DNA cocktail in the world doesn’t seem like his best plan.
In the past, many of the heroes in the MCU have been created because governments attempt to recreate the supersoldier serum. That’s what leads to the Winter Soldier, Hulk, and more ending up with their powers, as well as the development of the Extremis serum. It appears that Nick Fury was following the same example as the misguided scientists before him - throwing everything known to create or have superpowers into a blender and hoping it could be used to give powers to someone else. He claims to want to prevent access to the Harvest, but he wouldn’t have needed to prevent access to it if he hadn’t allowed it to be created in the first place.
The Harvest is an incredibly dangerous idea, especially since the world in the MCU already has tried to regulate the actions of superpowered individuals with disastrous results. He had to know collecting that DNA and holding onto it was a bad idea.
Why Aren't Certain Characters Included In The Harvest Who Were Present At The Battle?
Though there are 21 confirmed DNA samples in the Harvest in Secret Invasion, that is hardly everyone present at the final battle. It makes sense that Nick Fury wouldn’t place the DNA of humans who simply use weapons or machinery in the Harvest. Characters like Iron Man, Hawkeye, Falcon (now, the new Captain America), Ant-Man, Wasp, and members of the Dora Milaje are highly trained, but they use technology and/or their fighting skills. Their DNA is not fundamentally changed.
There are, however, a lot of characters who have superpowers or altered DNA who are explicitly missing from the Harvest. Spider-Man, Scarlet Witch, Nebula, Rocket Racoon, Star-Lord, and Black Panther are not included in the Harvest. This is a strange oversight, especially since Peter Parker is one of the few characters to actually be shown during the battle with open wounds. In the case of Peter Parker, it could be that the character is in a gray area because of the arrangement for Marvel to share the character with Sony. The rest of the characters, however, all have superpowers or alien DNA that would be of interest to someone collecting the Harvest. There’s no glaring reason why their DNA wouldn’t be included.
Of particular note: no magic users are included in the Harvest. Doctor Strange, new Sorcerer Supreme Wong, the Scarlet Witch, and a slew of other sorcerers were on the battlefield. None of their DNA is referenced in the Harvest. This might speak to a larger discrepancy between those whose DNA is altered and those who are able to harness magic though, creating a divide between the types of powers seen in the MCU.
Does This Mean Ghost And Abomination Fought In Avengers: Endgame?
Of course, the biggest question of all provided by the Harvest being revealed in Secret Invasion episode 6 is just how the DNA of Ava Starr and Emil Blonsky ended up in it. Neither character has previously been referenced as being part of the Battle for Earth in Avengers: Endgame. Just because they weren’t explicitly mentioned in the movie or shown in a closeup in battle doesn’t mean they weren’t there though.
The last the MCU audience saw Ava Starr was before Thanos snapped his fingers in Avengers: Infinity War. She was given quantum energy from the Pym family to help stabilize her phasing powers and prevent her powers from killing her. The Pym family and Scott Lang were going to help her, but he got stuck in the Quantum Realm and the rest of the family vanished in the Snap. She’s next set to appear in Thunderbolts.
It’s entirely possible that in the years that the audience hasn’t seen Ava Starr, she’s already been recruited by someone like Valentina Allegra de Fontaine to fight. Val, as she prefers to be called, has been making the rounds of recent MCU projects. If she got to Ava in the five years in between, and she somehow heard about the battle, Ava could have been sent in. That’s an easy enough explanation.
The last the MCU audience saw Emil Blonsky was in custody in She-Hulk. There, however, it was made clear that he had already left his cell multiple times with the help of Wong to fight in underground superpowered tournaments. Unlike Ava Starr, Emily Blonsky hasn’t been listed as a potential member of the Thunderbolts, but it’s clear that he didn’t have to be working for anyone for a magic user like Wong to stop by and ask for his help. Wong, after all, was instructed to “bring everyone” to the fight, and that might not just have meant magic users.
The retcon regarding Ava Starr and Emil Blonsky being present at the Battle for Earth in Avengers: Endgame is actually the easiest question to find possible answers to. It’s the existence of the Harvest in the first place that is going to leave a lot of MCU fans wondering: why?
The entirety of Secret Invasion is available to stream on Disney Plus.