Is the MCU Tony Stark a SKRULL?

With Avengers: Infinity War fast approaching, many speculative eyes are looking towards the future of Marvel’s Cinematic Universe with eager anticipation. One thing we do know about life after Thanos is that Captain Marvel (2019) will introduce us to the evil, shapeshifting Skrulls. However, is it possible that the Skrulls have been in red and gold armour this whole time?

A little bit of backstory. In the Marvel Comics universe, from which Kevin Fiege’s tapestry of movies draw their inspiration, the Skrulls are a race of alien changelings who abduct Earth’s mightiest heroes and take on their form and personalities to infiltrate the planet to orchestrate its take over. One of the best features of the Skrulls is that they can show up at any time, and anybody could potentially be a Skrull. In 2007 during the legendary Secret Invasion storyline, it was revealed to us that Daredevil’s beloved Elektra had secretly been a Skrull informant. Many believe that the Secret Invasion story will be the bedrock for Avengers 4. Well, I have the wacky theory that in the MCU, the Skrull is Iron Man himself, Tony Stark.

I’ll probably be eating my hat down the line, but at the moment I’ve put together a substantial amount of evidence in my tinfoil covered mind that points to Robert Downey Jr.’s Stark is secretly a shapeshifting alien.

The first thing I’d like to point out is that the events of Avengers: Age of Ultron are almost entirely Tony Stark’s fault. He built a killer robot and then when things didn’t turn out so well he wanted to build another! What if Tony was working against The Avengers the whole time? Perhaps he wanted to weaken the planet so that the Skrulls could come in take over the place with as little opposition as possible.

I point to the sudden shift in Tony Stark’s ideology between his solo Iron Man films and his role in Captain America: Civil War. Now, one could point to Tony as having a little thing called character development as a reason for this change, but I’m of the mind that maybe, just maybe, it’s the Skrull inside of him influencing this. Let’s take a look.

In Iron Man 2, Mr. Stark stands before congress and refuses to hand over control of the Iron Man suit to the US government, proudly declared “I’ve privatised world peace”.

To the contrary, in Captain America: Civil War, Tony is advocating that not just he, but a whole team of Avengers submit themselves to the United Nations, effectively putting command of the Avengers into the hands of politicians. Well, politicians would be the first people the Skrulls would become, wouldn’t they? This comes not long after the events of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, where it’s unveiled that the highest echelons of power on the planet had been infiltrated by Hydra!

This is quite the turnaround, but what happens next? Tony does not act responsibly, and attempts to apprehend his own allies violently. Perhaps Tony was instructed to take out the opposition. Remember that Ant-Man, Falcon, Scarlet Witch and Hawkeye end up imprisoned once Iron Man apprehends them. A ready-made super prison, might I add.

Tony becomes so fixated on getting Steve Rogers to sign these Sokovia Accords that he attempts to enforce them to by callously roping a teenage boy into his team to fight against trained assassins, super soldiers and a reality warping enchantress. (In addition, said teenage boy hadn’t signed the Accords that Stark was so hell-bent on enforcing). Bare in mind that Tony’s alleged guilt over Sokovia was triggered by the death of a young man not much older than Peter Parker. Is this the behaviour of a superhero? One could say he’s like a man possessed!

If Tony was really signing up to the Sokovia Accords to undo the damage he did with Ultron, why then was he perfectly fine with completely trashing an airport? I think there’s more to this than meets the eye.

In the opening scenes of Civil War, Tony is making a presentation on behalf of his Stark Foundation. When his girlfriend Pepper Potts’ absence is brought up, Tony looks not upset about his girlfriend breaking up with him, but overcome with some profound secretive confusion. Take another look at the scene with that in mind.

(If you really want to get conspiratorial, what if Tony’s memory simulator is some kind of Skrull technology to help its agents recreate their stolen personalities…?)

Then alarmingly, in Spider-Man: Homecoming – the next movie in the continuity – we are reunited with Pepper Potts, and guess what? She too is behaving differently from how she usually acts and she also is perfectly okay with roping a boy too young to buy a beer into the most dangerous team in the world. Not only is Pepper acting strangely affectionate for somebody who recently had broken up with her boyfriend because he unleashed a killer robot on the planet (as Tony claims in Civil War), we’re led to assume that she accepts his marriage proposal!

I’m probably wrong about all of this, but it’s something that’s come to my mind recently. I think it’ll be a lot of fun once the Skrull speculation really kicks in after Infinity War, but for now, we’ll just have to wait and see!

The Fury of the Fast: Rock vs Gibson

The spat between Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Tyrese Gibson over the future of the Fast and Furious franchise seems to have reached its denouement. With that being said, I have no doubts that it has simply become dormant until further developments are revealed to the public. Nevertheless, I’d like to weigh in with my opinion about the whole debacle for two reasons. Firstly, to get something off my chest, and secondly, to see if anybody else agrees with me.

Here’s the story so far. Tyrese Gibson (who has played Roman Pearce since 2 Fast 2 Furious came out in 2003) recently lost his cool on social media, showing his own brand of fury about the possibility of an upcoming spin-off for The Rock’s character, Luke Hobbs. Gibson’s grievances stemmed from the likelihood that the next venture in the Fast series would be put on ice until 2020 to make room for Johnson’s project. He claimed that The Rock’s ambitions would break up the Fast and Furious family (AKA ‘La Familia’) and that his appearances in the franchise had diminished the camaraderie that the cast had built both on and off screen. The Rock made a response in which he stated that he just wanted to make fun movies and had no agenda in mind when he joined the cast. This follows on from an alleged dispute between Johnson and the series frontman Vin Diesel in 2016, and another (or possibly the same) exchange which caused The Rock to ambiguously dub one of his cast mates ‘candy a**ed’. Nevertheless, Diesel took Johnson’s side in the argument, and it now seems like that water is going under the bridge. Gibson has since apologised for his behaviour online.

I understand where Tyrese Gibson is coming from, although I don’t think he should have turned to social media in order to express his concerns. Many have accused Gibson of being jealous that Hobbs is getting a spin-off and Roman isn’t, but despite that accusation, I think he does have a point. Ever since The Rock began appearing in Fast and Furious pictures, he has been top billing, sometimes having distinct subplots from the rest of the team. With the introduction of big names like Jason Statham, Charlize Theron, Helen Mirren and Kurt Russell, the Fast movies have started to attract more and more star power, and are now some of the highest grossing film projects in the world. With this star power, opportunities for other members of La Familia to shine in these films are vanishing. The stories have become more and more ludicrous as time has gone by and in these increasingly more contrived plots, the heart of these films is getting lost. The heart being fraternity and family.

On the other hand, The Rock’s presence in the Fast and Furious films has amplified the film’s marketability. The Rock is essentially the most well-known action hero of this generation and is one the most highly paid performers in show business. He’s incredibly likeable and extremely popular, and his appearances in the Fast films draw in a larger audience and more money with which to make more Fast and Furious movies. It is essential for any series (be they films, TV shows, novels or comic books) to introduce new characters as they progress, and it’s merely good marketing know-how to want to hire stars you know will put bums on seats in movie theatres around the world. The Rock is exactly that kind of star.

As much as I like The Rock, I do feel that the series loses its uniqueness from having so many big stars appearing in the films. I have liked Dwayne Johnson in pretty much every film that I have seen him in. However, Vin Diesel and Paul Walker were not household names when the original F&F came out in 2001. It was because of the Fast and Furious films that these actors’ fame grew with their characters. The appreciation of these characters and their brotherhood was a crucial part of what made this film series so great. I don’t feel any real connection to The Rock’s character, maybe because he was an instantly recognisable star before the film was even made. There’s little in the way of an arc despite perhaps him growing trustful of Toretto’s clan, which does not create a believable bond of brotherhood like that of Walker’s Brian and Diesel’s Dom.

With Johnson and Statham now mainstays in the series, the films seem to have become “The Diet Expendables”, a congregation of action heroes stopping cape-less supervillains. I feel little attachment to Hobbs or Shaw. In fact, I’m boggled by La Familia forgiving Shaw for murdering Han in Tokyo Drift. The films just seem to have overlooked that as an excuse to keep Statham in the series, and the money rolling in.

My initial thoughts were that the moviemakers would be separating Hobbs and Shaw from La Familia so that they could have stories about Toretto’s team and Hobbs working independently of each other. I very much doubt that now, having seen the cast list for Fast 9. My hopes are that La Familia will bring Tokyo Drift‘s Shaun (Lucas Black) into the next Fast film in a more prominent role. That would make Tokyo Drift fit much better with the other movies, and I think it would be cool if Dom took him under his wing as a sort of apprentice. Perhaps La Familia will grow closer both on and off the screen with the addition of fresh blood.