More than a year after Emilia Clarke declared she was going to take a break from big franchise roles following the, shall we say, highly controversial (read: absolutely disastrous) ending of Game Of Thrones, she’s back – and her triumphant return to franchise roles is going to be a big one, befitting the woman who brought Daenerys Stormborn of the House Targaryen, First of Her Name, the Unburnt, Queen of the Andals and the First Men, Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, Breaker of Chains, and Mother of Dragons, to life; and scored four Emmy nominations in the process. Clarke is in final talks to join Marvel’s upcoming Disney+ series, Secret Invasion, one of the studio’s most hotly-anticipated crossover events.
Funnily enough, Marvel is the one studio Emilia Clarke said she’d consider breaking her no-franchise rule for if they approached her – saying that “I want to do something stupid and silly, like, you know, the Avengers or whatever. Something where I got to have a giggle with mates.” I’m sure it won’t be long before a certain faction of perpetually embittered MCU stans freak out at her over that quote, but Clarke wants to have fun with a Marvel role, and I can’t blame her. The popularity of Kathryn Hahn’s Agatha Harkness proves that silly, campy, supervillains are back in style, at least.
Right now, we don’t know anything about Emilia Clarke’s role in Secret Invasion, but I hope she gets a chance to have that “giggle with mates”, because she deserves it. As soon as I heard about her casting (a bit belatedly, thanks to a poorly-timed dentist appointment), my mind jumped straight to the character of Abigail Brand, who seems like an obvious candidate for a leading role in Secret Invasion that would still give someone of Clarke’s stature a chance to do some real acting. She won’t be commanding fleets of dragons or battling hordes of the undead, but Abigail Brand is a character I’m very excited to see in live-action.
First of all, she’s a extraterrestrial mutant with tattoos on her biceps and choppy green hair to go with her bright green goggles and uniform, whose half-brother is a furry alien – so Clarke has an opportunity to do something silly with the role, if that’s still what she wants. Secondly, Brand’s mutant power is classified as “tactile pyrokinesis”, allowing her hands to turn into burning-hot energy-balls – which is both silly and potentially very cool. I mean, Emilia Clarke with arm-tats and green hair is already going to be intrinsically cool, but add the ability to throw around multicolored fireballs, and my hype-levels just keep increasing. Thirdly, Brand is the commander of S.W.O.R.D., and that’s where things get a bit more complicated.
In the MCU, we’ve only seen the earth-based division of S.W.O.R.D., and the organization’s mission was depicted as being completely different from the comics (observing “sentient weapons” rather than “sentient worlds”). It was revealed that S.W.O.R.D. has a space division in the MCU, but that it was scrapped in the five years following the Blip due to a personnel shortage. And while S.W.O.R.D.’s antagonistic director Tyler Hayward was the one who gave the order to halt manned missions to space, he was arrested at the end of WandaVision, so his seat is now vacant…and it won’t be filled by Monica Rambeau, who’s on her way to space to join Nick Fury. WandaVision indirectly allowed for Abigail Brand to make her MCU debut as Hayward’s successor.
That arc could potentially give Emilia Clarke an opportunity to do some real dramatic acting as well as silly stuff like shoot fireballs out of her hands (something her Secret Invasion costar, Oscar-winner Olivia Colman, said she wanted to do way back in 2016). In the comics, Brand plays a crucial part in the Secret Invasion storyline, which involves villainous shapeshifting Skrulls infiltrating Earth while disguised as prominent superheroes. As one of Nick Fury’s top agents at S.W.O.R.D., Brand is trapped on the organization’s interstellar headquarters when a Skrull terrorist blows it to bits, forcing Brand and other S.W.O.R.D. to don life-support systems and try to survive the vacuum of space (she does, but it would make for some very harrowing television).
Later, Brand joins Alpha Flight, the organization that essentially replaces S.W.O.R.D. in the comics, where she has a hostile relationship with the team’s leader, Carol Danvers. If Danvers does have a cameo in Secret Invasion, as I’ve long believed she may, the seeds of this dynamic could be planted (unless Clarke’s role is a one-and-done type of thing, but I sincerely hope that’s not the case). But Brand isn’t really friendly with anyone – she’s frequently antagonistic to Nick Fury, and his second-in-command, Maria Hill. And now I need to see Emilia Clarke getting her sass game on in heated arguments with Samuel L. Jackson. There’s too many reasons to love this casting.
Of course, it’s possible Clarke won’t be playing Brand – some fans think she’ll portray Spider-Woman, though there’s the underlying question of whether Sony would agree to allow the character to debut in a Disney+ series. A lot of Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. fans seem resigned to the fact that Daisy Johnson will appear in Secret Invasion with a new actress (to which I say: don’t give up hope!), but even if Marvel does recast Chloe Bennet, the optics of rewriting the studio’s first Asian-American heroine as a white woman would be downright awful, and I don’t see them doing that. But my money’s on Brand, and it’s the option for which I’d be most excited.
That being said, I’m happy for Emilia Clarke no matter who she’s playing. She’s been through a lot, and I hope working with Marvel, alongside talent like Samuel L. Jackson, Ben Mendelsohn, Kingsley Ben-Adir, and Olivia Coleman, gives her all the giggles she wants from her superhero debut.
But what do you think? Which character do you want Emilia Clarke to play? Share your own thoughts, theories, and opinions, in the comments below!