Secret Invasion: Maria Hill's Gross Way To ID Skrulls In Marvel Comics

Skrulls are no strangers to secretly invading the Marvel Universe, but the comic book version of Maria Hill recently figured out a fairly disgusting way to identify the shapeshifting aliens that could prove handy in the live-action adaptation of "Secret Invasion": Kill their blood.

"Secret Invasion" has come to the Marvel Cinematic Universe with the live-action series loosely adapting the events of the comic of the same name by Brian Michael Bendis, Leinil Francis Yu, Mark Morales, and Laura Martin. The MCU's version of the secret Skrull takeover began with the shocking death of former S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders). Her unexpected demise, plus the revelation by the Skrull Talos (Ben Mendelsohn) to Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) that at least one million Skrulls exist on Earth, has considerably changed the Marvel Universe's landscape.

With the Skrull, Gravik (Kingsley Ben-Adir), leading a charge to infiltrate and take control of the planet's governments through the use of his secret agents, it's never been more important to be able to identify who is truly human. While Fury hasn't figured out a solution to that problem yet, Hill found a smart way to find out who is human and who is not.

Maria Hill might not be alive in the MCU's version of "Secret Invasion" anymore (at least that's what the show wants viewers to believe), but the comic book version of the character figured out an important alternative way for detecting Skrulls. In the recent "Secret Invasion" miniseries by Ryan North, Francesco Mobili, Jordie Bellaire, and VC's Joe Caramagna from Marvel Comics, Hill and Nick Fury worked together to stop the rise of another Skrull invasion. Hill teamed up with the Avengers to prevent another near-collapse of the Marvel Universe at the hands of the Skrulls. However, when she met with Earth's Mightiest Heroes, she discovered that one of them was actually a Skrull in disguise. But Hill had an excellent method to suss out who the imposter was.

With a group of heroes sitting at a conference table, it's revealed Reed Richards' previous Skrull detector that helped save the planet during the first "Secret Invasion" has become useless with Skrulls figuring out how to avoid it. Hill decides another way to identify a Skrull, taking the blood of a captured shapeshifter and "killing" it to revert it to its natural green form. Hill gets blood samples of each Avenger and uses ionizing radiation to kill the masking agent within. When the dust settles, Natasha Romanoff's blood turns green (not She-Hulk green), revealing she is the Skrull in disguise, allowing Hill and the Avengers to incapacitate the faux hero. 

While there would be more twists and turns in the new "Secret Invasion" series, killing the Skrull's blood proved a game-changing way for Hill to identify who was working against her and on behalf of the alien invaders.

Can Maria Hill use the blood-killing technique to identify Skrulls in the Marvel Cinematic Universe? Considering she's technically dead, the answer is obviously no. But that doesn't mean someone else, such as Nick Fury, might not be able to use the method to figure out who is really a Skrull. With one million plus Skrulls on Earth, Fury will need to figure out an effective way to identify them; otherwise, the Skrulls who aim to overtake Earth will have little obstacles to overcome. Testing and killing their blood solves humanity's most significant problem in unmasking Skrulls.

However, if Maria Hill's death isn't what it appears to be, she still may be the one to discover the gross way to figure out who is a Skrull. But unless she's soon revived or revealed to be alive, the blood-killing method doesn't appear to be in the cards for Hill. "Secret Invasion" episode three comes out this Wednesday on Disney+.