News broke out that Emilia Clarke will be joining the cast of the Disney+ Marvel Secret Invasion show. However, there wasn’t any clear update regarding who she would end up playing, as that is yet to be seen. Still, there is a good reason to believe that she will be playing the part of Queen Veranke, as fans believe that she is going to fit that role perfectly. But who is Veranke?
Queen Veranke is the Empress of the Skrull Empire and was the one who orchestrated the entire Secret Invasion storyline in the Marvel comics. In fact, she and the other members of the Skrull race were undetectable for years due to Veranke’s machinations. She took the form of Spider-Woman in Secret Invasion.
It’s going to be interesting to see Emilia Clarke playing the role of another queen, considering that she has done that part so well in Game of Thrones. That said, while it might not be confirmed that she will be playing Veranke, it is going to be an exciting day for fans to see her assuming the role of the Empress of the Skrulls. Of course, for those who don’t know who Veranke is, we are here to shed some light on that character.
Who Is Veranke?
It isn’t a secret (pun intended) that Marvel’s Secret Invasion series, which will be streaming on Disney+, will be following the story of the Skrulls, a race of shapeshifters that were introduced to fans of the MCU during the events of the Captain Marvel movie.
In Captain Marvel, we were initially led to believe that the Skrulls were the villains of the movie, considering that they do look like villains and that they have a history of villainy in the comics. But the film allowed us to see that the Skrulls of Captain Marvel are actually peaceful people who were merely running away from the imperialist Kree people. And Captain Marvel even went on to work with the Skrulls after the events of the film.
Then, in Spider-Man: Far From Home, we were able to see Nick Fury and Agent Maria Hill working together with Peter Parker to thwart the efforts of Mysterio, only for us to find out that the Fury and Hill during the entire film were actually the Skrulls that we saw in Captain Marvel. Specifically, it was Talos who acted the role of Fury in Far From Home, as it was revealed in No Way Home that the real Nick has been off-world for a long time already.
The events in Captain Marvel and Far From Home lead to the events of the Secret Invasion series, which will see the return of the Skrulls that we saw playing huge roles in Brie Larson’s first MCU film. And it has been recently confirmed that Game of Thrones star Emilia Clarke will be joining the cast of Secret Invasion.
When it was announced that Emilia Clarke was joining the MCU via Secret Invasion, fans were quick to speculate the possible role she would play. That was when they pointed out that she could be playing the role of Veranke. But who is Veranke?
The reason why we pointed out that the MCU version of the Skrulls (at least the ones we have been introduced to so far) is not as bad as they may look is the fact that their comic book versions are almost always portrayed to be militant, aggressive, and villainous. And one reason for that is Queen Veranke, the Empress of the Skrull Empire in the comics.
In the comics, Veranke started out as a religious Skrull princess that was banished by the Emperor. However, after the Emperor died, Veranke rose in popularity because of her religious zeal, and that was how she was able to win the devotion of the Skrulls. She eventually became the new Empress of the Skrull Empire and started off the Secret Invasion storyline in the comics.
While Veranke was formally introduced in 2008, she had been in the comics since 2004 during the New Avengers storyline in the comics. But no one recognized her because she took on the form of Jessica Drew, who you may know as Spider-Woman. For four years, Veranke was hiding among the Avengers as their fellow superhero and even went on to take advantage of some of the major events in the comics, such as the House of M and the Civil War.
Then, in 2008, she finally revealed herself in a Marvel-wide crossover called Secret Invasion, which revealed that the Skrulls had been hiding among the humans on the planet for many years already. And some of the superheroes that comic book fans were following for years were actually Skrulls in hiding.
To put it simply, Veranke’s plan was to infiltrate the planet as regular humans or even as superheroes so that they could take advantage of any opportunity they could get to weaken the strongest heroes on Earth and to finally take over the planet. And not even the Illuminati, which was composed of the leaders of the greatest superhero groups on Earth, detected the Skrulls’ presence on the planet.
In the end, Veranke’s plan was never completed because she ended up getting killed at the hands of Norman Osborne. Meanwhile, the rest of the Skrulls were repelled from the planet in what was a planet-wide effort from the major superhero groups on Earth.
Now going back, the reason why Emilia Clarke could be playing the role of Veranke is the fact that she isn’t a stranger to the role of a militant and conquering queen. Clarke rose to prominence as Daenerys Targaryen in the hit HBO show Game of Thrones, which spanned eight successful seasons and is widely regarded as the biggest television series in history.
Since she played the role of a conquering queen in Game of Thrones, she would fit the role of another queen in Secret Invasion. And the only character that best fits her history and forte is Veranke.
Veranke’s Powers & Abilities
While Veranke may be the Empress of the Skrulls, the truth is that she isn’t too different from the rest of her people. That’s because her abilities are just similar to that of any other Skrull’s but only a bit enhanced.
First off, like any Skrull, Veranke has the ability to shapeshift so that she can contract or expand their muscles at a molecular level to assume a different shape. That’s why Skrulls can take the form of any person or creature as long as that form is within their physical limits (because they still have limits as to the size of the thing they can shapeshift into).
And when Skrulls shapeshift, they need to consciously shift back to their original forms, and that means that they don’t lose their shifted form whenever they are asleep or unconscious (although they revert back when they die).
Another aspect of Veranke that makes her special compared to other Skrulls is the fact that she took part in a Skrull infiltration ritual that allowed her to gain Jessica Drew’s powers and memories when she shifted her form.
When Skrulls shapeshift, they only copy the form of the person and not their abilities, memories, and powers. However, this infiltration ritual allowed Veranke to completely assume the form of Spider-Woman in almost every aspect because she possessed her powers and memories.
As such, when Veranke was taking the form of Jessica Drew, she was able to completely go undetected throughout her entire stay on the planet. None of the scanning methods of Earth’s greatest heroes worked on her as she was able to pass Tony Stark’s scanning, Spider-Man’s spider-sense, Professor X’s mental scans, and Doctor Strange’s detection spell without causing any of the heroes to doubt whether or not she was truly Jessica Drew.
Thanks to the fact that Veranke was able to completely acquire all of Jessica Drew’s powers and memories, she had all of her powers and abilities whenever she assumed that form. That means that all of Spider-Woman’s powers and abilities were present in Veranke’s version of the character.
How Could Veranke Fit Into The MCU?
Now that you know more about Veranke, you might be wondering how she would fit into the entire MCU picture. And it all starts with the Skrulls and how they were introduced to the MCU during the events of Captain Marvel.
In Captain Marvel, the Skrulls that we saw were peaceful refugees that were running away from the imperialist Kree. However, the events of Captain Marvel were about three decades before the events of the current MCU timeline, as it could be possible that Veranke assumed the leadership of the Skrulls during that span of time. And it could also be possible that she turned the Skrulls into a militant group of conquerors.
Then, in Spider-Man: Far From Home, we saw that Talos and the other Skrulls were assuming the identities of Nick Fury and some of the other SHIELD agents. That’s because Fury was off-world, perhaps after the events of Avengers: Endgame. And it could be possible that he went off-world together with Captain Marvel so that they could investigate something that’s related to the Skrulls.
The possibility is that the reason why the other Skrulls (the good ones) remained on Earth is that they too were investigating the planet for possible Skrull invaders that were ordered by Veranke to infiltrate the planet. And that could be where the Secret Invasion series may stem off.
Of course, there is also the Illuminati. In the comics, the Illuminati is the secret group that’s composed of all of the leaders of Earth’s superhero groups. The group is composed of Iron Man, Professor X, Doctor Strange, Black Bolt, Namor, and Mr. Fantastic. And the reason why the group was formed was so that all six of them could gather together and share intel on what they knew about the possible Skrull invasion.
There is a good possibility that the Illuminati will be introduced in the upcoming Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness movie because of how the trailer points to that possibility. And one of the reasons why the Illuminati will be introduced to the MCU may be related to the events of the Secret Invasion and the threat of the Skrulls led by none other than Veranke herself.
It still is unclear whether or not the Illuminati is indeed going to make its debut in the upcoming Doctor Strange movie, but the possibility is still there. And considering that all of the MCU movies and shows are interconnected in one form or another, the introduction of the Illuminati and the story of Secret Invasion could be the starting point for Veranke’s introduction to the MCU
