Every Superhero (And Villain) Power In Secret Invasion's Super Skrull Cocktail
This article contains spoilers for "Secret Invasion."
Well, that just happened. The season (and, in all likelihood, series) finale of Marvel Studios' "Secret Invasion" was a scant 38 minutes including the "previously on..." recap and credits, but the blur of events included a fight between two Super Skrulls imbued with the superpowers of Captain Marvel, the Avengers, the Guardians of the Galaxy, Thanos, and Thanos' goons from "Avengers: Infinity War" and "Avengers: Endgame." That might sound like an epic battle, but it was pretty short-lived and mostly just left us with a lot of questions about how DNA works in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
As Gravik puts into motion a plan for President Ritson to nuke New Skrullos and all of the Skrulls and captive humans residing there, Nick Fury tries to head things off by bringing Gravik the MacGuffin Harvest. This is a single vial containing a cocktail of DNA from the following superheroes: Captain Marvel, Ghost, Captain America, Mantis, Drax, Korg, Hulk, Valkyrie, Thor, Gamora, Flora Colossus (aka Groot), and the Winter Soldier.
Since plenty of bad guy blood has also been spilled on Earth, the Harvest also includes DNA from some major villains. There's a sample from Thanos himself, along with the Black Order: Corvus Glaive, Proxima Midnight, Cull Obsidian, and Ebony Maw. Then there's DNA from Thanos' armies, the Chitauri (who attacked during the Battle of New York) and the Outriders (the creatures under Thanos' thrall in "Infinity War" and "Endgame"). Finally, there's DNA from a Frost Beast (an indigenous species of Jotunheim, brought to Earth during "Thor: The Dark World") and from Abomination, who was most recently seen in "She-Hulk: Attorney at Law."
The weird tiny Drax arm has entered the building
Gravik had already obtained Groot powers and a dose of Extremis from a previous power-up, but this super-duper-soldier serum seriously expands his repertoire. Unfortunately for him, it also expands G'iah's repertoire, as Gravik realizes too late after forgetting to remove Nick Fury from the Super Skrull-making machine before switching it on.
Fury is revealed to be Talos' vengeful daughter in disguise, while the real Nick Fury's most significant contribution is holding Skrhodey at gunpoint for several minutes while trying to persuade President Ritson that Colonel Rhodes has been replaced by a Skrull imposter. So, after declaring that he won't call in the Avengers for help with Gravik because he can't keep relying on superheroes to solve all his problems, the end of "Secret Invasion" sees Fury relying on a superhero with the powers of all the other superheroes to resolve the Gravik problem.
The ensuing battle largely consists of G'iah and Gravik playing mix 'n' match with their arms, calling up different strands of DNA from the Harvest to add a little power to their punches. However, this raises some questions about Marvel Studios' understanding of DNA — and those questions aren't limited to Drax's DNA somehow giving G'iah Drax's tattoos as well.
Skrull Science 101
"Secret Invasion" offered greater insight into how exactly Skrulls are able to replicate other species and specific people. First, they need access to the person's DNA in order to transform into them. Then, optionally, they can also use their technology to raid people's minds for their memories, in order to better fool their friends and colleagues.
When it comes to impersonating people with superpowers, however, Skrulls can't gain those powers simply by adopting the appearance of the person; if they could, Talos could have ended the conflict pretty quickly simply by impersonating Captain Marvel, with whom he's had plenty of contact. In order to truly power up, Gravik and the Skrull scientists build a machine that can imbue them with powers using extracted DNA. So far, so comic book science.
There are a few points of confusion among fans in the wake of the "Secret Invasion" finale, however. One is how DNA from Ghost — the antagonist-turned-ally from "Ant-Man and the Wasp" — ended up in the Harvest when Ghost wasn't (as far as we know) present during the Battle of Earth. This can be explained by the fact that Ghost worked for SHIELD for some time, which would have given Fury ample opportunity to swipe her quantum-damaged DNA. The presence of Frost Beast and Abomination DNA in the mix also confirms that the Harvest wasn't exclusively obtained during the Battle of Earth.
We see G'iah using Ghost's phasing abilities a couple of times in the final battle, and they'll no doubt come in useful for her new alliance with Sonya Falsworth. But her mastery of other characters' abilities is a little more difficult to explain.
DNA is magic!
Here in the real world, the powers of DNA have been both overstated and understated, because deoxyribonucleic acid is complicated and difficult to translate into pop science. That very complexity is what has made it useful as a catch-all story device in science fiction; most people don't understand how DNA works (and even scientists who specialize in it have still only scratched the surface), so DNA can do pretty much anything you need it to in a fictional context.
Still, G'iah and Gravik's Super Skrull powers stretch suspension of disbelief, and not just because of the phrase "Super Skrull." After being stabbed by G'iah's Frost Beast arm, Gravik transforms one of his arms to look like that of Ebony Maw and uses Maw's telekinetic abilities to smash a bit of concrete into G'iah. Ebony Maw's powers appeared to be supernatural when he went up against fellow magic-wielder Doctor Strange, but Gravik's casual use of them implies that telekinesis is not only coded into Maw's DNA, but requires absolutely no training to use. Even more baffling is Captain Marvel's powers being transferred via her DNA, when Carol herself obtained them by getting a massive dose of energy directly from the Tesseract. Are the powers of the Infinity Stones really so easily replicable?
Then there's the moment when G'iah grows Mantis' antennae and instructs Gravik to "sleep," causing him to crash down to earth. Mantis has only used this power once on Earth, putting an Outrider to sleep amid the chaos of the Battle of Earth, so unless someone was live-streaming that exact moment, it's unclear how G'iah would know precisely how to use Mantis' abilities to induce sleep.
Yes, all of this is nitpicking comic book science. But the casual doling out of unique and remarkable abilities, and the Super Skrulls' ability to immediately deploy them with zero practice, somewhat cheapens the miracle of superpowers in the MCU.