Secret Invasion confirms Skrulls helped fight a surprise Marvel villain

Secret Invasion episode 3 has a Black Widow easter egg that you might've missed.

Marvel's latest show is something of a slow-burn Cold War-style espionage thriller – with the Skrulls revealing just how much they've been working with Nick Fury and the Avengers behind the scenes. In the opening of episode 3, we flashback to a 1998 meeting between Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) and Varra (Charlayne Woodard). Varra slides a piece of paper over to Fury, saying, "This should put Dreykov's men on their heels."

Dreykov was the controller of the Black Widows and overseer of the Red Room. Most of the movie takes place in 2016, if that tells you anything about how long it took for him to be taken down. He planned to use Natasha Romanoff as a pawn in his plan for ultimate power until she – spoiler alert – kicked his ass.

"Actually mad how this is confirmation that the Skrulls were instrumental in Natasha's recruitment, and then Talos implied they helped with more of the Avengers," one fan tweeted in response to the reference.

"Literally now it makes sense how Fury had “eyes everywhere, ears everywhere else," another tweeted in response to the above.

"I imagine Dreykov was a big threat back in the day for Fury and SHIELD not surprised the Skrulls were feeding him information about him," someone else commented.

New episodes of Secret Invasion air every Wednesday on Disney Plus. While we wait for episode 4, make sure you're up to date with the MCU with our guides to Marvel Phase 5 and Marvel Phase 6.