The skinny on SABER, Nick Fury’s fancy space station that keeps showing up in the MCU

Marvel’s premiere Secret invasion series talks a lot about something it never quite shows. No, it’s not the shadowy threat of a Skrull invasion – it’s SABER, Nick Fury’s space station he uses for… You know, it’s not really clear why Nick Fury has a space station.

But what’s clear, if you’ve been following along, is that SABER is going to be part of the future of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It’s already popped up in trailers for this fall The miraclesand we first looked at it in 2019 Spider-Man: Far From Home. SABER is very common for an MCU thing we know so little about, and it has an analogue in the comics, but only if you squint.

So here’s everything we know about SABER, the next big solid piece of the MCU.

[Ed. Note: Mild spoilers for the first episode of Secret Invasion follow.]

What is SABER in the MCU?

Secret invasion‘s premiere explains Nick Fury’s new status quo: after getting Blipped in the closing credits scene of Avengers: Infinite War, he returned and vanished into space, aboard the SABER space station, apparently inhabited by friendly Skrulls. Since then, he only intervenes in Earth’s affairs through Skrull intermediaries – sending Talos to impersonate himself to keep Spider-Man and Mysterio aloft. Spider-Man: Far From Homeand at the end of sending another agent to recruit Monica Rambeau WandaVision, and take her to SABER to meet him. And thanks to the trailer of The miracleswe know she makes it there.

Okay, but what does SABER do?

So far it is unclear! (We don’t even know what it stands for.) After all, Earth already has a new SHIELD-like program that defends against alien threats: SWORD. The program was introduced in WandaVision, as a program created by Captain Marvel’s late girlfriend Maria Rambeau, Monica’s mother. But if SABER was part of SWORD, you wouldn’t think Nick Fury would have to send a secret agent to send up Monica, an agent of SWORD.

Is there a SABER in Marvel Comics?

Yes and no.

There’s a SWORD in Marvel Comics, and that program has its own kind of sword-shaped space station, but it’s called the Peak, not SABER. In the comics, SWORD stands for the Sentient World Observation and Response Department. That is, it is a sister organization to SHIELD, coordinating Earth’s response to developments on other worlds inhabited by sentient beings. (No worlds that are self-aware, although the Marvel Universe has those too.)

So it seems that SABER’s inclusion in the much more grounded retelling of the MCU Secret invasion may just be a red herring, a detail added to keep the show cohesive The miracles.

Except… that the destruction of the Peak used to be one of many inflammatory incidents of Secret invasion in the comics. And whether there was already a set ready for SABER The miracleswho will say that Secret invasion couldn’t you borrow it for a few shots? Maybe we should wait The miracles to see more of SABER firsthand – but then again, maybe not.