Agents of SHIELD. Season 1 Discussion Thread

A plus is just an X with superior posture.

 

I think you mean Abraham Erskine but would that mean the Abomination's serum was done before Captain America's? Erskine died after Capt's transformation, so how could he develop the Abomination's serum after?

 

Right, Abraham.

The serum may have been the same, but the missing ingredient was the vita-rays. Banner tried to recreate them using gamma radiation, and we know how that turned out. I assume the same happened with Blonsky, that the serum didn't have the right effect when it wasn't combined with vita-rays in the correct way.

 

What I took from the story is that they tried to reverse engineer the serum, and replaced the Vita Rays with Gamma Rays. The serum wasn't identical, and the rays weren't identical, and the results were problematic.

Certainly, in MCU, the original serum formula was lost with Erskine, and any samples were lost in the destruction of the lab and the broken vial on the docks. If Steve had been available for testing they may have done more; he was on ice. In The First Avenger, the Skull sought the serum for a reason; it couldn't be duplicated.

 

The shield couldn't be duplicated either.

I think I remember something about Immortus creating the shield when all the scientists from 1940 had their backs turned?

Immortus or other timetravelers might have had their hand in other aspects of the creation of Captain America too, right down to the vitarays.

 

The serum wasn't quite the same since all the original samples were destroyed. What is in that canister is whatever was taken from all those blood draws we saw them take from Steve. Presumably whatever is in his blood is in a changed state after the vita-ray exposure and bonding to his cells. I would have thought that reproducing whatever machine was used to generate the rays would be much more straight forward than reverse-engineering the serum almost from scratch.

Speaking of, I did like how they tied in the "vita-rays" to retroactively parallel Banner's gamma exposure and how they made Steve's irises go white just like Bruce's.

I'll probably regret asking, but what are vita-rays anyway? Are they from the comics, something the just made up or something real I've just never heard of?

 

Pure fiction.

 

Blast my link is broken. Guy posted a fine one below..

 

No, vita rays are from the comics.

Right back in the beginning, and mentioned after often enough.

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y1...s/CapOrigin Issue 109/CaptAmerica109_pg15.jpg

 

Personally, I think it's the Kirby krackle that made the whole thing work. Vita-rays, et. al. were just to throw off the Nazi spies.

 

Meanwhile, over at thinkprogress.org, Betsy Phillips addresses the issue of depiction of consent in "Yes Men".

 

I agree with the article in a human standpoint, but still have doubts about Ward. I think he wanted Lorelei to take him over, that's why he didn't want to shoot.

The exchange with May at the end, and the revelation that May wasn't the one he was in love with. Lorelei actually provided him with an exit from something he never really seemed comfortable with.

Could be reading too much into this, but the episode seems to have left him where he really wanted to be. Single.

 

That piece totally misrepresented/misunderstood why May was unhappy with Ward. May wasn't unhappy with Ward because Lorelei had raped him. May was unhappy with Ward because he conceded that he'd just "settled" for May.

 

I guess we'll see one way or another what the situation in progress has really been.

 

May isn't mentioned in that article.

 

Yeah, she is. Misspelled as "Mae" and also mentioned as Ward's "lover". As I said, May even asked Ward if Lorelei was right about Ward's feelings or lack thereof, and Ward conceded that it was true. The piece is also wrong that May just took Lorelei at her word, at least once she got over being mad at him.

 

Sorry, yes, I was looking for "May."

I don't see that this refutes the article's main point. Ward was sexually assaulted. May responds to the situation by punching him. She has her own issues, it doesn't change Ward's situation. If it were Skye, or say Carol Danvers who was controlled and raped, is that ok?

Does this reveal that May had stronger feelings than she was willing to admit, or that she was pissed that she was being "used" so that Ward could "forget" whomever it was he was really in love with (Skye? Fitz? Simmons?) May wasn't as detached as she lets on.

 

Again, the situation was not simply that Ward was sexually assaulted. He was sexually assaulted, and he admitted that he had settled for May. Later, when he was no longer under Lorelei's spell, he confirmed that he had spoken the truth.

 

I don't think that argument's going to fly like it used to. And maybe it shouldn't.