Agents of SHIELD. Season 1 Discussion Thread

Even so, adaptations are not meant to be exact copies, they're opportunities to reinvent and reimagine. There's nothing wrong with a fresh approach.

 

Don't get me started on When fresh approaches go wrong.

 

Point taken, they don't have too.

That said, Deathlok was long prior to the Borg, and probably inspired that look.

More importantly, Deathlok came out during the 6 Million Dollar Man run, and was inspired by that show and the trendiness of cyborgs. Marvel took a gamble with Deathlok and put out a very dark book with an "anti-Steve Austin."

Steve Austin was a bright look at the idea of cyborgs. Maimed in a crash, he was saved, rebuilt, better stronger faster etc. It was a medical marvel and every kid watching could dream about being him and having those powers.

Deathlok was a horror story. Luthor was dead, but not allowed to die. Trapped in a hideous form, he wanted to die, but his 'Puter companion in his head wouldn't let him. The world was a horrifying dystopia, and a big part of Luthor's horror was that he couldn't escape it even by dying.

The series was groundbreaking for its time and for Marvel it was dramatic departure from what it was publishing as "hero" comics of the time. I found it far more serious than eve titles like Dracula, Werewolf by Night, and Man-Thing, which themselves stepped out of the super hero genre while staying within the Marvel universe.

The image of Deathlok in the SHIELD tv series is a tribute to that ground-breaking comics title. Nothing wrong with wishing they would go the full route, however I'm glad that horror of Mike Peterson's situation seems to showing in the show's plot.

 

Sturgeon's Law, man. Ninety percent of everything is garbage, and that includes both fresh approaches and faithful approaches. The Affleck Daredevil was quite faithful to the source, and so was the Green Lantern movie. But the corollary is that the other ten percent of everything, in any category, is going to be good. The Singer X-Men films are a huge departure from the source and they're well-loved. The Bill Bixby Incredible Hulk was as far from its source as Kenneth Johnson could get away with making it, but it was so well-done that Hulk fans consider it a classic to this day. Whatever approach you take, it can be good or bad depending on how well you do it. Category does not determine quality.

 

Well, were the "ultimate" looks not themselves an adaptation/re-invention of an already existing idea? It's the same principle, the medium in which it takes place is hardly relevant.

 

That depends entirely on the approach in question.

 

There's nothing inherently wrong with a fresh approach.

 

If Skye was part Kree or something (her 0-8-4 status is still officially unexplained), then do y'all suppose that A. her Kree genetics aren't sufficient to give her superhuman abilities and are therefore pointless B. she does in fact have superhuman abilities and can be the team's muscle or C. something else? It occurred to me that if Skye does indeed have superhuman abilities, then what would be the point of "Agents" of S.H.I.E.L.D.? Cause this isn't Avengers.

 

Which is exactly the point. It's about the individual case, not the category. If an approach fails, it's not because it wasn't faithful, it's because it wasn't good.

 

Ms. Marvel.

Although that was mostly about Mar-Vell's negabands and not his "original" biology.

 

I think if any character's origin needs some serious re-inventing, it's Captain Marvel/Carol Danvers.

For those who don't know, here's the video cliff notes
[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGvoRoWqdlQ[/yt]
[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDNa8Hb__78[/yt]

Yikes!

So yeah, I'm totally on board for Skye as Captain Marvel. Worse case scenario: it doesn't work and she's written out of the show. best case scenario: they pull it off and she gets her own movie.

I also have no problem with them skipping right past Mar-vell because he only exists to mess with DC comics. He's not interesting and he's not popular.

[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LROCPznHLTM[/yt]

Of course it's all academic if this isn't at all where they're going with this.

 

I think she's Kree. I think this is the reason why the medicine helped her so quickly.

As to her abilities, who knows, maybe they will be minor or maybe they are part of what makes her a great hacker.

In any case, it seems like a great way to do a good version of the Dark Phoenix saga.

 

Clever although I prefer more direct adaptations.

 

Who knows, maybe they'll make Skye Squirrel Girl.

 

Fitz and Simmons and the hospital scanned and drew all kinds of fluids and did every test known to mankind on Skye. If there was anything non-human about her, it would have shown up as an anomaly. She pretty much has to be base-line human, with probably some recessive gene that won't be seen unless they completely analyse her genome.

A recessive gene could be pink Kree. She could have been some kind of genetic experiment by the Kree, but this would need a huge backstory that goes completely away from the comics.

While I get what Christopher and others say about not necessarily having to stay close to the comics, it needs saying that Iron Man, Thor, and Captain America have stayed as true to the comics as possible, given that the movies updated their origins about 50 years. Without any hard information, I think it is much less likely that Ms Marvel's or Captain Marvel's origins will be completely altered, especially since Carol Danvers is regularly portrayed in the cartoons.

 

Unless there's a biotechnologicintellect element to her composition now benignly nannying the girl, laughing at the primitive human technology trying to catalogue her being and only sending back vital data that won't threaten the hairless apes into thinking maybe they should kill Skye.

Ditto for Coulson.

 

As I pointed out, you really can't be faithful to Ms. Marvel's comic legacy because it's not clear cut. It's horrendously convoluted and seriously messed up in certain aspects.

The idea that she's a human/Kree mix (before, or after they injected her, either way---assuming it's Skye) is all they really need as a starting point. If they want to introduce Mar-vell there's no reason he can't show up later.

As for the other heroes, while yes they managed to stay close the the spirit of the origin stories, there were a number of embellishments to make them work within the plot.
IIRC in the original comics, Stark wasn't held by the Ten Rings at the behest of Obadiah, he was held by some random Asian bad guy. Indeed, Obadiah in the comics was a rival, not a long-term family friend.

The Hulk origin is almost as well known as Superman's & Spider-man's, so they wisely gave it only a cursory showing...except it was the version people are more familiar with is the TV show's "scientist tests serum on himself, Hulks out" verson, not the original comic book's "scientist gets caught in a radiation blast from a bomb test." For bonus points, they even tied it into Cap's origin. Speaking of: -

Cap's origin is the slightly more involved reconnected version from the 60's, not the original 40's one. Thor's origin originally had him quantum leap (Swiss cheese memory and all) into a disabled human doctor's head rather than being exiled bodily from Asgard. Also, mew mew was disguised as a walking stick, not sitting in a crater where comic book writers could have cameos and Jane Foster was a nurse, not an astrophysicist.

By contrast, "Ms. Marvel's" origin is much less clear cut because there's been something like four characters with that monkier, and Carol Danvers herself has had two other codenames (not counting "Captain Marvel".) So the idea that there could be a faithful, direct adaptation of this character is frankly bonkers.

Best to take the elements that work within the context of the story you're trying to tell. Discard the rest.

 

Pure fandom.