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Agents of SHIELD. Season 1 Discussion Thread

I'm not sure it makes sense to say that having special powers or origins makes Skye a Mary Sue character when she's on a show set in a reality where many people have special powers and origins.

Besides, I think that Skye really proved herself last week. I thought her resourceful, versatile performance and problem-solving skills there would win over a lot of her critics. A Mary Sue is a character who hasn't earned the admiration he or she is given by the writer and the other characters, and I think Skye is earning it now. I think all of the characters are being deepened and fleshed out more fully.
 
I'm really not wanting to rekindle that Mary Sue discussion. Unless somebody has an argument for why Skye is a Mary Sue and Batman isn't, it's really a completely arbitrary definition.
 
How would a newborn baby demonstrate hacking abilities out in the middle of nowhere? Even if that were the case I just can't see that as a credible justification for wiping out a whole village and hunting down the Shield agents that took her.

Other way around. The hacking is a manifestation of her powers, not her powers. Or not, who knows? It's just a thought.

I guess I just don't see the connection. How would a power that can also manifest as above average hacking abilities be noticeable in a newborn?

At the risk of sounding narrow minded and possibly a bit racist; could this *possibly* mean she's from Vanaheim like Hogun? Freya perhaps?

Since an Asgardian link appears to be one of the more obvious possibilities, have we ever seen Sky injured? I honestly can't remember.

Given that they literally had one episode with Asgard and that's it, I'm not sure why Asgardian appears to be more obvious. Hydra, Chitauri, and AIM have been mentioned just as much as Centipede obviously much, much more. Could she be like Hogun? I guess, I don't recall her getting injured (she might have been). Then again, I also don't recall May getting injured. Is May from Vanaheim as well?[/quote]

I said "one of the more obvious" and I meant in the context of what we've seen to date of the MCU as a whole, not just the show.

As for May; as far as I know May didn't appear in the middle of nowhere with vaguely defined preternatural "powers" and has equally vaguely defined "bad people" chasing her and those around her to the ends of the Earth. She's just a person of Asian ancestry who's very adept at kicking arse.

Aside from her just being a random mutant, the only other possibility that comes to mind is that she's a product of some old Hydra experiment, or the Weapon-X program? The latter would certainly be consistent with the level of slaughter involved, but I don't think they have the rights to that stuff. Does Fox's right to the X-Men IP extend to X-23?

...Maybe she's a Skrull?

Well, she's not a mutant. They don't have the rights to mutants. That also means she's not from the Weapon-X program, but I feel like the timeline would be off anyway. X-23 looks to be pretty strongly tied to the X-Men. The Skrull to Fantastic Four.

Given that, the product of some experiment is my guess. While they got close with Chang to naturally developing powers (Thor aside), they haven't explicitly given anyone that yet. Instead, everyone has gotten their powers through some kind of natural or man-made catalyst.[/QUOTE]

Whether they're allow to call them mutants or not is besides the point. I don't think it need to be explained that when I say "random mutant" in this context, it's just shorthand for saying "person with superpowers as an accident of birth, by whatever means." Because random mutant is shorter. ;)

I'm honestly not clear on how well defined the film rights to some of these characters an concepts are, especially given the amount of overlap. For example, Scarlet Witch & Quicksilver are set to appear in Avengers 2 despite being *very* closely tied to the X-Men books.

Maybe Marvel are able to giggle things around because although Fox has the rights to "the X-Men" they don't have the rights to say "X-Factor", "X-Force", "NYX" or some other tangentially related property.

Also, I'm pretty sure the 'Fantastic Four' rights are back at Marvel now, so the Skrull should be fair game.

But yeah, given the close tie to Wolverine I doubt the Weapon-X program is even on the table...though having said that, isn't Weapon-X supposed to be some continuation of the Super Soldier Serum project that's responsible for Cap? Or am I remembering it wrong?

Regardless, I tend to agree that "experiment that got away" is the most promising possibility, especially given Whedon's involvement. The question then is "got away from whom?" Hydra would be favourite since they're a good contender to for the power behind the Clairvoyant and possibly even the corruption of Shield's purpose.
 
I'm glad to see things moving forward. Despite some minor quibbles, I liked this episode quite a bit. Looking forward to the next episode!
 
Just watched last night's episode and was pleasantly surprised. I thought it was a good episode, but realized halfway through that I'd actually seen the production shooting the episode back in December! Here's the photo I snapped from our offices across the lot at the time.

1531720_10152209911986663_1952730504_n.jpg
 
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I'm not sure it makes sense to say that having special powers or origins makes Skye a Mary Sue character when she's on a show set in a reality where many people have special powers and origins.

Besides, I think that Skye really proved herself last week. I thought her resourceful, versatile performance and problem-solving skills there would win over a lot of her critics. A Mary Sue is a character who hasn't earned the admiration he or she is given by the writer and the other characters, and I think Skye is earning it now. I think all of the characters are being deepened and fleshed out more fully.

It was one of the rare episodes where i actually wasn't annoyed by her character or the actress which is a good sign i guess (really liked the verbal putdown she did with Agent Squarejaw :lol:).

It may not be oscarworthy but her breakdown near the end when Coulson talked to her was also sad to see and well acted.

Overall one of the better episodes dealing with the fallout of the twoparter (boy can Gregg play pissed off well) and the "creation" of a new supervillain.

It slowly feels like a real team now where the characters start to work and act like one where everybody has their place and they stick together.

Shield may never get to be must see TV but if they keep that level and to the occasional brilliant episode i'm content. I had hoped for more but not every show can be brilliant from start to finish.
 
@Reverend-- No, the Fantastic Four is still with FOX. They are in pre-production on a re-boot even now.

Really? I could have sworn there was some horse trading going on so that either Fox could keep X-Men or Sony could keep Spider-Man (I forget which.) Actually now that I think about it, maybe it was actually Daredevil or Punisher or similar.
 
The name "Skye" may be an obvious clue that she's extraterrestrial. Possibly Kree. Or she might be an orphaned Inhuman. I don't think that alone would justify what happened, so, as with Coulson, there's still some mystery.

In any case, this was a great episode with lots of wonderful character moments, from the women teasing Ward to Fitz bonding with the kid to May's concern for Skye. The kicker, of course, was Coulson telling Skye what he knows and then, in the conversation with May, relating it to his own situation. This is the kind of thing that puts this show at the top of my list.

And we got to see the flying car again. :mallory:

I haven't seen anyone speculate about something in the teaser for the next episode yet....

It looks like they might be killing off a main character. Given the recent casting announcement of a new character who's a male combat specialist, my money's on Ward.
Yeah, I saw that and it worries me. It would be a big mistake.
 
^I don't think so. Nothing against the actor, who I think is doing the best that can be done with the limited material, but the character just isn't that interesting. At this point, better that character than any of the others.

The name "Skye" may be an obvious clue that she's extraterrestrial. Possibly Kree. Or she might be an orphaned Inhuman. I don't think that alone would justify what happened, so, as with Coulson, there's still some mystery.

I think I read a theory somewhere that she might be a version of a similar character from a book called "The Runaways". Apparently there's a non-human orphan girl called "Sky" or something similar. Could just be a coincidence though.
 
Maybe her character is a backdoor pilot for a Runaways series on ABC family. Marvel officially announced they weren't going to do a Runaways movie early last year which means they had been thinking about shelving it for quite some time.

If she ever says she picked Skye because of Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds...

Of course Karolina needed a bracelet to maintain her human form (but she never knew she was an alien until she became a teenager). Could have some kind of internal device under the skin maintaining human form for Skye.
 
@Reverend-- No, the Fantastic Four is still with FOX. They are in pre-production on a re-boot even now.

Really? I could have sworn there was some horse trading going on so that either Fox could keep X-Men or Sony could keep Spider-Man (I forget which.) Actually now that I think about it, maybe it was actually Daredevil or Punisher or similar.

Daredevil and Punisher are back with Marvel, but only because the other studios' rights expired. There was no trading for them.
 
Maybe Marvel are able to giggle things around because although Fox has the rights to "the X-Men" they don't have the rights to say "X-Factor", "X-Force", "NYX" or some other tangentially related property.

This was fought out in the courts. Fox sued Marvel over the "X-Factor" TV series. Can't remember what the outcome was.
 
^I don't think so. Nothing against the actor, who I think is doing the best that can be done with the limited material, but the character just isn't that interesting. At this point, better that character than any of the others.
The show could probably survive the death of any one supporting character, but I think the idea of a character death is the wrong move. So far, this show has been like the antidote to that kind of move.

I think I read a theory somewhere that she might be a version of a similar character from a book called "The Runaways". Apparently there's a non-human orphan girl called "Sky" or something similar. Could just be a coincidence though.
I'm not familiar with that book. Actually, her name probably has no more significance than any of the others.
 
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