Agents of SHIELD. Season 1 Discussion Thread

[ATimson]

Assuming that they don't want him to make a Flowers for Algernon/Charly-style exit at the end of this TV series, of course.

Coulson debuted with the first entry in the MCU, Iron Man and has been with it every since. I doubt that they would do that to the character.

My understanding is that Coulson's death was intended to be "for real" in The Avengers, and that his resurrection didn't come about until they were developing the TV show. If Marvel was willing to kill him, why wouldn't they be willing to leave him a vegetable?

 

[Turtletrekker]

Conceptually he did exist at the time of the movie - they used him in the tie-in videogame. (Which is obviously not canon, but it at least had Marvel's blessing at the time.)

Tell that to one of my fellow admins at the MCU wiki. He insists that the game is canon until contradicted. "But we saw Baron Strucker in CA:TWS" says I. "He could have used the Satan Claw to stay young." says he. Personally, I think he's stretching more than Reed Richards, but he's higher up the admin ladder than I am, so what are you gonna do?

 

[ATimson]

Personally, I think he's stretching more than Reed Richards, but he's higher up the admin ladder than I am, so what are you gonna do?

Just wait for Age of Ultron, then prepare to either laugh maniacally or eat crow.

 

[Christopher]

My understanding is that Coulson's death was intended to be "for real" in The Avengers, and that his resurrection didn't come about until they were developing the TV show. If Marvel was willing to kill him, why wouldn't they be willing to leave him a vegetable?

It's Marvel. The only person who stays dead is Uncle Ben. Heck, the comics' Peter Parker just spent the past two years dead (for tax purposes) and was recently brought back in time for the new Spidey movie. And now they've announced an event called The Death of Wolverine (they removed his healing factor a while back to set it up), but it's a cinch it won't be any more permanent than his previous three or four deaths.

So while Coulson's death was intended to carry impact for the movie, I doubt that Feige and the rest ever intended to leave him dead forever. They knew how popular the character was, after all. Heck, I still suspect that the reason they killed him off in the movies was to leave him free to move to TV without affecting the movie continuity.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Conceptually he did exist at the time of the movie - they used him in the tie-in videogame. (Which is obviously not canon, but it at least had Marvel's blessing at the time.)

Tell that to one of my fellow admins at the MCU wiki. He insists that the game is canon until contradicted. "But we saw Baron Strucker in CA:TWS" says I. "He could have used the Satan Claw to stay young." says he. Personally, I think he's stretching more than Reed Richards, but he's higher up the admin ladder than I am, so what are you gonna do?

Bone his old lady?

 

[Caretaker]

It was my understanding that Marvel forced the death of Coulson, but Whedon jumped at the opportunity to revive him when the show was being developed (see http://spinoff.comicbookresources.c...hy-bad-things-happened-to-avengers-character/)

 

[ATimson]

It's Marvel. The only person who stays dead is Uncle Ben.

So while Coulson's death was intended to carry impact for the movie, I doubt that Feige and the rest ever intended to leave him dead forever. They knew how popular the character was, after all. Heck, I still suspect that the reason they killed him off in the movies was to leave him free to move to TV without affecting the movie continuity.

The comics are also set on a sliding timescale; while (so far) the movies have taken place more-or-less in real-time. I suppose it's possible that Kevin Feige, et al. were planning on reviving Coulson (in general terms, if they didn't have specifics plotted). But so far the movies aren't hewing to other stylistic elements of the comics; I see no reason to assume they were planning on using that one. (Especially when they're only making 2 movies per year instead of dozens of comics each month - they have plenty of other ground to cover in that limited time.)

 

[Gryffindorian]

I'm still not used to these all caps, periods-in-between acronyms. So a little practice might help.

It appears C.O.U.L.S.O.N. was initially the head of Project T.A.H.I.T.I.

S.K.Y.E. couldn't let W.A.R.D. die because if she did, she would be no better than him.

W.A.R.D. is loyal to G.A.R.R.E.T.T. , who is a H.Y.D.R.A. agent, but his loyalty appears to be more of a personal rather than an organizational allegiance.

Agent T.R.I.P.P.L.E.T.T. doesn't appear to be a member of H.Y.D.R.A. as he continues to be supportive of the team.

I wonder what's in store for R A.I.N.A., a.k.a. "F.L.O.W.E.R.S."

 

[Christopher]

But so far the movies aren't hewing to other stylistic elements of the comics; I see no reason to assume they were planning on using that one. (Especially when they're only making 2 movies per year instead of dozens of comics each month - they have plenty of other ground to cover in that limited time.)

I joked about Marvel, but get-out-of-death-free cards are a trope of series fiction in general, going as far back as Sherlock Holmes. Popular characters get killed off because it draws attention and ratings, but then they often tend to get resurrected for the exact same reason.

I'm not saying that the filmmakers specifically planned to resurrect Coulson. I'm saying that just because a fictional character gets killed, that doesn't mean the storytellers have definitively closed the door on the character. Death is a story device like any other. It serves a purpose for the story being told here and now, and thus doesn't necessarily reflect any plans for future stories.

 

[Hartzilla2007]

So...odds of Coulson being the first successful test subject?

(Assuming that they don't want him to make a Flowers for Algernon/Charly-style exit at the end of this TV series, of course.)

If he is, that makes him not just a "liability" to use Hill's word, it makes him a Highly Desirable Commodity.

Coulson debuted with the first entry in the MCU, Iron Man and has been with it every since. I doubt that they would do that to the character.

Plus he's a character that was popular enough to be added to the comics, Marvel's current animated projects, and their new Lego stuff.

So odds are Coulson is sticking around.

My understanding is that Coulson's death was intended to be "for real" in The Avengers, and that his resurrection didn't come about until they were developing the TV show. If Marvel was willing to kill him, why wouldn't they be willing to leave him a vegetable?

It's Marvel. The only person who stays dead is Uncle Ben. Heck, the comics' Peter Parker just spent the past two years dead (for tax purposes) and was recently brought back in time for the new Spidey movie. And now they've announced an event called The Death of Wolverine (they removed his healing factor a while back to set it up), but it's a cinch it won't be any more permanent than his previous three or four deaths.

Though I think the upcoming Death of Nick Fury might be permanent since they already introduced Nick Fury, Jr. who is based on the Sam Jackson version of Fury.

 

[Christopher]

Though I think the upcoming Death of Nick Fury might be permanent since they already introduced Nick Fury, Jr. who is based on the Sam Jackson version of Fury.

If so, it'll be permanent in the only way anything is permanent in comics: It'll last for maybe 20 years until the generation that grew up with the old character is writing and editing the comics and decides to bring him back out of nostalgia.

 

[Hartzilla2007]

Though I think the upcoming Death of Nick Fury might be permanent since they already introduced Nick Fury, Jr. who is based on the Sam Jackson version of Fury.

If so, it'll be permanent in the only way anything is permanent in comics: It'll last for maybe 20 years until the generation that grew up with the old character is writing and editing the comics and decides to bring him back out of nostalgia.

Except that generation has likely come and gone considering we are talking about the white version of Nick Fury here in 20 years it will likely be the people who grew up with Nick Fury being black running things considering The Sam Jackson version or ones based on him for at least the last 6 years in just about everything short of the comics.

Besides regular Nick Fury and Jackson Nick Fury is a change in skin color and the regular version fighting in World War II, so it would be a rather pointless change.

 

[Christopher]

You'd be surprised. There have been so many changes in comics that seemed at the time like they would and should be permanent, but then nostalgia has taken root and forced things back to the old status quo whether it was a good idea or not. It's one of the perennial problems with superhero comics in recent decades, the undoing of past progress. Resurrecting Barry Allen was arguably pointless, given how deeply important his death was to shaping the DC Universe for decades thereafter, but they did it anyway.

So yeah, I think they'll probably keep the modern, SLJ-style Nick Fury, since he's established as a movie character and the comics tend to follow the lead of their mass-media adaptations a lot of the time. But I wouldn't be surprised if they brought back the "classic" Fury alongside him, rather than replacing him.

 

[Guy Gardener]

My hindbrain tells me that Iris West is black in the upcoming Flash TV Series... Considering how slowly TV is made, is Black Wally West that just showed up in the comics a product of that TV show that hasn't aired yet? Similar to how Black Aqualad turned up in the comics a year before the Young Justice Cartoon premiered... Although that series has been cancelled, and the DCU has been rebooted since then, so it's a roll of the dice if Kaldurr or Garth is going to be Aqualad in the new 52.

(Please don't tell me this has something to do with that hobbit fucking fame whore rapper.)

 

[RJDiogenes]

Between my gobble gobble, I claimed this happened during a "Flashback" set near the conception of Xavier's dipshit son. Which was closer to World War 2 than the founding of the X-Men, but I didn't exaggerate how Marvel-Time is on a sliding scale, since most of the teenagers in the X-Men books have been teenagers for the last 30 years and brave Marvel keeps pace with real time in the real world, by pulling all the X-kids' birthdays consistently forward.

Ah, Marvel Time. Got it.

It's Marvel. The only person who stays dead is Uncle Ben.

Don't bet on it. That's what they used to say about Bucky.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Peter David Brought Uncle Ben back for a while almost 10 years ago.

It was a mirror universe Ben that fell through a crack and eventually decided that every one was better off without him, and wandered off.

 

[Mr Light]

<<that hobbit fucking fame whore rapper>>

this reference eludes me, I'm afraid...

 

[bbjeg]

In regards to bringing characters back to life, even the movies follow suit. Loki, Fury, Bucky (although based on the comics), and especially Coulson all supposedly "died".

 

[Christopher]

^Well, those first two were faked deaths resolved within the same stories where they happened, which isn't the same as a later story resurrecting a character who died in an earlier one. It's like comparing Kirk's "death" in "The Enterprise Incident" to Spock's in The Wrath of Khan.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

Yeah, Bucky and Coulson were the only ones legitimately brought back from the death. Bucky, of course, to follow the comics. I think Coulson is a tribute to this tendency in the comics. But, at the same time, I do think the Marvel Universe wants some bight to death. I don't think most characters will be resurrected. I think the rule is death is "usually" permanent.