Agents of SHIELD. Season 1 Discussion Thread

[Icemizer]

Ah the dreaded centipede rears its evil legs once again. Led by the evil Monarch and Dr. Girlfriend...oh wait I must have crossed shows again, my bad. Really, Centipede is the best name you could come up with? Sad.
That said I liked this one a bit more than the others. The story was just better. Would have liked to have seen Scorch saved and placed in containment setting up some kind of Shield vs Bad guys season ender but maybe he can come back as a complete flame being.

 

[The Old Mixer]

The activity of the animal beings has become acutely active everywhere on this earth. Bodies do not get time to booty a blow for a while. With the accretion use of altered gadgets of Gps Jammer, the possibilities of accepting the aboriginal of blow accept absolutely finished. The adaptable phones or the corpuscle phones are some of these accessories that accumulate the bodies consistently in blow with the alfresco world. The adaptable building are additionally accessible about everywhere these canicule and due to this the accessibility of the Cell Phone Jammer has become alike added quick and authentic. Today, you cannot break out of ability of these adaptable building as their signals can bolt your about anywhere. The bearings of bodies who accord to altered business professions has become actual analytical of wifi jammer as their authorities bolt them anywhere any moment.

Shaka, when the walls fell.

 

[Forbin]

Easy for YOU to say!

 

[Alidar Jarok]

Could the clairvoyant possibly be Mentallo? I'm not sure if clairvoyance accurately describes his power set, but in the comics he does have ties to Hydra, AIM and SHIELD and isn't typically associated with the X-characters.

He seems to be more of a telepath than a clairvoyant/precog.

My guess is it's someone who is a new character, possibly who has the nickname of "The Clairvoyant." I do hope they add more comicbook characters, but this one doesn't necessarily have to be one. I'm also curious, if the show is a success, if some original characters are going to make it back to the comics (a la Harley Quinn)

 

[DEWLine]

Whatever rules govern SHIELD give them a degree of freedom of action in Hong Kong.

Interesting.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

It sounds like there are cooperative nations and uncooperative ones. So far, only Malta has been uncooperative.

 

[DEWLine]

Peru may be reconsidering their involvement per "0-8-4".

 

[Christopher]

The idea that SHIELD wouldn't have brought him in and either trained him to use his powers more effectively for their purposes (or just locked him up) when they first found him is pretty much completely unbelievable. No way Fury would have just let an asset like that go to waste. If they had made it less impressive, like little candle flames on his fingertips or something like that, I might have bought it.

It wasn't much more than that. It was a low-level power that he had limited ability to control.

He burned someone to cinders in a few seconds even after the centipede formula wore off and as far as we've seen, he had only really tried to develop it beyond showing off to girls for that few hours he was in their lab.

I think you missed the shot where Chan/Scorch saw a tray of the hypodermics containing the Extremis formula, which were in the foreground of the shot and closely focused on by the camera for several seconds. It was after this that he burned his SHIELD handler to death. What that tells us is that he re-injected himself with the serum in order to give himself a new power boost. That's why he died a few minutes later -- because, as the bad guys said in dialogue, without his fireproof platelets, he'd have no protection against the serum's explosive properties.

So the enhanced abilities you're talking about only existed because of the serum. His own unaugmented ability was far more limited.

Really, Centipede is the best name you could come up with? Sad.

I think it's the code name for the specific project with the serum (because of the shape of the regulator device Mike wore in the pilot) rather than the name of the organization itself.

I'm also curious, if the show is a success, if some original characters are going to make it back to the comics (a la Harley Quinn)

Well, they've added Coulson to the comics now, and replaced the original Nick Fury with a hitherto-unknown biracial son who resembles Samuel L. Jackson and has adopted his father's name. So yeah, maybe if any of this show's characters prove popular enough, they might make it into the comics eventually. At this point I'd say May is the most likely prospect there.

 

[DEWLine]

"Replaced"? No. Fury Senior is still lurking in the shadows of Earth-616, per recent issues of Secret Avengers.

As to the rest of the TV cast, it's entirely possible that they might get included per your scenario.

 

[Sto-Vo-Kory]

True. AIM is the most sciency of the organizations. I don't think it's HYDRA (partly because I think that'd be more likely a Captain America thing). It could, of course, just be a brand new organization as well.

AIM just strikes me as safer to use. They aren't likely to be a recurring movie villain. Plus, there's a Graviton connection if they want to bring him back.

Before Hydra was in the Captain America movie (as a more international market safe Nazi pseudonym), it was the ultimate SHIELD enemy in the comics; in G.I. Joe terms, Hydra is Cobra. The founder of Hydra, Baron Von Strucker, is Nick Fury's arch-enemy. My guess is that Hydra is the mysterious organization that has been working at cross-purposes with SHIELD on the show. They gave us a flying car in the pilot -- Hydra would be the only appropriate villain for the first season.

In the comics, Jonathan Hickman has gone to great lengths to broaden the scope and depth of Hydra to where they are practically everywhere. One facet of the organization deals with scientific research, while another studies interdimensional spells, and yet another is infiltrating the upper levels of government. The group is so large and multifocused that the TV show could use them as the big bad for the entire series run by just facing off against one "arm" of the Hydra each season.

Although, I must admit that when the enemy agents came in to abduct "Scorch" in last night's episode, my first thought was that their flame-resistant suits looked like the AIM bee-keeper outfits.

 

[sojourner]

Best line of the episode:

"great, they gave him a name"

 

[Christopher]

Before Hydra was in the Captain America movie (as a more international market safe Nazi pseudonym), it was the ultimate SHIELD enemy in the comics; in G.I. Joe terms, Hydra is Cobra.

As it happens, a number of the G. I. Joe characters were based on a failed pitch Larry Hama had made for a team called Fury Force, which would've been "a group of specialized soldiers who worked for SHIELD" -- a similar concept to this show, albeit more military. However, despite this, Cobra was not based on HYDRA, even though it would be natural to expect that they were. (Source)

Although, I must admit that when the enemy agents came in to abduct "Scorch" in last night's episode, my first thought was that their flame-resistant suits looked like the AIM bee-keeper outfits.

Hmm, do you suppose that could've been an intentional nod? Anyway, as I've mentioned before, in the comics AIM was originally HYDRA's special-weapons research division. My expectation all along has been that the archenemy would be AIM and the team would discover their link to HYDRA.

I'm wondering who the man in prison was. I can't help but suspect that his line "You know I'm not going to do the talking" is a clue of some sort.

 

[FPAlpha]

Overall a good episode that moved the meta plot ahead but i'm still not biting my nails or falling out of the chair.

If they didn't have Clark Gregg/Coulson on the show it would tank really hard.. he just carries the entire thing.

Really liked how they didn't drag out her secrecy plot line.. even as a superhacker it was dumb of her to use her phone while inside Shield so being caught should have just been a matter of time and it was.

However how he just halfway forgave her for betraying the team and "just" gave her the probation bracelet was just too fast and implausible given how furious he was when he found out. On top of that she has proven to be untrustworthy so being a member of a highly specialized and important team is not very believable.

The show is improving but i'm still waiting for the one episode that blows the whole thing wide open and everything pays off.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Remind if there is a Marvel secret villain society called "The 100"

Google seems to be useless in confirming this.

 

[DEWLine]

The 100 is one of DC's costumed-mobster groups.

 

[DEWLine]

In the comics, Jonathan Hickman has gone to great lengths to broaden the scope and depth of Hydra to where they are practically everywhere. One facet of the organization deals with scientific research, while another studies interdimensional spells, and yet another is infiltrating the upper levels of government. The group is so large and multifocused that the TV show could use them as the big bad for the entire series run by just facing off against one "arm" of the Hydra each season.

It goes back a bit further than Jonathan Hickman, to Dan G. Chichester's runs - with or without collaborating writers - on Nick Fury, Daredevil, Nightstalkers, and so on. The occult ops arm was called the Department of Occult Artifacts(DOA).

Hickman's added a couple of new things to help cover Hydra's financing and research in various fields:

http://marvel.wikia.com/Echidna_Capital_Management_(Earth-616)
http://marvel.wikia.com/Typhon_Group_(Earth-616)

 

[Guy Gardener]

Thank you, and curses.

 

[kirk55555]

Overall a good episode that moved the meta plot ahead but i'm still not biting my nails or falling out of the chair.

If they didn't have Clark Gregg/Coulson on the show it would tank really hard.. he just carries the entire thing.

Really liked how they didn't drag out her secrecy plot line.. even as a superhacker it was dumb of her to use her phone while inside Shield so being caught should have just been a matter of time and it was.

However how he just halfway forgave her for betraying the team and "just" gave her the probation bracelet was just too fast and implausible given how furious he was when he found out. On top of that she has proven to be untrustworthy so being a member of a highly specialized and important team is not very believable.

The show is improving but i'm still waiting for the one episode that blows the whole thing wide open and everything pays off.

I agree with everything you said about the last episode, and the show in general. While I like the show, it hasn’t done what it needs to do to make itself a must watch for me like Arrow has. I plan to watch every episode, but I feel like I could miss an episode or two and not feel like I’ve missed anything important. This last episode was decent, and I’m glad they didn’t drag out the “betrayal” plot, but it felt like an episode I could have missed and it wouldn’t have really mattered.

 

[davejames]

Liked this episode a lot more than the last, even if it was hard to get excited about yet another guy who can (yawn) shoot fireballs out of his hands. For a show set in the world of Avengers with it's classic-style superheroes, the continued focus on X-Men style mutants can't help but seem a bit disappointing to me for some reason.

I know it's a fine line between the two in the comics, but after countless movies set in the X-Men world I was really hoping to see some different kinds of characters and threats for this show. Not just more people who can create fire and read minds.

 

[FPAlpha]

To be fair none of the superpowered people that appeared on the show were mutations in origin.

- dude from the pilot - Extremis and Centipede device

- captured scientist - will most likely turn out to be a supervillain with gravity based powers (superpower obtained through science)

- rogue Shield Operative - cybernetic eye

- chinese street "magician" - it's insinuated that he got his powers through simple radiation, powers amplified through modified Extremis virus

So no mutants yet. Mutants as shown in the Marvel universe are inherently born with the X gene, everybody else who obtained superpowers have their gene code changed through various methods but they are not Mutants in the Marvel sense.

I guess we'll see mutants somewhere along the show but since Fox (is it Fox?) has basically the rights to the X-Men part of the universe it may be hard to show some interesting things without encroaching on X-Men territory (i guess the Marvel studio is kicking themselves constantly for letting this license get out of house ).