Agents of S.H.E.I.L.D. compared to Seven Marvel Movies

Joss Whedon’s new project, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., has been a long time coming.  S.H.I.E.L.D., or Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division has been an over arcing theme throughout all of the Avengers movies for the past five years. There are scenes at the end of every Marvel Studios movie starting with Iron Man that foreshadow the next movie in the Marvel Universe.

          In Iron Man “Tony Stark arrives home to find SHIELD director Nick Fury waiting for him so that they can discuss the Avengers Initiative."(Crazy Credits-Iron Man) In The Incredible Hulk, “He [Tony Stark] has a cameo. He tells General that they are assembling a team, which we all know to be The Avengers.” (FAQ for The Incredible Hulk) The next movie in the marvel universe was Iron Man 2. After the credits in this movie; S.H.E.I.L.D. Agent, Phil Coulson drives out to a site in New Mexico and confirms the presence of Thor’s hammer in a giant crater in the ground. Thor adds to the sequence when "Dr Selvig meets with Nick Fury, who asks him to examine the Cosmic Cube from Captian America: The First Avenger. Loki appears in a reflection on the wall influencing Selvig to agree."(Crazy Credits-Thor) Finally, the movie Captain America: The First Avenger portrays Nick Fury trying to convince the Captain to help him save the world, and then it cuts to a promo for The Avengers.

All of these extra scenes are important because they lead up to one movie with all of these characters working together to counter an attack on New York City. The Avengers is the initiative that S.H.I.E.L.D. has been trying to put together with all of these heroes for the past five years.

I was extremely excited when I first heard about the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., but then I got to thinking about how the rest of Marvel’s fans would react. The total accumulation of these heroes has been a long time coming and I was nervous that they may be pushing the collaboration a little too far or that there wouldn’t be enough action to satisfy those die-hard fans. The Avengers was the top grossing movie of 2012, (2012 Domestic Grosses) so to follow that up with a television series was a giant task and potential risk for director Joss Whedon.

Even though it was a giant task following the enormous success of The Avengers, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. did really well for its first episode. S.H.I.E.L.D “delivered 11.9 million viewers and a 4.6 adults 18-49 rating. That makes S.H.I.E.L.D. TV’s highest-rated drama debut in nearly four years.”   (Hulk Smash) Many people flocked to this TV show in great anticipation and apparently were not disappointed.

When Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D was first announced, I assumed it would be the big stars coming to a television show. Of course thinking about it now, that would not be a logical decision financially and also it would take away from the new movies coming out. After I realized what S.H.I.E.L.D wouldn’t be about, the conclusion was drawn that “The one character who makes the move from the films to the TV series is Agent Phil Coulson” (Begins on ABC)

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. starts off with an explosion and the audience witnesses a man with super human strength scaling a wall to save a woman trapped inside the building. S.H.I.E.L.D. soon heard about it. Throughout the episode you find out that this man’ssuper human strength was created from a project called “Centipede.” It is a metallic blood filter that infuses parts of a super soldier serum created in the 1940s for Captain America, the same gamma radiation that caused Bruce Banner to become the Hulk, and Extremis, which is also a super human strength serum found in the newest Iron Man movie. According to one of the S.H.I.E.L.D. scientists, it was “every known source of superpower thrown into a blender”. (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. S. 1, E. 1). These hints about the other movies are typically called “Easter eggs.” The entire episode was filled with little Easter eggs from previous movies that reference S.H.I.E.L.D., such as Thor and Captain America, as well as new movies such as Iron Man 3 and The Avengers. I think Joss Whedon has done a good job translating the Avengers movie world to a TV show.

            One of the major plot holes that the first episode needed to address was the fact that [Spoiler Alert] Agent Coulson dies in The Avengers. S.H.I.E.L.D. addressed this fact by stating that the Avengers just needed a push, and apparently all one needs to do is hold your breath for eight seconds and everyone thinks you are dead. (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., S. 1, E. 1). Coulson beleives that he woke up in Tahiti and just relaxed there while he recovered. Agent Maria Hill lets the audience knows that he can never know what really happened. There is still some explaining to do when it comes to what really happened.

Overall I think Joss Whedon did a very good job with the daunting task of creating a television show from a multi-movie series. He bridged the gap nicely by referencing all the movies that lead up to the formation of the avengers as well as carrying over some of the narrative, such as what happened when Agent Coulson died. I am more than ecstatic at the thought of this show continuing on and expanding on the Marvel Universe just a little more.

Works Cited

"2012 DOMESTIC GROSSES." 2012 Yearly Box Office Results. Box Office Mojo, n.d. Web. 26 Sept. 2013.

"Crazy Credits-Iron Man." IMDb. IMDb.com, n.d. Web. 26 Sept. 2013.

"Crazy Credits-Thor." IMDb. IMDb.com, n.d. Web. 26 Sept. 2013.

"FAQ for The Incredible Hulk." IMDb. IMDb.com, n.d. Web. 26 Sept. 2013.

Hale, Mike. "'Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.' Begins on ABC." - NYTimes.com. New York Times, 23 Sept. 2013. Web. 26 Sept. 2013.

Hibberd, James. "'Agents of SHIELD' Ratings a Hulk Smash." EW.com. Entertainment Weekly, 25 Sept. 2013. Web. 26 Sept. 2013.