Agents of SHIELDFollow

I liked it. Don't really care about any of the characters besides Coulsen yet (Clone, Life Model Decoy, or other?), but its only the pilot. It kind of reminded me a bit of Chuck, with Marvel injokes & Whedon dialogue.

I started watching it. It couldn't keep me through the commercials.

The problem I have is it's on ABC. They cancel EVERYTHING if it doesn't have Grey's Anatomy numbers.

Yeah. The dry humor is great. The Caulson character is great (of course, since he's been playing it for years now). Still waiting for the other characters to gel, but it wasn't bad for a first episode IMO. Formulaic, but that's somewhat to be expected.

Speaking of dry humor, I'm just waiting for the reveal of what really happened to Caulson. You know they'll do it (cause it's already foreshadowed). You know there will be some big dramatic build for it. And I can totally see Caulson saying something like "Yeah. I've known that all along. What? You thought I wouldn't notice I was a LMD?".

I think if they give Joss a reasonably free hand in the story, it'll work out pretty well and be a good series. Whether that translates into long term surviving series is a whole different story though.

Finally watched the first episode.

I have no particular complaints about it. It was generally generic, but it has the bonus of being relatively unique in the genre. I DO like the "average person in a super's world" concept a lot. More than I thought I would, actually. And it wasn't until I watched it that I realized how badly I wanted something in this genre ever since I stopped watching Heroes in season 2.

Characters aren't super interesting right now, no. But I'm hopeful. I have a feeling Wade is going to meld into the background a lot more than the airtime he got in the Pilot, and the show's going to focus a lot more on the super nerds. Wade will be the token "I don't get it, can you please explain?" mechanic so that they can feed their pseudo science explanations to the audience.

Also, needs more puns. Get on it, Whedon.

[EDIT]

Any episode that ends with Samuel L. Jackson yelling about stuff gets an instant A+ in my book.

Edited, Oct 5th 2013 8:56am by idiggory

But seriously, if they ended every episode with Samuel L. Jackson yelling about what they did in that episode, I'd tune in every week, and then rewatch every episode.

THAT WOULD BE THE BEST.

Don't even script it. Just have Samuel L. Jackson watch the episode, and then record him ******** about all the things they did wrong.

Do fan theory at the moment is guessing that Coulson is actually Vision (basically, a synthetic humanoid android thing and ally of the Avengers in the comics.)

It's VERY MUCH theory at this point, since it's literally just based on a few loose premises with a big inductive leap. But, hey, why not talk about it?

Basic theory:

1. Coulson can never know how he was revived after being killed by Loki.
2. Avengers 2 is going to include Hank Pym, the Avenger who created Ultron (the primary antagonist for the film), who created Vision (no confirmation of, or significant rumors suggesting, he'll be in the film).
3. Vision is a perfectly humanoid android made of synthetic organs.
Big inductive leap: Coulson is Vision.

I'm neither for nor against it. I'd prefer it to actually be Coulson, because I really liked his character. Would be a lot more interesting to me if it was the same person, but he's back because of some dark and terrible reason. And I'd really like them to use Coulson to flesh out more of Natasha and Clint's stories. Clint in particular, because we've yet to get much of anything on Hawkeye from the films (and, dammit, I want crazy, sword-wielding circus freaks and estranged siblings!)

But I think the Vision plot line would be reasonably interesting, and they could do a lot with it.

Still, though, I think Coulson is more interesting as "just a man." The Avengers need the non-supers to balance them out.

TL;DR: I'm fine with it if they do it, but I think there are more interesting paths they can take with less effort.

Huh, I hadn't heard that they were giving Ultron a new origin. That's kind of odd, since they still chose Pym to be Ant-Man.

If they're doing that, there's not much reason to create Vision, since he was slated as a way to destroy Pym.

If they do a Jarvis -> Ultron thing (which I really hope they don't, because I adore Jarvis as-is), it would be too late in the timeline for him to create Vision!Coulson, so then the theory still doesn't hold.

Though I don't mind Tony as the creator in general.

[EDIT]


Neither have I, and I'm very unhappy about that. Seriously. Circus Performer turned criminal turned government assassin turned superhero.

WHO WOULDN'T WANT TO SEE MORE OF THAT?

I would kill for a "Budapest" movie for Natasha and Clint...

And I'm REALLY nervous they're going to try and put a romance plot between Steve and Natasha in there, which I do not want at all.

Side note: I really need to get around to watching Iron Man 3. I think I'm going to do that now when it finishes downloading.

Edited, Oct 6th 2013 2:33pm by idiggory

Sharon Carter's in it too, so prepare for some love triangle-ing. And really, Black Widow has banged just about every dude in the Marvel U at some point anyway (Hawkeye, Iron-Man, Daredevil, Bucky-Captain America, & Hercules just off the top of my head. She's smutted with oodles more),. She's a great lay, but a little too...extreme to be girlfriend material. At least she can get Steve better acclimated with how people bone nowadays.



Edited, Oct 7th 2013 8:35pm by Omegavegeta

Rage away, because it turns out that's pretty much confirmed. They're giving Ultron a completely new Origin to fit the new universe.

Though it's only just recently been confirmed that Pym will even BE Ant-Man, so.

It's POSSIBLE he could be related to Pym somehow, but I doubt it. Because I think they confirmed that Pym wouldn't be in Avengers 2, and that probably wouldn't work.

[EDIT]

Side note, they promised us a Peggy/Steve reunion in this film and I'm going to be pissed if we don't get it.

Edited, Oct 7th 2013 9:17pm by idiggory

DC as a company is currently on my ********* and the only franchises of their's I am at all invested in are the Batman and Watchmen ones.

As for the show, I'm really determined not to judge it. It's extremely rare for me to get into a show before episode 4 or 5, at least. Which is probably what contributes to the fact that I rarely watch anything that hasn't been out for a while with generally favorable reviews.

I do hope it survives, though. Because the movies are probably going to start having an issue with building the relationships they'll need to make the Avengers plot lines really shine if they don't have something assisting that. Particularly if they're going to go the Civil War route.

It's the rumored endgame for P3, and with the cash cow this has turned out to be you can be sure they'll do a revamped set of movies after that dealing with the post-Civil War world. And they can do it without those franchises, realistically, as long as they have Stark and Rogers.

Plus, you can definitely see them laying the foundation for it. Supers attacking the president, government relying more and more on Iron Patriot, looming threats from all sides, strong theme of control vs. liberty with Hulk, Iron Man, and Thor.

It won't necessarily be based on the registration act, specifically, since this world isn't big on secret identities as of yet. But I can definitely see some kind of legislation seriously expanding government rights for dealing with supers that might be a trigger. I mean, Pepper is now an Extremis-fueled Super, and you have to wonder how Tony would respond to extra-governmental rights about her. Throw in his relationship with Bruce and his general distrust of SHIELD, you can definitely see him fighting to protect them.

Steve, so far, has been somewhat more heavily on the "control" side of things. And half the Avengers are currently government agents (US for Steve, SHIELD for Barton/Romanoff). And both of them are obviously on the side of containing the Super threat, as of right now. Thor's just generally along for the ride, but I can see him fighting for the underdog in this instance, since I doubt he'd be looking at the larger governmental structure than considering the basic need of individuals (in the same vein of him trying to calm the Hulk down instead of fight him).

I mean, when you think about it, they could pretty easily start the war right now in the universe, and it wouldn't be a stretch. It would be stronger with more foundation, though.

I think we'll need to see where they go with Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver, and Ant-Man (and, hopefully, the Wasp). That could be really telling if that is a theme they're committed to further exploring.


On the meta side of things, I'd be legitimately surprised if they weren't doing the Civil War. At this point, it's probably the most defining event in the multiverse, no? At least outside of the mutant-specific stuff. I mean, entire AU universes exist just to explore just how different things would need to be to avoid it.