Ask Erik: Episode Thirty-Five (Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. special!)

Here at- eh, forget it.  Let's get to the question.


To Erik: With there finally being a program devoted to exploring around the cinematic Marvel Universe, who do you want to show up?  Who do you not want to show up?





Well, as we all know, the Marvel Universe is a pretty huge place.  It has decades of history to fall back on, and little pieces of treasure hidden in the darkest corners that could be mined.  As for who I'd want to see, well, is there any better way to handle it than a top eleven?  I didn't think so.

11)  Unlimited Class Wrestling

Picture the WWE franchise in a world with actual heroes.

I mean- okay, let me rephrase that.  Picture the WWE/WWF franchise from back in the 80s with all of the goofy costumes and ridiculous names, and then bombard them all with radiation so they all get actual super powers.  That's the Unlimited Class Wrestling group in the Marvel Universe.

Members have included characters such as Ben Grimm (a.k.a "The Thing"), Demolition Man (not Stallone), the Armadillo, and a bunch of minor characters who never really amounted to anything.  However, the Unlimited Class Wrestling is where one of my favorite, most obscure groups of all time comes from (at least, it's the only time I ever saw them), the Power Tools.  Each of them has various power tool implements on their gauntlets (or in at least one case, I think, replacing their hand entirely).  You had spinning saw blades, a jackhammer, hammers, a pick-axe, a sledgehammer and...um...



Um, yeah.  The guy on the left has screwdrivers on his gauntlets.  His codename actually is "Screwdriver."

Look, they can't all be winners, okay?

Anyway, an underground arena exploiting people who get powers would be a great storyline, one that could be in the background of a few episodes before coming out and being a huge two-parter.  This is especially true because, if you're having the Unlimited Class Wrestling, you have to include...

10)  The Power Broker

Hey, man, looking for a bit of a boost?  Some extra "zip" to your day?  You want to be able to get a high like you wouldn't believe?  Well, man, you just gotta talk to the Power Broker, and he'll hook you up with the goods.

That is, he distributes super powers in drug form.  Criminals, heroes, and people just looking to get to fly for a short time or beat up the guy picking on him at work all come to him to get what they need to get the job done.  I mean, sure, the drugs might kill you, either directly or because they'll wear off when you're flying over the city or holding up that crumbling building, but that's the risk you take, man!

9)  Nova



Imagine, if you will, an ordinary person here on Earth who gets picked to become part of an intergalactic peacekeeping force.  Granted fantastic powers through advanced technology, he gains the ability to fly, project energy blasts and force fields, and still manages to try to deal with the every day issues of normal life around his hidden identity.

And he isn't played by Ryan Reynolds.

We already know aliens exist in the cinematic Marvel universe, in fact we have an upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy movie on the way to enforce it.  So why not have S.H.I.E.L.D. be present when the "good guys" of the universe start picking human representatives instead of it always just being "the bad guys" who come to the planet to mess around?

8) Count Nefaria



Count Nefaria is one of those villains who has links to the Avengers as a whole but has a more personal link to Iron Man in the fact that his daughter, Madam Masque, is both trying to kill him and sleep with him at the same time depending on which writer remembers what part of her history.

Having enough power to take on the Avengers single-handedly, Count Nefaria (which is, let's face it, and awesome name) used technology to grant himself "ionic powers" or something that I never worried about the science of because, hey, it's comics.  It'd be great to have the Agents track down stolen technology that could be used to grant someone those powers and be present at the "birth" of such a major villain, which would probably turn into a "use the same technology to stop him" plot, but at this point I just want to see the character on screen.

7)  The Molecule Man

Owen Reese has, arguably, the most powerful "super power" that ever existed.  He can turn anything into anything else.  He alters them at the (as the name suggests) molecular level so that they simply stop being what it was and becomes, say, a block of solid gold.  Or a ball of twine.  Or a penguin.  He can affect things on a microscopic level or alter entire landscapes around him...

But he has the self-confidence of Woody Allen before Woody Allen was famous.  Instead of shooting, punching, or blowing up a threat that faces them, it'd be great to see Agent Coulson or someone else on the team have to simply talk down a guy with the power to simply make them dissolve just by thinking about it.

6) The Psycho Man

Nick Fury established in the very first Iron Man movie that there was more to the world than Tony Stark knew.  This means they've already had encounters with things that would boggle the human mind.  Suppose one of those was an invader from a microscopic universe who had control over everybody's emotions?  A guy who could make an entire city riot in anger or hide away in fear?  He's not quite as powerful in a fight as, say, Count Nefaria, but seeing a more psychological episode of the show would be quite entertaining, and we know that Joss Whedon has done a pretty great job in the past when it comes to messing with the heads of his characters.

5)  Arcade

In a world where people get super powers, where the Avengers are now action figures, and where technology steadily advances, I expect at some point you'd get a guy who takes all of that and turns it into a twisted means of killing people.  Enter Arcade, one of my favorite villains to ever exist, even if his character has taken a disappointing turn in Avengers Arena.

I'd love to see Arcade in a recurring role, hired by other villains through the series to try to lure S.H.I.E.L.D. agents or "pesky gifted people" to their dooms.

4)  Taskmaster



And yes, he'd have to be in that costume.

A guy with the innate (more about that wording tomorrow) ability to physically mimic the moves of anybody he sees, Taskmaster (Tony Masters, former S.H.I.E.L.D. agent and now trainer of mooks for bad guys as well as the best mercenary ever) is a guy who can throw Cap's shield almost as well as he can, fight almost as well as Iron Fist, and move almost as acrobatically as Daredevil.

In fact, that's his only problem in that when you get right down to it, he's always almost as good as the source material, because the source material he observes can always try new things, he's limited to what he's already seen.  Granted, it means that a martial artist suddenly has to deal with Hawkeye's arrows or Cap's shield being thrown at him or Iron Man is left fighting a guy who ducks and dodges on a level shy of Elektra, but to fight a guy who can never really beat with the same combat maneuver twice is a great villain for this series.

3)  Joystick/The Great Game



This character was just fun.  Originally a villain for the "replacement" Spider-man, Joystick was part of a group taking part in "The Great Game," a series of events where big prizes were given to whoever could get a mission done first.  It might be simply stealing an object from a secure location or attempting to murder a super-hero (major points to her that she once tried to kill Mr. Fantastic and Namor the Sub-Mariner at the same time despite only being as powerful as a "lesser" Spider-Man), but it's all about the fun and adventure for them.

Joystick herself was great, because she somehow managed to break most conventions.  She was the "team slut" of the Thunderbolts, but didn't wear a revealing costume.  She was smart enough to tell when she was being manipulated, but went along away just to see what happened.  A total hedonist, she was always "looking out for number one" and seemed surprised when anybody called her out on her actions.

2)  Black Panther

We already know that Wakanda must exist, we've seen Cap's shield.  I can't remember if vibranium itself has been mentioned, but it only stands to lead that the agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. might be called out to help T'Challa, the Black Panther, defend his kingdom from some kind of threat.  Of course, this could lead to the first appearance of Klaw, but I'd silently be hoping for the first appearance of Man-Ape.

No, seriously, Man-Ape.



...okay, maybe not Man-Ape.  Klaw'd still be pretty cool.

I'm trying to skip all of the obvious ones, since we can pretty much figure there will be Hydra at some point, maybe Paladin, maybe Luke Cage and Iron Fist, probably a good chance of Misty Knight.  I want something not everybody would think of.

So, here goes.

1)  Kang the Conqueror

Yes, I know that time travel is a beast to deal with in story telling.

Yes, I know that future technology is a beast to do CGI on.

Yes, I know that Kang is an Avengers-Level threat, but if you need a great manipulator to be behind events that the agents re trying to investigate, it's hard to do better than Kang.  Well, I mean, I suppose they could do The Wizard or The Leader but those are more specific to other teams or individual heroes.  Kang is just great to have show up when you want everyone to know things just got really serious.

Now, there are some obvious choices I didn't pick, and in fact one or two of my choices might be disqualified, but I'll address those in tomorrow's top eleven: characters I don't expect to ever show up on the show.

If I Was In Charge... Of The Avengers! Part Two!

Last time in this blog, I established my picks for the premiere team of Avengers.  However, there's at least one other team running around with that title, because Marvel likes to milk a franchise realized that there's enough threats to the world, and they certainly have enough heroes running around.

So, this is where I put my B team.  This isn't to say they aren't as great as heroes (in fact, a couple of them are some of my favorites), but either their role was already taken on the premiere team, or I simply figured they might be more useful fighting A.I.M. or the Masters of Evil as opposed to the next time a Norse goddess of death starts making trouble.

Let's review the rules:

1) No more than twelve members.  Any more beyond that, and it's the "Be A Defender For A Day" storyline, and while I love seeing superheroes get excited about the opportunity for horseback riding, we don't need to revisit that storyline.

2) Half the team need to have been Avengers before.  Otherwise, I'm just making the new Force Works...wait, no, even that was made up of former Avengers.  ...okay, it's the new Turbine and the Right-Riders.

3) I have to stick to actual characters who I can prove existed, and it has to make sense why they'd join the team.  So unfortunately, I won't ever be able to bring a super-powered Nathan Fillion onto the team, no matter how much I plead with myself.

So, first things first, we need someone to lead this team.  Someone who can keep track of

1) Black Panther

Now, there are people who wonder what the Justice League would be like if it was run by Batman (overtly, I mean, not just the "well, we elected X as our leader, but when Batman speaks up everybody automatically clicks their heels" stuff they frequently do).  Having an Avengers team run by the Black Panther would be like that, except a bit more awesome.  T'Challa (so named after a misspelling of an African egg bread, if I remember my history correctly) is to planning what Captain America is to patriotism.  The man is a tactician of the highest order, not only managing to rule a nation that for years contained the single greatest natural resource any comic book universe ever had without having wars over it every year (up until one involving Dr. Doom, but while the end result was interesting, the path to get there was a bit sloppy), he's the man who was able to seize control of Tony Stark's entire business empire with one phone call and, well, he also had this just lying around:

My Galactus contingency plan consists of two parts: crying and blubbering.

T'Challa is someone who would know his team's strengths and weaknesses, study every villain they could possibly face, and have a plan in place for his group to win within the first few minutes of whatever attack might occur.

Next up, we need our scientist!

2)  Hank McCoy, a.k.a. The Beast

So I guess this is what he's supposed to look like now?  Okay, fine, still better than "cat face."

The only reason Hank McCoy didn't make it onto my earlier team was that I felt it needed a bit more international flavor, so I put Sasquatch on it.  The man is a consummate X-Man and Avenger, able to function on any team he's placed on, and is one of the more brilliant minds the world has in terms of technology and biology.  He's also powerful enough to hold the line in battle, and he's pretty easy to draw since any time a new artist comes along and wants to change something, "whoops, he mutated again!"

The other key reason to keep Hank on a team that probably won't be fighting interstellar invasions every other week is that he's also a key staff member of Wolverine's current school teaching young mutants how to be better, well, themselves.  I don't want to take him away from that, so he can simply commute back and forth from Avengers Mansion to Westchester.

Now, we need some brute force.

3)  The Thing

I stated once before that it makes no sense for Spider-Man to not be on an Avengers team seeing as he's teamed up with pretty much everybody from Howard the Duck to the Silver Surfer.  Now, the other person who starred in the other massive team-up book Marvel put out for years?

Benjamin J. Grimm, the ever-lovin' blue eyed Thing.  Where Spider-man's power set makes him adaptable for any situation, Ben is simply, at heart, the ultimate team player.  He'd function just as well with Power Pack as with the Guardians of the Galaxy, has the biggest heart in comics, and enough power to make most villains seriously reconsider a better job with a reliable dental plan.  He's been an Avenger as of late, and could easily split time between whatever the rest of the Fantastic Four are doing and this group.

Besides, just like how Thor makes everything he says sound regal, there's just something certain about who's going to win a fight when you hear "It's clobberin' time!"

4)  Iron Fist

 Another person who's been an Avenger in recent years, Daniel Rand is like if Bruce Lee and Bill Gates made a clone and then taught it how to punch dragons in the chest to get superpowers.  He's a great addition to any team, because not only have I locked the "close combat expert" role on the team, but I've also supplied a major source of funding for the team's exploits.  Granted, up until the Immortal Iron Fist comic a few years ago, I had always written him off as a one-gimmick horse, but that book and his Avengers appearances have shown me I was much too quick to judge this character.

5)  Vision

Not too long ago, I discussed how Hawkeye is a character who made being an Avenger his whole life.  But, I'll admit, there are times we get to see him outside of his costume, and even times he's left to try to have some semblance of a personal life.  And for him, it makes sense.   But, we do have one more character who made being an Avenger their entire reason for existence, and that's the good comic book android (don't get me started on the Red Tornado) named The Vision.

Also, we're going to revisit that whole "redemption" theme here, since the Vision was originally created by super-evil robot Ultron to destroy the Avengers, and was actually named by Janet Van Dyne, a.k.a. The Wasp when he first appeared (she had a knack for that, since she's also the one who came up with the name "Avengers.")  Having rebelled against his "father," Vision has been a regular member of the team, who only flipped out and had to be taken down by his teammates once, which is more than I can say about some characters.

The Vision brings a unique power set to the team, and also makes for a great field commander, able to relay commands from the Black Panther as well as analyze and adapt to situations as they occur.  He's a valuable addition to an Avengers team, and on this one we won't have any of that "sure, Doctor Doom was controlling you, apparently, but I still don't forgive you for using me to murder people" drama currently happening in Marvel's books between him and Scarlet Witch.

6)  Hercules

 Thor, as I pointed out, allowed you to bring mythology and magic into the book with little to no effort.  Hercules does the exact same thing, which is why he was actually one of the first picks I made to be on this team.  Now, this is the "not godly might" Hercules that was last seen running around in the Marvel universe, but I actually like this version a lot.  Having him fall back on the combat skills he picked up through his long life, but adding the fact that even a weak super villain could challenge him added a nice twist.  He has a strong working knowledge of the various pantheons of the Marvel U, and has access to some pretty impressive magical devices that could serve as interesting plot points.

Plus, Incredible Hercules is one of my favorite comics of the past twenty years, so, I had to put him somewhere.

Okay, I have my established characters in place, time to wander a bit and see what strays I can pick up.

 7)  Iceman

Bobby Drake doesn't get enough respect.  He was one of the original X-Men, meaning he's been doing the whole "superhero" thing longer than most Avengers have been, and he has a power set that's almost completely unique to comic book universes.  He's a keen team player, very knowledgeable in different ways to use his powers (that's a fancy way of saying "adaptable"), and has also been one of my favorite characters in comics, so that's an automatic buy-in.

Now, he's also a regular teacher at Wolverine's school, so I figure he can commute in on a giant ice slide with Beast.

8)  Polaris

Now, I just know that somewhere out there is someone going, "Gee, Erik, we have a furry scientist, a god/demigod, and now one of Magneto's offspring on an Avengers team?  Way to copy yourself."  To that, I say nothing, because I can't hear that person and they're silly for talking to their computer.  But if I did hear them, I'd say that Polaris, while yes, she is Magneto's daughter (again, this tends to be of some debate in-continuity), has such a unique power set that any team would consider her an asset.

And besides, so often her name only comes up following "Havok and" that it'd be really nice to let the character grow on her for a bit, out of the shadow of the younger Summers brother.  I really want to see what happens when a writer gets their hands on this character and doesn't have to deal with her boyfriend moaning about working for the government, or how teams don't respect him, or how Scott always gets the spotlight.

Besides, she's also gorgeous, and this team needs something better to look at than the ever-changing Hank McCoy.

9)  Atlas

Another former Thunderbolt (gee, maybe I am making the same teams?), Atlas started out with Songbird as part of the newly-formed Masters of Evil, trying to impersonate heroes after the Avengers and Fantastic Four were both presumed dead.  He had a slightly rougher transition to being a fully-fledged hero (he still felt strong loyalty to Baron Zemo for saving his life), he did eventually become a good guy in his own right.

And then things went downhill during some weird recent Avengers storyline where he felt the Avengers were "bad" somehow.  Yeah, like I frequently tell the people on the phone trying to "reduce my credit card debt," I ain't buying it.

Besides, at least one of the two majorly public Avengers team needs someone who grows big, and I'm certainly not putting Hank Pym on these teams (I like the guy, but his appearances just ask for trouble and disturbing images).

Okay, so we've drifted somewhat through the universe, and now it's my favorite part...picking out the obscure, the bizarre, and downright brilliant choices I have to fill out the roster.  Let's start with a fun one.

10)  Black Mamba

I don't care if it means she has to wear black plastic trash bags all the time, I want her on a team book.

Black Mamba started out as a super villain (whoops, there's that theme again) who gave up the life of crime to become part of the "B.A.D. Girls," the most 90s team of female "super-powered agents for hire" you could think of.  It was Pamela Anderson's V.I.P. without the deep intellectual story lines.

However, that isn't to say there isn't a fascinating character here.  See, Black Mamba is one of the few characters in the Marvel Universe who's able to tap into the "darkforce dimension," a possibly sentient dimension of energy that might or might not be evil, which she uses to cloud the minds of her opponents, allowing limited mind control or forcing them to black out.  That's awesome.

She would easily add something special to the team (okay, besides her...physique, we'll call it), and would add that nice bit of conflict when you have one team member who doesn't quite hold the same ideals as everybody else but still wants to do the right thing...even if it means cutting a few corners.

At least, until she gets set straight and learns to be a real hero, that is.

11)  Veda

 Maintaining the theme of "diversity helps you be prepared for anything," Veda was part of the short-lived (and much under appreciated) team "The Order," which was the official superhero team of California for a short time.  Having been a former action movie star, Magdalena Neuntauben (what a great name) was picked to be given superpowers, ending up with the ability to create "golems" out of any organic material around her.  They aren't as strong as, say, Ben Grimm, but she can have enough running around at once to cover a wide area.

She's kind and generous to a fault (having spent a lot of time helping orphans before becoming a hero, and was actually seriously underplayed in her own book compared to some of the other characters despite having the one power that let her help the most people at once.  In my eyes, she deserves to be brought back and used again.

12)  Squirrel Girl

....nah, just kidding.

12)  Gorilla Man

 

 Comic books are awesome.

Ken Hale was a soldier of fortune who, afraid of dying, hunted and wound up killing the fabled "Gorilla Man", becoming the new version and also becoming immortal.  Because comics, that's how.

Gorilla Man is there for one reason, pure and simple.  He has the brusque "action hero" persona that would  play well against characters like Iron Fist and Atlas, he has the "trapped in a strange form" that would let him connect with Hank McCoy, he would flirt with every single woman on the team, and he'd be willing to sit down to a game of cards any day with Ben Grimm.  Simply put, he blends well with everybody on this team, and the whole "immortal" deal always comes in handy.

Now, he'd have to stop using regular guns in combat (I maintain that Avengers don't just gun down their enemies, despite what some modern writers might want me to believe), but if they can't find a gorilla-hand sized stun pistol somewhere around the mansion, I'm pretty sure one can be built.

So that's my listing for the secondary group of Avengers!  Obviously, I left out your favorite character, but remember two things:

1) I still have one more team left to build, so there's a chance they'll show up there!

2) It's my blog.  So nyah!

Feel free to leave a comment about how I need to stop breathing in the fumes from my car's exhaust pipe for fun, and indicate just how (correctly) wrong I am!