Marvel Cinematic Universe: My problem with SHIELD

SHIELD has been an intricate part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe since its beginning in Iron Man when Coulson name dropped his organization and comic book geeks went nuts.

Throughout all of phase 1, SHIELD is really the puppeteers behind everything. They're the ones setting up the Avengers initiative. They're the ones manipulating the situations that each Avengers gets his individual situation done but in the end, is headed towards the initiative and towards SHIELD's purposes.

Now let's be plain here. The Marvel Cinematic Universe is one where Norse Gods are actually aliens from another realm, a guy who flies around in an Iron suit, and a guy who when he gets angry turns into a green rage monster.

Believe me, if we lived in that kind of world, you would bet your ass that the United States government would allot funds to form a bureau like SHIELD in a heartbeat. And we'd probably need it.

But not only would they form it, I'm guessing they would want to keep it secret as much as they could. And even if people like The Avengers were public, I still think SHIELD would want to stay in the shadows, again holding the strings, being secret, and doing whatever they could to put the spotlight on The Avengers rather than them, the secret government organization holding all the strings.

And that sounds awesome. In theory, I should love a show like Agents of SHIELD because of that secret element to it. To me, SHIELD is to The Avengers the same way Torchwood is to Doctor Who.

Granted, I never really got into Torchwood. I never really liked the idea that a comedic character like Captain Jack Harkness was turned so dark. And in part, that's a huge problem I ahve with Agents of SHIELD.

But what I did like about Torchwood was that their presence seemed to be very hidden from the public. Sure the police would here stories about the organization called Torchwood, but any investigation or inquiry into Torchwood would be shut down quickly from higher, and nobody would actually know exactly the line of work Torchwood did. I think SHIELD should have been the same thing. SHIELD is like the CIA working domestically within the United States and abroad, dealing with the supernatural and basically fringe science. In fact, one of the first drafts of a post like this was me comparing Agents of SHIELD with Fringe and saying that I actually think the plot of Fringe would be a better plot for Marvel's Agents of SHIELD. But that's neither here nor there.

The main focus of this post is pointing out the elements of SHIELD throughout the Marvel Cinematic Universe that I think weaken their role in the cinematic universe. Here are the main reasons.

1. The mystery of SHIELD was lost very quickly. 

Okay, maybe this is only because there's been 11 films in the cinematic universe across 7 years since Agent Coulson mentioned SHIELD in Iron Man.

And I actually have no problem with this introduction of them. The way I see it, the organization is just now gaining traction, its the first time its introduced in the film, Coulson needs to make his presence known.

Even in The Incredible Hulk, SHIELDs presence was still very behind the scenes, having Tony Stark in the post credit scene served as more of a personal connection between the two movies, acknowledging that they exist in the same universe, but still, its SHIELD remaining off the radar.

And then this BS happened.

This probably has to be the low point of Marvel just because this scene had to be the stupidest scene in the world, all because it had nothing to do with the plot. Why was Nick Fury the one who needed to get Tony back on track? How does that help the story, I mean you've hopefully read my Iron Man 2 review, you know how I feel about this.

But this scene really makes me not actually like Nick Fury in this entire cinematic universe.

You may be saying, Connor, its Samuel L Jackson as Nick Fury. He's made that role iconic. How can you not like him?

Well I like the idea of Nick Fury. And I do like where he eventually ended up. But I do think that Marvel played their cards a little bit too early with Nick Fury and kind of ruined him by the end of phase 1.

We all remember this scene at the end of Iron Man.

Seeing Samuel L Jackson with an eye patch utter the words, The Avenger Initiative... even if you're not a comic book fan, you should know that that means something brilliant is coming.

Samuel L Jackson shows up and he's just full of mystery. You have no idea what his deal is, who he is, but he just exudes awesomeness.

And I really think he should have been left to post credit scenes. Not showing up in a doughnut shop in Iron Man 2. He should have shown up at the end of Iron Man, and the end of Captain America. And that's it. By having him show up in Iron Man 2, it just ruins the illusion of this eye patch phantom that we get to know better in The Avengers as his gathering of heroes finally pays off and he is the narrator of their collaboration story.

But it goes beyond that.

While Iron Man 2 was the downfall of Nick Fury, and that can be easily remedied by... not watching Iron Man 2. (you really don't lose anything by not watching that movie looking back) SHIELD as a whole is not as easily fixed because instead of a secret organization that works in the shadows, SHIELD has a presence in every single Marvel movie. And its not like they come in and out like government ninjas, they're very present and people know about them.

In Thor, SHIELD is running around everywhere making their presence very known, setting up their very presence base to study Thor's hammer. Taking Jane's stuff and saying, don't worry, we're SHIELD we can do this. And what's worse is that Stellan Skarsgard's character knows who SHIELD is. Its not like he's never heard of this shady government organization taking his stuff, he's heard of them before.

I don't know, maybe I'm nitpicking one sentence, but then I look at Agents of SHIELD. SHIELD shows up everywhere, sticking their nose into peoples business. And its not like in the other films where they show up in their black unmarked vehicles, no SHIELD is riding around with that symbol that I thought only I knew about because I've been watching every film. People may not know exactly what SHIELD does, but the fact that that annoying but pretty girl from Agents of SHIELD can go around knowing exactly where to hack in, into an organization that's suppose to be covert, I don't know. It just doesn't feel that covert to me.

Here's a better example.

In 24: Live Another Day, the CIA is operating on foreign soil. They're not suppose to be there and every operation that they do, they have to do it quickly, quietly, and with incredible precision because if they don't, they get discovered and their operations are compromised.

I feel like that's how SHIELD should be operating. If people knew there was an organization with as much power as SHIELD, they'd be up in arms. And yet everyone is walking around in suits, acting like its a regular government bureau. And maybe it is. Maybe that's the way they wanted it to be, but do we really want to see Nick Fury as the head of a run of the mill government bureaucracy, or do we want to see him as the head of covert organization working from behind the scenes to make superheroes look good, but also keeping them in line.

And that's maybe the second problem I have with SHIELD.

2. It got too big, too quickly.

Exhibit A

This is not the equipment of a secret covert organization, this is the equipment of a paramilitary organization. 

And you know I would have been okay if there was only one of these. Like we saw only one in The Avengers, that's freaking awesome, why would we need to see more.... 

Enter Captain America: The Winter Soldier. 

There's a bunch of those things!

Again, Paramilitary organization or covert operations. You can't have both. Again, I would have been fine if there was one of those things flying around with its cool stealth mode underbelly, but when there's like five of these in the air, people are going to notice. 

This kind of ties into the whole mystery of the organization. I mean by The Winter Soldier, SHIELD is very much an entity I know of. The mystery is going to be gone for me, but I should still feel like I'm in on an exclusive club of people who know about SHIELD. 

How in the world are there people who don't know about SHIELD when its that big that they can make 5 huge aircraft carriers. 

And finally on a more personal note. SHIELD kind of ruined Coulson for me. 

3. Coulson

Leading up to The Avengers, Coulson was a great comic relief character that showed up every once in a while. While he was a little bit goofy, he still had an air of seriousness to him, and he also was the representative of something greater, that same greatness that Nick Fury hinted at at the end of Iron Man. 

It was Coulson and Nick Fury that kind of tied all of this together and was the glue of the Avengers Universe. 

So much that there was a point when I was watching The Avengers, that I stopped the DVD and just had to marvel at how much I loved Coulson's role in this movie. He's so passionate about the way the Avengers inspire people because he's one of the people they have inspired. He has the Captain America trading cars, he's a fan just like we are. 

And on the acting side of things, Clark Gregg is such a great choice for this role. You can tell he was brought in because of his relationship with Joss Whedon and I have no problem with that because I like Clark Gregg. I like his acting, I like his personality. I think he worked really well for this part. 

And that's why it was such a big deal when he was killed in The Avengers. He really was the catalyst for getting the group together and having them go to stop Loki. 

And it had to have been hard for Gregg to see his time with Marvel come to a close as his character is killed. I have to imagine by this point he's gotten to know the people he's worked with a lot and its probably a family. It had to have been hard to... Oh wait.

He didn't die!

Joss Whedon recently did an interview stating that he kind of regrets bringing Coulson back in Agents of SHIELD because if you watch both that show and the movies, you re-watch The Avengers knowing that Coulson doesn't actually die. Suddenly the impact of that death isn't quite the same. 

On top of that, going back to the feeling of Agents of SHIELD. Coulson used to be this kind of comic relief character. He was brave, and serious to a fault, but he was never the kind of person you would never really see as intimidating. Furthermore, you don't really see him as the leader of a group. 

But that's what they go for in Agents of SHIELD... and I don't like it.

Why would you take a lovable side character like Coulson and turn him into this hard nosed leader? 

Now is that probably part of his job? Yeah it is, but I don't want to see that! He's a side character for a reason. Some side characters are the kind that you delve into, some aren't. Coulson was a character you really didn't need to dive into. 

If you can't tell, I really don't like Agents of SHIELD. 

And that kind of brings me into my last point. 

Throughout all the movies, throughout all the TV shows, throughout it all. There is something about SHIELD that I have not enjoyed. 

4. They're not good at their jobs. 

Half the reason Coulson was such a good character was because, prior to Agents of SHIELD, Coulson was kind of like John Turturro's character from Transformers, the agent that does the secret research on transformers. I always though of Coulson as the good version of that character.

But the fact of the matter is, he's also similar to that character because SHIELD is ultimately useless in phase 1. Think about it for a second, what do they actually do in phase 1.

They try to stop Obidiah Stane in Iron Man 1 and fail miserably. They need to send Tony Stark to tell General Ross to back off of Bruce Banner at the end of Incredible Hulk. They just show up for the sake of showing up in Iron Man 2. They set up a "secret" facility in New Mexico that is easily infiltrated by Thor and Loki in Thor. They get their asses handed to them by the Asgard robot that attacks the small town in New Mexico.

What does SHIELD do right in Phase 1?

Well they form the Avengers?

Oh right, an initiative they were originally going to scrap and only pulled out of the recycling bin because their weapons program with the tesseract (which they lose by the way) wasn't ready yet.

And what was SHIELD doing during the battle of New York? This paramilitary organization? They were dicking around in their aircraft carrier. They couldn't send SHIELD agents down to New York with the Avengers. There's probably a couple SHIELD agents that could shoot at aliens the same way Hawkeye and Black Widow did. Maybe not as acrobatic but it'd be kind of nice to have some extra hands for Captain America to direct during that battle.

And what is SHIELD's response to the battle of New York?

Well Nuke New York of course.

I mean I know Nick Fury wasn't on board with that and it was more the shady board of directors who made that decision, but damn. That's your course of action?

SHIELD doesn't do anything in Iron Man 3 or Thor: The Dark World because they're too busy with... whatever they do in Agents of SHIELD. Seriously, what is their main goal in that show? I really don't like that show.

And then in The Winter Soldier, its revealed that Hydra has been manipulating SHIELD for fifty years!

Seriously! What the hell has SHIELD done in this Marvel Universe that makes them a viable government organization?

I mean I get it, the focus is on the superheroes, but this organization is really bad at its job. Its not a secret organization at all. It did nothing productive in the first phase of movies because it was too busy developing weapons that never saw the light of day, and spent all of phase 2 doing episodic crime procedurals that I swear to god make me fall asleep every time, all leading up to figuring out you've been infiltrated this entire time by Nazis.

I will say that Nick Fury does have some redeeming qualities in Age of Ultron, and without giving anything away, there is a point where Captain America refers to something as, "This is what SHIELD is suppose to be".

I think they finally did get something right at the end of the day, but thats 11 movies in.

Is there a little bit of sarcasm in this post? Sort of. I still think Nick Fury is pretty cool and again, the concept of SHIELD is really great and the execution of it isn't the worst thing in the world, especially if you don't think about it too much. But I've been trying to figure out what it is about Agents of SHIELD that makes it so difficult for me to get through it and maybe its my harsh feelings towards SHIELD throughout the eleven movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe that have soured me.

What do you think? Comment and Discuss below! Do you like SHIELD, do you think they've done a good job? Let me know. Also follow me on Twitter @cmhaugen24 to get updates on movie news and reviews.

I'll leave you with this. It is May the Fourth and I feel like a horrible Star Wars fan. I really haven't done anything to celebrate Star Wars, a franchise that has been incredibly important to me since childhood. So in honor of May the Fourth, I'll put an obligatory Star Wars clip, not related at all to SHIELD or Marvel, but hey, both are owned by Disney so... that's cool. Enjoy and May the Fourth be With you!