S.H.I.E.L.D the TV show; Phil “his first name is Agent” Coulson lives!

Moon Landing conspiracy theories? JFK’s assassination, One Direction; Maybe, just maybe those have as many people discussing them online, as there have been going crazy trying to come up with theories as to how agent Phil Coulson could possibly return. After getting killed sob brutally and tragically, by Loki in The Avengers, there have been thousands, nay hundreds of thousands of people wondering if he never really dies, if he was coming back as The Vision (an Android who I assume would somehow have had Coulson’s brain) could Asgardian tech bring him back to life etc. so on and blah blah. Well the wishes of millions (my youngest daughter firmly amongst them) are, kind of, coming true. (Although Eve has been consoling herself with the fact that Ultimate Agent Phil Coulson still appears in the Ultimate Spider-Man cartoon and comics; better still Clark “awesome” Gregg voices Coulson, and the character is drawn /animated just like him.

So Marvel told the comic con this…

“At today’s Marvel Television Presents panel at New York Comic Con, Head of TV Jeph Loeb announced that Clark Gregg would reprise his role as Agent Phil Coulson in the live-action pilot “Marvel’s S.H.I.E.L.D.” Gregg previously played Coulson in “Iron Man,” “Iron Man 2,” “Thor” and “Marvel’s The Avengers,” as well as Marvel One-Shots “The Consultant” and “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Thor’s Hammer.”

Coulson is so popular he has actually been written into the comics themselves!

The actor made a surprise appearance at the panel to talk about his role as Principal Coulson on “Ultimate Spider-Man” before playing a special video from “Marvel’s The Avengers” Director Joss Whedon and Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige, announcing Gregg’s return to the role of Agent Coulson in the upcoming pilot. Whedon will also co-write the pilot to “Marvel’s S.H.I.E.L.D.” with Jed Whedon and Maurissa Tancharoen.

“Marvel’s S.H.I.E.L.D.” will be Executive Produced by Joss Whedon, Jed Whedon, Maurissa Tancharoen, Jeffrey Bell and Jeph Loeb.”

So now the internet is all abuzz again; how is he still alive?! Resurrected? Never dead in the first place? Magic? Alien tech? But wait; an even simpler answer? is the TV series set before the MCU? Is it set, forever in the days and years BEFORE Hulk, Iron Man and Co. first appear? Well we know the idea of the show is to be in the Marvel Universe, but sans superheroes. But once again people, I believe the answer may be even simpler than that. Yes it is all but certain that Disney will have been putting immense pressure on Kevin Fiege (head of Marvel Studios and mastermind of the incredibly successful Phase One Avengers films)  to set any Marvel , live action, TV shows firmly in the same Universe as the films; the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe). But you may recall that Fiege has been adamant that any TV shows must take place in an entirely DIFFERENT universe (I’m guessing an MTVU) than the films. 

Gregg in the animated Ultimate Spider-Man cartoon

Think simply that any of the cartoons you, or your kids, may watch/ have watched have nothing to do with the films, even though they feature the same characters right? Same principle. Or the comic have both the classic Marvel Universe, going back several decades, as well as the Ultimate Marvel Universe, going back about one decade. There the characters are totally unrelated (for example Ultimate Wolverine and the Ultimate Peter Parker Spider-Man are both dead).

 The return of the beloved Agent Coulson could simply be proof that Fiege has won this particular battle and S.H.I.E.L.D is simply et in a different version of The Marvel Universe, one where he has not been killed. (Think the Tim Burton Batman and the Christopher Nolan Batman (Joel Schumacher’s Batman has been consigned to a limo Dimension or simply erased from existence). They are both Batman (Michael Keaton and Christian Bale) but they are different and will never meet. My preference would be this; I just don’t think having a TV show concurrent with films set at the same time, in the same place is healthy. If anything it helped the Star Trek audience to stagnate and solidify into a “geeks only” club that never really grew and eventually led to the point where Paramount had to abandon the whole thing and start again a few years later with a film, an excellent film, that had to convince people Star Trek wasn’t what they thought it was. That is the last thing Marvel want to happen to their characters. They want to keep the films special.. We shall see. Probably as I type this Josh Whedon is telling all about how S.H.I.E.L.D will feature cameos from Samuel L Jackson, Chris Hemsworth and Scarlett Johansson to cement the fact that the films and TV shows are inextricably connected!