4 issue test #5 - S.H.I.E.L.D.

“Inspired by the hit TV series” Marvel’s SHIELD comic follows the outings of Agent Coulson and his crew of SHIELD agents in the much bigger Marvel Universe than the cinematic one. Is this series worth picking up? Let’s take a look at the first 4 issues and find out

Issue 1 opens with Coulson, aged 9 reading a book about the Golden Age of Super Heroes and taking notes. At age 18, whilst he’s in college he’s taking notes on modern-day superheroes like Iron Man the Thing and the Hulk. At age 25 he’s a data analyst for SHIELD downloading data about superheroes with a code 7 alert in the background. Last year as a field agent he spends time in captivity listing the names of all the x-men in the order of them joining rather than spilling classified SHIELD secrets, he’s broken out by agent May and 2 others, his focus on that having saved his life up until now

We cut to last night where Coulson has won a game (poker, I think) against Power Man, the Thing, Hawkeye, Captain Marvel and Beast, you can see on his hand some scribbles about what gives it away when some of them lie. In the present day we see Iron Man, the Hulk, Hyperion and Blue Marvel fighting off some demon thing. Coulson, who has been promoted to a special ops field commander directs in some reinforcements. The New Captain America, Captain Marvel and by the looks of it Storm arrive, but more problems surface, a storm giant and dark elves appear. It seems as though the 9 realms are falling onto Earth.

Coulson, whilst listening to some communications is watching a news broadcast about a rebel named Abu Mussain carving through tanks with a mysterious flaming sword. Half an hour later there’s a SHIELD team in the air, including Fitz and Simmons. Fitz asks a blonde lady if she’s the new Thor, she coldly responds no.

Coulson briefs them on the mission, Abu Mussain’s sword is made of Uru, the same metal of Thor’s hammer and they need to retrieve it. In fact the sword belongs to Heimdall, guardian of the bifröst who fell to Earth for unknown reasons (and the joke about it sounding like Beef Roast makes no sense, it's pronounce by-frost, unless we've all been hearing it wrong in adaptations) Coulson theorises that without Heimdall guarding the bifröst the creatures from the other realms are coming through with relative ease.

They’re soon attacked by Mussain but Coulson has brought in backup, two of the agents on board are the Superheroes Black Knight and Valkyrie, both expert swordsfighters and perfectly equipped to handle Mussain. The rest of the team have to work to rescue Heimdall from the remaining forces. Agent May happily charges in, with Coulson admitting that they can’t call in reinforcements from the attack.

They clear the forces whilst Mussain is frustrated that he can’t penetrate the Black Knight’s shield, Valkyrie reveals it’s because his shield and sword are paired, and absorb any force used against them. The Black Knight is knocked out but Valkyrie takes up his sword as well as her own and defeats him. Heimdall is freed and reclaims his sword but the black rock in his chest suggests that he’s not fully in control.

He transports the agents to where the Avengers are fighting the monsters, it seems as though a few others have joined the battle including White Tiger, Power Man and Thor. The rock reveals itself to be a shard of the aftertime fired into the chest of Heimdall like a bullet. In the face of such power, Coulson calls everyone within signal range to attack him. This provides enough of a distraction for the Vision to remove the shard from his chest, freeing Heimdall.

Heimdall recalls coming across a black rock on the bifröst which exploded, flinging him to Midgard. He manages to send all the creatures home including himself, complimenting Coulson on his resourcefulness. We finish with an epilogue with Agent May briefing SHIELD director Maria Hill the threat has been dealt with without any field casualties. Simmons has brought back some of the fragments from the rock that took control of Heimdall and May could tell that Coulson was upset that he has no idea what it is.

Wow, that’s a lot of plot for a single issue. But as an opening issue it is larger than the following ones (also more expensive but I’ll rant about price later on) issue 2 opens yesterday at the London headquarters of Roxxon oil. The head of the company is on the phone, ranting about how his daughter didn’t turn up for an interview he has set up for her. It turns out his daughter in Agent Simmons, her dad thinks she’s a party planner. She’s busy helping a raid on an A.I.M. facility (if you're busy Simmons, don't answer the phone)

We cut to Coles Academic High School at 6am where the cleaner comes across a random sack of Pizza dough and brings it in, thinking it belongs to the Cafeteria (not the brightest tool in the shed are you, why would they leave it outside?) In the present Simmons is a substitute teacher under the guise of Ms. Steranko. As she writes on the board, she texts Coulson saying she’s spotted the smuggler

One of the students, Mr Grayson Blair receives a text message from “Skeesh” saying he can’t find the bag. Simmons intercepts the message and wants to have a word. Meanwhile a power glove goes bezerk and bursts out of a locker trashing the school. Simmons tries to alert Coulson who says he’s moving in. Whilst the students all evacuate one student, Kamala, aka Miss Marvel heads off and changes into her costume.

She uses her abilities to save Simmons and a couple of students from some falling debris but Simmons instructs her to leave, flashing her SHIELD badge. Grayson threatens his partner saying the bag should’ve been dropped off at 6 but the Partner says he was told 7. Grayson tries to clear out his locker but Coulson stops him, arresting him for smuggling contraband. First he asks that he deactivate the glove but Miss Marvel already has. She won’t give it away because it was a deadly tool a villain called the Wizard and she doesn’t trust that they are who they say they are.

Coulson wants to know where the dough is but Grayson says it was swiped. Realising today is Pizza day, Miss Marvel runs to the canteen where people (who clearly didn’t evacuate after the power glove incident) are eating the Pizza. Some of them begin to throw it up and they become creatures. They arrive at the canteen door but the door is blocked for some reason. Miss Marvel is the only one who can great through and observes the threat. The creatures are the creations of Arnim Zola.

The creatures burst down the door. The children who had ingested the Pizza have essentially been poisoned, Simmons heads to the science lab to try and cook up an antidote. Coulson gets out a taser to get the creatures away from the children. Coulson gets a call from Simmons saying she needs help. Coulson sends miss Marvel to help, revealing that he was keeping her out so the world didn’t grow too big took quickly for her.

Simmons just needs a minute to finish up, Miss Marvel uses her abilities to contain the creature, Simmons injects it with a formula to neutralise as well as having created an antidote for the children. A SHIELD team come to clean up whilst Simmons and Miss Marvel talk. She sympathises with Miss Marvel’s need to hide her alter-ego from her parents, saying that because of the classified nature of her work, her parents don’t know either. She says she misses the days when her parents knew about their daughter. They depart but Jemma leaves Miss Marvel a message to call her if it ever gets too much.

Issue 3 opens with a team of thieves penetrating a house with some unusual barricades. A guy with a skull on his belt (go figure) opens a book and some purple light comes out of it. 32 minutes later Spider-man lands on the hood of Lola, Coulson’s flying car. Turns out the house belonged to the sorcerer supreme himself, Doctor Strange. With Strange himself off-world, their magical expert is Mr Rasputin, one of Doctor Strange’s foes. If he helps without double-crossing his charges will be dropped.

They get in but are quickly attacked by the thieves, Rasputin easily dissipates the magic binding them and they take on the thieves, knocking them all out. With multiple paths, Spider-man’s spider-sense becomes the key to finding the right route. Coulson chose him because he has a gift of putting the welfare of others above his own ego (except when he made a deal with Mephisto) he leads the way and suddenly they’re upside down and so is all their dialogue. I understand the effect they’re going for here but I really don’t want to turn a comic upside down in order to be able to read it.

They encounter some more thieves which they take down, one of the agents outside is converted into some sort of blue monster. They walk through a wall (because magic) and find some thieves being attacked by something which I can only describe as… something. The attack concludes with some of the thieves missing their minds. Spider-man finds an ordinary kitchen through the next door.  They walk through another door and are back at the front door. Mr Rasputin wants out and kills the lights. Spider-man stops him whilst Coulson is grabbed by some unknown hands.

Coulson lands on the floor below and finds Wong, Strange’s confident who initially alerted them to the break in. He’s unconscious but alive and probably safe. Coulson heads up a staircase and finds a massive head shaped thing. Spider-man and Rasputin arrive at a door. Rasputin offers to send him in in astral form to survey the room undetected. Spidey agrees as his spider-sense isn’t blaring about him.

He sees the book that’s causing all the mess and describes it to Rasputin. It’s the book or Morphesti, now it’s leaking evil out onto the world and could be the end of man-kind (in other words, it’s another Thursday for Spider-man) they break down the door but are quickly overwhelmed by the forces, Coulson comes out and shuts the book, ending the magic and reverting everyone to normal.

The lead thief is Colonel Myrdden, a guy who was clearly hired by someone.  Coulson thinks he knows who but it doesn’t matter at the moment. Rasputing frees Wong from his spell and Rasputin’s charges are dropped. Coulson manages to match the inscriptions of the head thing to an inscription on something else he has.

Issue 4 opens with Agent Coulson looking at the file for an operative for the next mission. Susan Richards aka the Invisible Woman. We cut to Johnny Storm’s workshop in Brooklyn where Johnny Storm (aka the Human Torch, but that’s not important for this issue) is talking Sue through the design of a new engine or something. Using terminology that may well be important later; Sue gets a text and soon has to leave Johnny; she arrives and makes contact with Coulson. Coulson briefs her on her mission. Athol Kussar worked for his half-brother in a diamond mine but his half-brother had been involved in money laundering for HYDRA.

The only record of that transactions are in the head of Athol, and that intel could save the lives of hundreds of undercover SHIELD agents. SHIELD tried to get at him before but they failed, and Athol has been imprisoned (not killed because family matters) the prison is at the bottom of the mine, security can’t be alerted to what they can’t see but the problem is there’s a radiation in the final mile of the pit. Susan’s ideal for the job as she can create invisible barriers to protect herself from the radiation as well as get past the guards undetected.

Sue descends but finds out that Athol has another visitor: The Mole Man. Sue easily knocks him out and drags Athol from the prison but HYDRA has set a proximity fail safe bomb in his chest, to keep their secrets safe. (You’d think it’d be immediate but apparently they have minutes) with all other options out, Sue needs to get the bomb out herself. Using Simmons as a guide she manages to break in. But mole man’s drones, the moloids begin to attack. Sue manages to hold up the forcefield but won’t be able to much longer.

Coulson drops in (somehow not affected by the radiation) and helps keep the moloids at bay. He reminds her that her father died because Skrulls did something similar to him. Using that inspiration combined with words from Johnny at the beginning she manages isolate the power from the bomb, she then creates a wave to push back the remaining moloids before they escape.

So, how does the book hold up as a whole: Let’s take a closer look

I do have to compliment the book’s writer: Mark Waid, he manages to fit a lot of plot into a single issue without it feeling too rushed. This allows each issue thus far to be relatively self-contained. It’s fairly easy to jump into any of the 4 issues without any knowledge of the series

The same cannot be said for the knowledge of Marvel Universe as a whole. A lot has changed in the Marvel Universe recently: the new Miss Marvel, the good Hyperion, the Superior Iron Man, the Lady Thor, Falcon as Captain America etc. A little bit of explanation for all of this would’ve gone a long way, especially as people like me could have limited knowledge of the comic characters outside of the movies and the TV show this is supposed to be inspired by.

The other major issue with the book itself it’s over-reliance on guest stars. The book’s focus seems to be on Coulson, with Simmons having the biggest role of the remaining cast. Agents Fitz and May don’t have any role outside of issue 1 which is a pity considering their characters have developed so much in the show. With issue 1 being an extravaganza with guest stars a-plenty, it would’ve probably been in the book’s favour to have a few issues focusing on the SHIELD characters rather than the guest stars.

The artwork inside the book is pretty good, my issue is with the cover art, particularly with issues 1 to 3. It all looks kind of unfinished, more like a sketch of an image than the image itself. Issues 2-3 really lack any interesting backgrounds

The other thing that holds me back from this series is the price. Marvel: Please stop bulking up the price whilst adding bonus digital copies to all of your comics! It’s not always necessary to have a digital backup to a print comic. And the $4.99 cover price for the first issue is an easy way to discourage new readers from the book.

The other issue is one with plot: I like that all the issues are self-contained, but in 4 issues I feel like running plots have been pretty much ignored. I wanted to know more about the rocks, or the inscriptions, but it feels like we could be waiting a long time for answers.

Still it’s hard to find fault within the issues themselves.

Ratings:

#1 8/10

#2 7/10

#3 7/10

#4 7.5/10

Overall: 7.5/10

Recommendation: This series is well worth a read, but if you’re not willing to pay their ridiculous issue price, I advise waiting for the trade. Marvel is usually better than DC at getting trades out quickly anyway.

Next: Star Wars

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Images used in this review are from S.H.I.E.L.D. #1-4 and belong to their respective owners. All images in this review are subject to fair use.