4 issue Test #27 - Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

So, S.H.I.E.L.D. concluded with #12 and a couple of problems notwithstanding (particularly with the S.H.I.E.L.D. anniversary issue) it was a great run by a great writer, Mark Waid (and I’ll admit the last 2 issues of ANAD Avengers are improvements over the first 6 issues – although I’m still considering dropping the title)

So, with Mark Waid no longer on the title we have Marc Guggenheim who is one of the big guys on the CWTV universe. So we have him partly to thank for the bullsh*t Arrow has been through of late. Also, can you not see the irony of having a DC TV producer working on the tie-in comic for its major competitor?

Anyway, let’s dig into Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. #1-4 and find out what’s going on

This is a generic group shot, and why are Fitz and Simmons so far in the background?

We open at the Pentagon, I don’t care that they don’t call it that in the comic, it’s the Pentagon, where someone wearing Iron Man armour blows a hole in the facility. A day later Tony Stark tries to talk to Agent Coulson but he’s busy and Tony’s talking to agent May. According to a caption box Iron Man’s armour specs were posted on the internet.

Coulson is being interrogated by a couple of the oversized bee-keepers of AIM and before I continue I have some back-story. You see, I mentioned about Robert DeCosta in my Starbrand and Nightmask review. He legitimately bought A.I.M., re-branding them the Avengers Idea Mechanics and ultimately forming the tech that his New Avengers team uses. I bring this up for 2 reasons. 1: The New Avengers show up in #4 and 2, how many A.I.M. splinter groups are there? Is this one the one working for the Maker? (I only read the Standoff Tie-ins of New Avengers) (also, the Maker is from the Ultimate Universe, Miles’ survival was explained, his is just forced) anyway, Coulson is being interrogated by force

Anyway, Tony wants to talk about Project Pegasus which he found out about after he hacked S.H.I.E.L.D. files 10 seconds after arriving (and somehow got the information from somewhere since he isn’t wearing his amour) causing Agent May to draw a gun on him. Tony smiles and asks if she’s single.

Phil confesses he illegally obtained the information about this facility but had to go in himself to confirm its validity, he also names 3 famous authors which is a cue for his 3 strike teams to move in. Fitz is in the sewers working on disabling the security protocols. Quake and Mockingbird are freefalling in to somewhere whilst Simmons and Deathlok are infiltrating their hangar. Coulson’s taken out the 3 A.I.M. guys that were with him.

With Fitz’ job done, he stands by for evac but the evac chopper is shut down, fortunately the pilot has ejected. Quake and Mockingbird have found a new chopper and are working on securing it. Simmons and Deathlok have found a weapon, a DNA smart bomb. Simmons says she can disarm it in 8 minutes but an A.I.M. goon knocks out Deathlok and smashes the holding case for the smart bomb, covering Simmons in the liquid. Coulson arrives and takes out that goon.

At the S.H.I.E.L.D. heli-carrier Coulson remarks to Tony that almost every piece of his armour has been compromised over the years. Tony isn’t sure what was stolen from the Pentagon but did manage to bring up a name affiliated with it: Lola Daniels. Coulson and her used to be involved.

Fitz and May are training, naturally Fitz loses but remarks being dominated by May is kinda sexy, and then he asks her on a date… WHAT! And she accepts WHAT! Oh in and the 3 other issues that’ve come out, this hasn’t gone anywhere. I totally agree with May here when she says “What happened to Leo Fitz?”

Speaking of romance, Coulson takes Lola (his car) to see Lola, his former girlfriend. Apparently the reason S.H.I.E.L.D. didn’t know about the situation is because relationships between S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Pentagon have been less than optimal of late. Forgive me but isn’t S.H.I.E.L.D. a primary law enforcement agency in the Marvel universe? And honestly the how’s of that aren’t going to be explained.

What happens next is sexy-time until Coulson decides to hack her computer. He gets caught but she reveals that what was stolen was something called the Quantum Drive. A database of countermeasures against every superhero on the planet. And the person who devised them, was Coulson.

Also, Simmons was doing some analysis of herself on the computer, turns out when she was covered in the DNA smart-bomb juice, her DNA started to degenerate, the computer says she has maybe a month to live.

OK, so here’s the explanation for the Quantum drive. You see Lola is a telepath and gained the information from his brain whilst they were dating. She was using him the whole time. Coulson briefs his team about the situation, they want to recover the Quantum drive and if possible keep it out of the D.O.D.’s hands as well.

Erm, this makes no sense with the issue, far as I can tell, Lola isn't Hydra, she's also not super-powered in any way

Coulson says that since there haven’t been a lot of moves against heroes in the past 3 days, it’s clear the goal is profit, not power, and tells everyone to work their contacts since Axiom, the data referring to heroes on the Quantum Drive, cannot be copied. Coulson has Lola locked in a S.H.I.E.L.D. cell, apparently she’s agreed to co-operate but Coulson’s keeping her on a very short leash.

A superhero called Horus is killed when his cosmic staff is destroyed by Iron Mogul (I’m calling him that because I don’t yet have another name for him). Oh no, not Horus! NOOOOOOOO!

Seriously, who is Horus? Oh wait, a Wikipedia search tells me he was created specifically to be cannon fodder, great. Also, Horus exists in the Marvel universe, and is a deity

Anyway, Iron Mogul says that was a demonstration to prove he has the intel and says the Axiom protocols will be put up for Auction in 48 hours. Unfortunately, the information about the location of said auction was not publicised and is stored on a poly-code encrypted server, in a plane above North Korea. Without direct access to the server it’ll take a week before they get the intel they need. Coulson sends a strike team whilst he works a backup plan.

He and Lola are in Paris, discussing him naming his car L.O.L.A.. Fitz contacts an unknown and tells him/her that Simmons hasn’t been right since the A.I.M. attack, he agrees to help and responds that Nexus can turn this to their advantage. If this is hinting about Fitz being a potential traitor, then NO! NO NO NO NO NO! NO! On the other hand, given his advances on May too, it’s possible there are other forces at work as well.

Mockingbird and Fitz freefall onto the plane. Meanwhile Coulson and Lola and in pursuit of Melina Vostokoff aka Iron Maiden, they capture her and Lola gets the time and date for the auction (which they knew already since he said in 48 hours in the message) Mockingbird and Fitz are set upon by guards, how they expected to do this stealthily is anyone’s guess since there’s very little cover in the cockpit of the plane. Something causes an explosion in the back of the plane and the two are forced out, what’s worse is the debris is tearing holes in their parachutes

Meanwhile Coulson follows Lola who’s giving information to someone, she got something else about Iron Maiden’s mind, S.H.I.E.L.D. is even more dangerous than they thought and to look into a place called Pleasant Hill.

OK, points for at least some degree of relevance for one 

OK, we’re in a crossover now. I’m just going to summarise what I can just for the sake of being simplistic. Maria Hill is using cosmic cube fragments to brainwash criminals to live within an artificially created reality called Pleasant Hill. But security breaches have been high. The Winter Soldier blew up 4 heli-carriers (their funding must be through the roof now) gaining such intel, incidentally another person with the intel is Rick Jones: professional side-kick, formerly A-bomb, co-star of the god awful Hulk and the Agents of S.M.A.S.H. and currently under the alias the Whisperer. Incidentally the A.I.M. off shoot that Ultimate Reed Richards is running, it’s called W.H.I.S.P.E.R., funny, aint it? Anyway, he was rescued from a S.H.I.E.L.D. assault by Captain America, who he’d been working with since his and Steve’s little breakup.

Anyway, Mockingbird tells Fitz to go limp so she can use her glider wings to fly him back onto the S.H.I.E.L.D. jet. Phil confronts Lola, shooting the person she was talking to. He was a life model decoy, an idea the Pentagon stole from S.H.I.E.L.D. She was working for General Strokfsky and he didn’t want the information passing onto him.

She’s locked in their battle-carrier once again and finds out that Fitz has found out the location of the auction from the plane. Coulson tells Mockingbird do develop an infiltration plan but holds back Quake, Deathlok and Simmons. He brings up the bio of Rick Jones and says he has information they need. He needs to be sure of what’s going on before he can act. They are assigned with bringing Rick in.

Coulson confronts Lola in a scene that points out that Strokofsky will likely have an agent of his own inside the auction. Quake, Deathlok and Simmons enter Rick’s house, Simmons discovers some trace oils from a handprint, the wall hides a secret compartment in which she finds a flash drive. Deathlok accesses it and finds Rick’s likely escape route, through the Abandoned Morlock tunnels, which used to house dozens of mutants back before mutants were dying out.

They find Rick but he has a few tricks up his sleeve, a shield that totally isn’t Captain America’s (apparently belongs to a US Agent) a hypnotic glove from the Ringmaster, which he uses to turn Deathlok on Quake but he’s eventually found and shot by Simmons.

We cut to Barbuda, formerly A.I.M. Island, and home of yet another A.I.M. splinter group. May and Mockingbird infiltrate from the water, taking out the two A.I.M. guards. They infiltrate the party, a woman with a weird tattoo tells him he thought a stranger was dead. He replies that it wouldn’t be the first time and we see that it’s Wolverine? Wait what? Last I checked, Wolverine had not been resurrected, and there’s already an alternate universe version of him walking around with the X-men. Actually don’t worry, this will make sense in #4

Rick is being held in a cell, Simmons only shot him with a rubber bullet. He says they’ve made it easy for them to rescue them, and so #3 ends with the New Avengers, minus 2 that are no longer part of the team (or are the only part of the team) coming to the rescue. TO BE CONTINUED IN NEW AVENGERS #8

Spoiler alert, you don’t need to read New Avengers #8 to get the conclusion of the story, the spend the first half of #4 redrawing the entire fight.

My biggest issue with this cover comes down to my issue with this issue in general, which I'll get to

So #4 opens with the New Avengers diving into the carrier. White Tiger and the Power Man that isn’t Luke Cage stand there whilst exposition happens. Songbird and Pod dive in and they try briefly to settle without a fight but Deathlok’s p*ssy about the hole in the battle-carrier so fighting begins. Quake aims her Quakes and Pod by Songbird swipes her down, able to counter her powers with her ability to manipulate frequencies.

She tells Daisy to keep fighting back and she’s using her frequencies to carry a message only she can hear before knocking her out. White Tiger disarms Deathlok whilst Power Man takes care of Simmons, he tells Deathlok her Chi is a mess and he should check that out when he regains consciousness but he doesn’t do anything. Apparently his powers come from age (wait, what, a quick Wikipedia search says that this Power Man can convert Chi into physical strength so what the f*ck is this about) Deathlok knocks Power Man back but as White Tiger engages, he notices Hawkeye fire an arrow from the jet straight at him, knocking him out.

Meanwhile May and Mockingbird have eyes on the Axiom Drive, it’s being guarded by 4 Supervillains. Boomerang, Shocker, Ox and Batroc. I only know Shocker and Ox from that list but I digress. May and Mockingbird knock them out but the crate is empty.

Fitz contacts some General I don’t recognise who says he has an operative on-site. 3 bidders begin doing the bidding. Wolverine, Thaddeus Kole and John Walker who is apparently also Captain America, how many of these guys are there? OK, wiki tells me he’s the US Agent Rick Jones got the shield from.

The 3 that were guarding Rick wake up. Deathlok asks Simmons about what Power Man said but she doesn’t say anything, you know for a smart person, Gemma, you’re a bit of a moron. This is the Marvel Universe, there is magic, science even above your own that might be able to help you right now. Daisy said that Songbird said Family Values through that carrier frequency, it’s a code-word used by deep cover S.H.I.E.L.D. operatives which she knew from being the head of S.H.I.E.L.D. herself once.

John Walker won the auction for 4 billion but is confronted by Wolverine, they fight with Wolverine revealing that he doesn’t have claws, but knock out gas. The case is knocked overboard for Fitz to retrieve but Wolverine is blasted by Iron Thief (I liked Iron Mogul better) revealing that it was Coulson in disguise.

So that was Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. #1-4, what’s my take, well let’s take a look.

This run is kind of hit and miss for me, as were the Flash and Arrow of late. I have major problems that really aren’t the writer’s fault. First, 3 issues in is WAY TOO EARLY to get involved in a crossover event. In fact to be honest it was kind of pointless. Easy fix, have Rick be captured after Captain America drops him off in Alpha, have 3 members of the team sent to guard him sent off in #3, in #4 have them mention the New Avengers have sprung him out with a caption box saying which New Avengers issue that happens in.

And my second big issue that ties to that is wasted time. If you’re going to have a to be continued in another book, at least spare the people who did read the book seeing the same fight scene all over again for half the book! Have a recap page or something (you spend 2 pages recapping, you couldn’t mention it on that?)

But to the story itself. Coulson takes the popular S.H.I.E.L.D. cast (minus Hunter, who isn’t in the Marvel Comics Universe as of yet) and puts them to good use, there are some nice character bits mixed in (I actually quite like Coulson and Lola) and the pacing seems nice and even for the most part.

Now for the problems. Why is Daisy serving under Coulson, she was a head of S.H.I.E.L.D., beyond that she was actually the person who recruited Coulson (according to Wikipedia) why is she serving under him, exactly? Secondly, teasing Fitz might be behaving differently like the scene with him flirting with May is good writing, bad writing is teasing he might be the villain in #2 and never following up on it in any capacity.

This is one of the problems season 1 of the Flash had, they revealed Harrison Wells to be evil way too early so the plot-line spun its wheels for nearly 2/3 of the season before any answers were given. More-over this is not a TV show, comics come out once a month, you should not have to wait for months on end to get answers in a comic book!

Then there’s Simmons’ arc and yes, we know she’s dying and she’s not telling anyone? WHY? Because Drama, that’s why. I’m sorry but no.

I also think there are a few instances of show, don’t tell, I only know about bad blood between the Pentagon and S.H.I.E.L.D. because the plot said so. I certainly don't remember much about it from the previous S.H.I.E.L.D. run

What also drags us down is the lack of a proper villain. Iron Thief doesn’t confront them till the end of #4 we get villains like A.I.M. offshoot agents, some more A.I.M. offshoot agents, random military guys and 4 D-list super-villains. I look forward to next month with Grant Ward, if he can’t make things interesting I’m giving up on this title.

The artwork is largely decent, the only thing is sometimes I can’t tell Simmons, Daisy and May apart when there are filters on the page. Fortunately, it’s rare and things do get cleared up.

Ratings

#1 7/10

#2 7/10

#3 6/10

#4 5/10

Overall: 6.25/10

Recommendation: Now that S.H.I.E.L.D. is no longer involved with Standoff, we should pick up both the quality and the pacing again. I’m gonna check out Grant Ward’s introduction but if we get no answers on Fitz soon I will drop this title.

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Images/clips used in this review are from Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D./Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith and belong to their respective owners. All images in this review are subject to fair use