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| Image Courtesy www.twitter.com/Marvel |
Agents of
S.H.I.E.L.D. provided a solid lead-in to Avengers: Age of Ultron
with its episode last Tuesday, “The Dirty Half Dozen” (2x19). In that episode, Coulson’s original team
went on a mission to infiltrate Dr. List’s Arctic Hydra base. While there, Coulson downloaded information
on Loki’s Scepter, Strucker’s base, and the Maximoff Twins from the Hydra
computers. After the mission, Coulson
contacted Maria Hill and sent all of his information to her, telling her that
it is “Time to send in the Avengers.” Conveniently,
this leads almost directly into the events of Age of Ultron (and
explains how Hill conveniently had all that information about the Twins!). That is one of the benefits of a
cross-platform, interconnected, shared universe: one medium can lead into another, providing
background information and showing events which would only be told
in the other. When you think about it, without
“The Dirty Half Dozen,” Age of Ultron would have needed at least a
couple minutes of (less interesting) exposition to explain how they knew where
to find Loki’s Scepter!
Of course, one of the
challenges of a cross-platform interconnected shared universe is that what
happens in one medium can have serious ramifications for the others. We saw this last year when the Agents of
S.H.I.E.L.D. team had to clean up the results of the Convergence (Thor:
The Dark World) in what was the least-interesting Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
tie-in episode yet. More to the point, the
fall of S.H.I.E.L.D. in Captain America: The Winter Soldier after it was
revealed that the organization had been infiltrated by Hydra had a massive
affect on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. The show couldn’t possibly ignore the fact
that the movie had done away with its very organization. This changed the course of the series
permanently.
Caution: SPOILERS Ahead!
Avengers: Age of
Ultron did not have that same degree of impact on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
(and to be honest I don’t think anything short of Ultron actually succeeding in
causing an extinction-level event would have had that degree of impact on Agents
of S.H.I.E.L.D.!). However, there
are a couple ways in which Age of Ultron impacts events on Agents of
S.H.I.E.L.D. going forward and even leads into the events of this week’s
episode, “Scars” (2x20).
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Hydra
So Hydra is pretty
much gone. Strucker was confirmed captured—and
killed by Ultron. Since Tony knocked him
unconscious before accessing Hydra’s computers, it is also a safe assumption
that Dr. List is in custody as well.
Hydra may return at some point—and with Baron Zemo confirmed for next
year’s Captain America: Civil War is it all but certain that Hydra will
return—but it is pretty much leaderless at the moment.
Hydra has been a major
plot point this season on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.; I don’t think we have
to worry about it as much (if at all) moving forward.
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| Image Courtesy www.moddb.com |
The Helicarrier
Sadly, the helicarrier
in Age of Ultron was not confirmed as Gonzales’ ship. However, the ease with which Fury was able to
mount a helicarrier-based rescue in Sokovia would suggest that he had some
plans already. Is this another “S.H.I.E.L.D.”
organization, or was one of the two S.H.I.E.L.D.s involved in it? If they were, odds are we will find out on
Tuesday. However, the more likely
possibility is that Fury still has a few contacts among former S.H.I.E.L.D.
agents (such as Hill and Sharon Carter) who were able to piece together a
skeleton crew to man the carrier—which Coulson may have been watching over for
him. Some of the personnel may have
flown in from Gonzales’ ship or one of Coulson’s bases, but that’s not really a
necessity.
“What S.H.I.E.L.D.
Is Supposed to Be”
Cap’s comment to
Quicksilver that “this is what S.H.I.E.L.D. is supposed to be” in reference to
the helicarrier showing up to help them rescue the civilians may be a tease of
where S.H.I.E.L.D. is going as it moves forward. Might the new S.H.I.E.L.D. start carrying out
more humanitarian and relief efforts after this? I doubt it will ever be S.H.I.E.L.D.’s
primary purpose—regardless of who’s in charge—but it will probably be something
that they do when necessary.
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| Image Courtesy www.comicbook.com |
The Chronology
The biggest lead-in
from Age of Ultron to Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is in the timeline
of events between the movie and series.
Simply put, “The Dirty Half Dozen” ends the night before the movie
begins, and the movie’s final fight takes place roughly a week after “The Dirty
Half Dozen.” Does that mean that the
final Ultron battle takes place at the same time as “Scars”? It’s possible. Here’s the timeline as I can piece it
together:
Tuesday – “The Dirty
Half Dozen”: Coulson infiltrates List’s
base, acquires the information, and transmits it to Hill
Wednesday midday – Age
of Ultron: The Avengers assault
Strucker’s base in Sokovia and capture Loki’s scepter.
Wednesday evening – Tony
and Bruce begin attempting to use the brain pattern they isolated in the
scepter to generate an artificial intelligence—Ultron—to control the Iron
Legion.
Saturday evening – The
Avengers throw a victory party (which includes getting their creator
drunk). At the same time, the A.I.
generation is successful and Ultron is “born.”
Ultron fights the Avengers and his first body is destroyed. (Note:
Tony said that the party was happening on Saturday, that that is what
the first two time points are based on.)
Sunday morning – The Avengers
track Ultron to Africa, where they are defeated
Sunday
afternoon/evening – The Avengers flee to Barton’s farm (did anyone see that one
coming? I sure didn’t!)
Monday morning – The Avengers
spend part of the day at Barton’s farm while Ultron coerces Dr. Cho into
constructing his new body. Thor meets
Selvig and goes to the “Pool of Sight.”
Monday afternoon – Hawkeye,
Captain America, and Black Widow assault Ultron’s transport and capture the new
body. Stark visits Oslo and locates the
scattered remains of JARVIS.
Monday night – Tony
and Bruce place JARVIS’ A.I. into the new body, creating Vision.
Tuesday – The final
battle with Ultron. Hulk heads off on
his own. This is possibly the same day
as the events of “Scars” (2x20).
Some Time Later (this
summer?) – Thor returns to Asgard, and Hawkeye and Iron Man quit the team. The New Avengers form at their new facility
in Upstate New York.
I may have missed
something or condensed multiple days into a single day. However, if I am right, the timing works for
the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. team to be involved in the events in Sokovia—or
at least cognizant of them occurring at that time. In fact, it is a very real possibility that
the two S.H.I.E.L.D.s could be forced to work together yet again because of the
Ultron attack.
When Raina says “they’re
coming,” the obvious implication is that she means the S.H.I.E.L.D.
quinjets. Instead, what if she’s talking
about Ultron bots? What if S.H.I.E.L.D.
is not scrambling jets to attack/invade Lai Shi, but rather to protect Lai Shi
from Ultron? That doesn’t entirely fit
what’s going on elsewhere in the promotion video or the episode preview, but
they probably would have cut it in such a way that Ultron would be a surprise. If we see S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Inhumans
working together to destroy a bunch of Ultron bots, that would be a cool way
for the groups to learn about each other.
So what do you think
of my assessment? How much of a lead-in
do you expect the events of Avengers: Age of Ultron to give to the “Scars”
episode of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.?
Do you think there needs to be a lot of obvious connective tissue
between the series and the movies?
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Seems spot on to me.
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