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| Image Courtesy www.screenrant.com |
Agents of
S.H.I.E.L.D. entered its winter hiatus following the winter finale,
“Maveth” (3x10). There are going to be
five total weeks without any new Marvel TV—Agent Carter will begin on
January 19—so I am going to post a new discussion thread every week with a
different concept for us to explore and debate.
First, here is last week's discussion:
If you could be Inhuman, what power would you want? Mostly MCU Reviews Reddit
Here is this week’s
discussion prompt: Pitch a new
superhero, either from Marvel Comics or an original character, for the MCU.
This new hero can
appear in a movie—titled, announced, or unannounced—a TV series—Agents of
S.H.I.E.L.D., Agent Carter, Marvel’s Most Wanted, Damage
Control, or an unannounced series—or a Netflix series—announced or
unannounced. However, I will add two
caveats. First, don’t pick an obvious or
major character—especially not one who’s already been announced. Second, if it is a comic book character, its
rights must be owned by Marvel Studios (or Sony)—or there should be a
reasonable case to be made that Marvel Studios owns the rights—in other words,
no mutants.
To make things a
little more complicated, here’s a caveat to the second caveat: You can pitch a mutant but change him/her
into an Inhuman, but if it’s a major character then make some substantial
changes to the character. For example, not
something like this:
“Wolvie” is a Canadian
Inhuman with an incredible healing factor which has given him functional
immortality. He’s got a bad attitude
thanks to fighting in a lot of wars.
Thanks to government experimentation he has a vibranium skeleton in
addition to his Inhuman ability of 3 long claws on each of his fists.
That’s a little too
close to Wolverine!
So with all that out
of the way, here’s my pitch:
Admittedly, I suppose
this is sort of cheating since I already touched on both these characters in a
previous article,
but that’s the problem with this blog: I
talk about a lot of characters and can get really interested in those
characters! So the two characters I am
going to pitch are Ruth Bat-Seraph, a.k.a. Sabra,
and Navid Hashim, a.k.a. Arabian Knight.
Side note: In the comics, Sabra’s exact origin is
unknown—she is either a mutant or the product of an Israeli super-soldier
program (at least according to Wikipedia; the Marvel Wiki calls her a mutant)—so
I am going to assume that since she first appeared in an Avengers-based comic
book (Incredible Hulk #250 and #256), and about half her appearances are
in non-X-Men-related comic titles, Marvel Studios has at least limited rights
to her character a la Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch. However, in order to avoid that possible
rights issue I am going to make some major changes to the character.
I am also making one
major change to Arabian Knight: in my
pitch he is Iranian, not Saudi Arabian.
You will see why near the end.
The Characters
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| Ruth Gabriel, a.k.a. Seraph |
Ruth Gabriel is a
young Israeli woman (early 20s) whose family moved to Israel from America when
she was very young. Over the winter Ruth
underwent Terrigenesis in her Tel Aviv apartment. Upon emerging from the chrysalis, Ruth
discovered that she had wings on her back (which do not replace her arms) as
well as the ability to project fire blasts from her hands. Though at first she was surprised and scared,
she was quickly discovered by a Mossad officer who knocked her out with a
tranquilizer and brought her to the Mossad’s secret base in the Negeb. There she received training to control her
powers in addition to Mossad combat and weapons training. After several months of intense training, Ruth
received a probationary mission: to stop a group of terrorist suicide bombers in
Jerusalem. After carrying out her
mission with a reasonable degree of success, she became the official covert
super-operative of the Mossad, taking the codename “Seraph” (literally “fiery
one”) after the Biblical rank of angels.
The Mossad further equipped her with light armor, a riot helmet with a
face shield (painted in Israel’s colors), a secondary weapon, and other Mossad
technology.
Navid Hashim serves as
the opposite side of this coin. He is
the descendant of a long line of Persian and Iranian champions going all the
way back to the top general of King Xerxes, who forged a seemingly-mystical
scimitar for himself from metal he found in a meteorite that landed in the
Arabian desert, and which is somehow capable of emitting beams of solid light. He used this sword to become the first
Arabian Knight. One of his successors
discovered an extremely durable sash and flying carpet in an abandoned Persian temple,
and these three items have been passed down from father to son for
millennia. Abdul Qamar, Navid’s father, was
forced to defect from the Shah to the Ayatollah when his family was abducted
and held hostage to secure his cooperation early in the coup which formed the
Islamic Republic. After his sash and
carpet were both torn to shreds in the Iran-Iraq War, Abdul commissioned the
remains to be worked into a new suit of light armor offering both the toughness
of the sash and the flight properties of the carpet. However, despite the circumstances his father
faced, Navid is actually proud to protect his country.
Initial Appearances
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| Navid Hashim, a.k.a. Arabian KnightImage Courtesy marvel.wikia.com |
These two characters
receive their first references during the second half of Captain America:
Civil War when the world governments are signing the Sokovia Accords. During the countries’ signing press
conferences, a few of them elect to show off their “official” superhero teams:
·
The U.S. and the Avengers
·
Great Britain and the New
Invaders
·
Russia and the Winter Guard
·
Canada and Alpha Flight
After these press
conferences, Sam Wilson and Steve Rogers look over a map of the world with all
the “national heroes” displayed. Seraph
and Arabian Knight are both shown, and Steve in particular shakes his head at countries
on the brink of war both having their own superheroes to throw into the battle.
Following Captain
America: Civil War, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. picks up this thread as a
minor plot as they try to come up with ways to keep peace between the various
national heroes. Along the way we learn
some of the background behind these characters, including the revelation that
Seraph was not exposed to Terrigen by accident but as part of a secret Mossad
operation to produce super-soldiers.
Early in the outbreak a Mossad agent passed along the information that
fish oil + unsuspecting people = super powers, and the Mossad began secretly
dosing Israeli citizens with Terrigen-infused fish oil capsules, similar to
Hydra’s experiments within the A.T.C.U.
It is unknown how many Inhumans the Mossad has in its employ, but it is
doubtful that Seraph is the only one.
Future Appearances
Either season 4 of Agents
of S.H.I.E.L.D. or season 1 of Marvel’s Most Wanted could deal with
some of the fallout of the Sokovia Accords, specifically with countries going
to war and ordering their respective heroes to fight on their behalf. Imagine watching Seraph fly over an Iranian
column and completely lay waste to it with a fire blast or watching Arabian Knight
destroy an Israeli air defense installation with a beam of light before slicing
the turret clean off of a tank.
Considering that the Middle East is already walking a knife’s edge in
danger of falling into war, it’s not hard to imagine the Middle East exploding
as soon as both Iran and Israel know that the other has its own super-powered
agent!
In the face of this
massive conflict, the S.H.I.E.L.D. team (either the Secret Warriors or Bobbi
and Hunter’s team) would have to find a way to resolve the conflict or at the
very least get the super-powered players out of the game. Ultimately this may resolve itself with the
Secret Warriors placing themselves directly between Seraph and Arabian Knight
to keep them apart!
Following the conflict
Coulson and Daisy recruit both Seraph and Arabian Knight to join the Secret
Warriors to provide a template of how the two nations can work together for the
common good. I doubt that they would go
on a ton of missions with the Secret Warriors—budgetary restrictions would
probably make that rather prohibitive if Seraph or Arabian Knight used their
light/fire powers too much! Speaking of
budgetary concerns, I do think that both of these characters could receive
(limited) appearances on a TV budget, just as the DCTVU has been using Hawkman
and Hawkgirl this season. However, they
would probably limit the number of times we see their abilities on the screen.
Be that as it may, I
think it would be fairly likely that Seraph and Arabian Knight would only be
involved on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. for a season or so before returning
to their respective countries. Future
seasons could bring them back on occasion as the story demands it, but only
rarely.
Seraph and Arabian
Knight both appear in Avengers: Infinity War Part 2 as part of a large
contingent of Earth-based superheroes who must fight off Thanos and his forces. This is a (relatively) minor part,
considering the sheer number of heroes who will appear in that movie, but it
has been set up on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., in which S.H.I.E.L.D. is one
of the few organizations left to resist Thanos’ occupation of Earth, and they
spend the entire season gathering heroes into cells as part of a resistance
movement. Seraph and Arabian Knight are
two such heroes who must work together to defeat one of Thanos’ lieutenants.
This is my pitch of 2
characters who could appear in the MCU.
What character (or characters) would you like to see in the MCU? Put your pitch in the comments!
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