Who's the New S.H.I.E.L.D. Director? (Part Two)

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By now hopefully you have seen this week’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., in which we got to “Meet the New Director.”  Though we did not learn a whole lot about him in this episode, there are two very important pieces of information that were shared.  Both of these point to a very widely-held theory as to the comic book character that he is playing, but I still do not consider it conclusive enough to say that this is definitely the answer (the Marvel Wiki (semi-spoiler) does indicate that the closed-captioning for the episode gave both the character’s first and last names, so there’s that).

Going into the season this was one of the biggest questions to be answered, and I was actually expecting the answer to be drawn out at least a little more—maybe by giving him a fake name before revealing his real name.  At this point that may not be the case, but I still think it’s a possibility.

With all that being said, the new S.H.I.E.L.D. Director is… (probably)…

Luke Cage EXPECTATIONS

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Marvel’s Netflix programming continues tomorrow with the release of Marvel’s Luke Cage.  What do we expect from this series?

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 4, Episode 2, "Meet the New Boss" REVIEW (SPOILERS!)

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Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. continues its focus on building up the magical side of the MCU in advance of Doctor Strange’s impending release this November.  In this week’s episode we learn a little more about the “weapon” unleashed in the season premiere, and we also learn a little more about our most exciting new character, Robbie Reyes, a.k.a. Ghost Rider.  However, this is not the full extent of this week’s revelations, as we also discover a little more about the new S.H.I.E.L.D. director in his first appearance.

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 4, Episode 2, "Meet the Boss" EXPECTATIONS

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Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. continues tonight with “Meet the Boss” (4x02) at 10:00 PM Eastern/Pacific.  What do we expect from tonight's episode?

Who's the New S.H.I.E.L.D. Director?

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I think one of the biggest questions on everyone’s mind going into this season of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is:  “Who is the new Director and why is there such a mystery surrounding him?”  Considering that the upcoming second episode is titled “Meet the New Boss,” it seems like a pretty safe bet that we are going to learn at least a little more about him this week.  But before then I would like to run through what we know about the new Director and some possibilities for who he could really be.

I should warn you:  there really isn’t that much we know about him, and a lot of this will be pure speculation.

You have been warned.

With that said…

Weekly MCU Review for 9/24

Another week, and more MCU news!  Not a ton of news this week, but Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. came back, Luke Cage will be out in a week, and Star Wars Rebels is starting again tonight.  Put some ketchup on your eggs, and catch-up on your Marvel news!

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 4, Episode 1, "The Ghost" REVIEW (SPOILERS)

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 Note:  Sorry this is about 2 days late.  I had a meeting that night and was really busy yesterday.  Hopefully I will get reviews published a little sooner in the future!

Wow!  I mean, WOW!  The season 4 premiere for Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. was pretty much incredible!  Somehow this show manages to continue improving, even making up for earlier rough patches with the introduction of two new bona fide superheroes.  The characters that we have learned to care about over the course of 2-3 seasons are all back and look to be on new, creative arcs.  The series has expanded to the point that it feels a lot more like “S.H.I.E.L.D.”—a global peacekeeping organization with facilities across the globe, virtually-unlimited resources, and its fingers in just about everything.  These two factors—superhero conflict (in which the heroes aren’t S.H.I.E.L.D. agents) and S.H.I.E.L.D. as a massive organization—make the series feel like a better version of season 1.  Having said that, the premise of this series from the beginning was that it would focus on normal humans living in a world of super-humans, and season 1 did deliver on that premise.  But seeing actual heroes fight up close—and seeing regular human agents caught up in events dealing with people and objects they can’t understand—is a good continuation of that original premise.

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 4, Episode 1, "The Ghost" EXPECTATIONS

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Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. returns tonight with “The Ghost” (4x01) at 10:00 PM Eastern/Pacific.  What do we expect from tonight's episode?

Weekly MCU Review for 9/17

Another week, and more MCU news!  Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. comes back this week, Luke Cage is just another 2 weeks away, and Doctor Strange will be out before you know it, too!  Put some ketchup on your eggs, and catch-up on your Marvel news!

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 4 EXPECTATIONS

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Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. returns next Tuesday with “The Ghost” (4x01) at 10:00 PM Eastern/Pacific—note the time change!  What do we expect from this season?

Ant-Man RETRO-REVIEW

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I really don’t have a lot of new insight to add on Ant-Man; my original review is still pretty accurate to what I think of this movie.  I think it is a much better movie than it is given credit for.  It has a lot of comedy and it has a lot of heart.  The action is very well executed and makes full use of the concept of people and things having the ability to shrink and grow on command.  The heroes are developed quite well, and even the villain gets a decent back story.  Darren Cross isn’t the most exciting villain, but his history with Hank Pym makes him a satisfactory foil for Scott and his relationship with Hank.

Weekly MCU Review for 9/10

Another week, and more MCU news!  Not a whole lot of new stuff to talk about, but at least we're getting close to Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Luke Cage, and Doctor Strange!  Put some ketchup on your eggs, and catch-up on your Marvel news!

Avengers: Age of Ultron RETRO-REVIEW

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Now that I’ve worked my way through all the movies that came out before I started blogging, it’s time to start in on the two that I have already reviewed.  Rather than re-review the entire movie, my goal with these two “Retro-Reviews” (Age of Ultron and Ant-Man) is to revisit what I wrote the first time, see if it still holds up, and—particularly with Age of Ultron—see if the deleted scenes help clarify the issues I had with the movie’s theatrical cut.

First up is Avengers: Age of Ultron, which is big team-up #2 for the MCU.  But before getting into that, let’s talk about “ambitious projects.”

Random Thoughts on Pokémon GO

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I don’t normally write about Pokémon GO—this may be the only article I ever write on the subject!—but I’ve been playing the game for around 6 weeks now, and I’ve got some thoughts on it.  This isn’t terribly well structured; it’s more like my random jumbled thoughts forced into something of an order.

There are a lot of things I really like about this game:  it’s fun to capture new Pokémon, fighting and taking down gyms is rather cathartic, it gives a reason to explore the local area, and it’s a great excuse to go out and walk a lot.  However, there are also a number of aspects where the game isn’t as good as it could be.  Hopefully the updates which are supposed to be on their way in the near future will help with this, but there are a few things that have not been mentioned which I really think need to be discussed.

Weekly MCU Review for 9/3

Another week, and more MCU news!  Not a ton of new stuff this week, though Greg Berlanti revealed that he's working on another DCTVU series, this time Black Lightning.  And not to be outdone, Marvel TV announced yet another in-development series in the form of New Warriors.  Put some ketchup on your eggs, and catch-up on your Marvel news!

Potential New Spinoffs for Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Part 2

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As I said last week, now that Marvel’s Most Wanted has been passed on, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is left without an announced in-development spinoff, which is an absolutely unacceptable state of affairs (note the sarcasm).  Of course, if Marvel wants to compete with the well-oiled machine that is the DCTVU on the CW Network (seriously: they’ve got 3 originals, 2 imports (including Constantine since he appeared on Arrow), and 1 animated), then they do have to start working on another AoS spinoff post haste!  Now, that’s not a good reason to authorize a spinoff as a TV executive, but it’s an excellent reason to theorize about a spinoff as a blogger!  And I’m not a TV executive (probably a good thing), so let the theorizing commence!

With that in mind, as well as the criterion mentioned last week (specifically the ability to tie closely to (and enhance) upcoming Marvel movies), here are two more spinoff ideas.  These would really push in a new direction, building on the foundation already established by Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., and would necessitate introducing a largely-new cast of characters.  However, I think that either of these would be a very interesting expansion of the MCU on TV.