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| Image Courtesy www.screenrant.com |
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)…
Jeffrey Mace (a.k.a. the Patriot)
A comic book character with a
70+-year history stretching back to 1941, Mace started out as a newspaper
reporter who was inspired by Captain America to begin fighting Nazi agents at
work within the United States during World War II. As a member of the “Liberty Legion,” Patriot
joined a group of other second-tier heroes in stopping the brainwashed Invaders
(Captain America, Human Torch, and Namor) and freeing them from the Red Skull’s
control.
Following World War II, Patriot
became the third Captain America after watching the second Captain America’s
(the “Spirit of ’76) heroic sacrifice in attempting to assassinate John F.
Kennedy. Patriot put on a spare Captain
America suit and completed the mission for him.
Mace only served as Captain
America for about 4 years, retiring in 1950.
In the comics, Mace did not have any
superpowers; he was simply a normal man in peak physical condition and
possessing good hand-to-hand combat skills.
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| Image Courtesy marvel.wikia.com |
Director Mace
Similar to his comic book
counterpart, Jeffrey (Mace) is seems at this point to be an honest, patriotic
American who wants what is best for his country. However, we have not seen all that much of
him yet, so this could easily change before too long.
What really sets Director Mace
apart from his counterpart, however, is that he actually possesses superpowers. Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. revealed that
Jeffrey is an Inhuman with superhuman strength and durability (considering that
this is the weekend that Luke Cage comes out, I feel it appropriate to
point out that this basically makes him a “discount-white-Luke-Cage”). In fact, this is the primary reason that
Jeffrey was appointed to the position in the first place: Coulson recommended to the President that the
next S.H.I.E.L.D. Director should be a powered person that the American people can
trust as a way to mend some of the tensions caused by recent events such as the
Civil War. If things had gone
differently, Steve Rogers would have been the obvious choice. Steve is currently in hiding, however, so
instead they are stuck with the third Captain America.
Before moving on, I need to point
out that this is not the first time a World War II-era hero has been reimagined
or retconned to be an Inhuman. Toro, the
Human Torch’s sidekick, was originally thought to have gotten his Torch-like powers
via the same ridiculous reason everyone else got their powers—random science
stuff, in this case because his mother was dying from radiation poisoning and
his father was dying from asbestos exposure—but it was later “discovered” that
he had in fact inherited the Inhuman gene, which was activated by contact with
the Human Torch. Another member of the
Liberty Legion, Red Raven, was also later revealed to have been raised by a
breakaway group of Inhumans, all of whom had birdlike wings enabling them to
fly. Amazing that so many
Inhuman-related characters were around in the 1940s, when the Inhumans
themselves weren’t created until the 1960s!
At this point we do not know
anything about Jeffrey before he was exposed to Terrigen and gained his
abilities. I suspect that for him to be
chosen as the new S.H.I.E.L.D. Director he was probably connected to the
government in some way beforehand, but that is little more than a guess. Hopefully the next couple of episodes will
unravel some of the mystery surrounding this character, including where his
allegiances lie. Personally, I hope that
he will turn out to be exactly what he appears to be on the surface: a Patriot who wants what is best for the
agency and the nation. That would be truest
to the original character.
What do you think of this week’s revelations
about the new S.H.I.E.L.D. Director? Do you
think he is on their side, or do you think he is a sleeper agent for some other
nefarious organization? Let me know in
the comments!
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