I take back what I said a few weeks ago when I said “Marvel has dominated all of pop culture and beyond.” I now officially change that to, “Marvel owns life. All of it.”
The marvel cinematic universe just launched its pilot for its spin off show airing Tuesdays at 8 p.m. on ABC. If that’s not impressive, how about this: it received a 4.6 rating, which is the highest of any pilot episode of a drama TV show since V in 2009.What is even in this super-nova level pilot you ask? Well keeping it spoiler free, it tells the story of S.H.I.E.L.D agents following the events of the Avengers. You really get a sense of contrast between current life and society before the battle in New York. Understandably so, it is a given that there is not physical presence of Tony Stark, Steve Rogers etc., but that doesn’t mean the show isn’t attached to them.
There are mentionings of events occurring in Avengers films on different levels ranging from quick little jokes, to actual important plot points, like events in Iron Man 3 play a key role in understanding the episode, and we see they plan on expanding on it further. So yes, you do in fact need to have seen the Avengers to understand this, especially the significance of a few characters like Agent Maria Hill and the return of Phil Coulson. Speaking of which, we really get to see the acting ability of Clark Gregg in this. We see him be the exact same Phil Coulson we loved from the films as well as taking some emotional turns. Definitely the highlight of the episode is the showcase of Gregg’s range that we never knew he had. Once again, I’ll let you see the episode to see for yourself.
It’s important now to understand what this accomplishment means in the big picture. Firstly, we get a pretty good idea that this will work pretty well with the Avenger’s films. But most importantly is that this opens the door for everyone to explore this frontier. DC has already casted Grant Gustin to play The Flash on CW’s Arrow.
Whether this will tie in to their film universe is unknown and unlikely, I personally don’t think so, but that is an argument for another time. Also, we recently learned there will be a series about Jim Gordon in Gotham dealing with signature villains before the arrival of the Batman; this will be titled Gotham. Again there has been no official information about its association with the film universe. Really though, Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D has seriously opened the portal to an entirely new landscape.
