I
realized that I’ve written up most of the major characters on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and yet left out
the guy at the head of it. While the
show has had too many great characters for Coulson to be more than middle of
the pack for me, he’s still the illustrious leader of the series and, as such,
is overdue for his own post (some Coulson-related spoilers.)
Of
course, Coulson’s place in the MCU predates Agents
of S.H.I.E.L.D., and Marvel’s TV branch altogether. He first appears in the movies, as a
buttoned-up agent who’s our initial window into S.H.I.E.L.D., back before
they’ve evidently started using the acronym and still call themselves
“Strategic Homeland etc. etc.” Over a
handful of early films, he acts as an agent and S.H.I.E.L.D. liaison with a
number of heroes, culminating in his slightly-larger focus (and subsequent
apparent death) in The Avengers. When, not long after that, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. made its debut, a
good chunk of the first season danced around the mystery of why Coulson is
still alive.
By taking
away Coulson’s own knowledge of how he survived, his place as affable
middle-management-type agent is kept going a while longer. He disappears a little into the background of
his own show because that’s how he was designed for the films, a tiny slice of
mundanity rubbing shoulders with the likes of Iron Man and Thor. And on Agents
of S.H.I.E.L.D., we initially see a similar dynamic play out. Coulson is the head of the team, so he’s the
one calling the shots and directing the other agents, but the stronger, more
defined personalities of the characters around him have a tendency to crowd him
out a bit, and he becomes sort of a good-natured dad figure to his team.
That
framing has shifted a fair amount over the seasons. The mere fact that Coulson is alive when he ought to be dead needs
to be dealt with, and that naturally involves putting Coulson into the center
of the comic-book craziness he’s usually brought in to clean up. There’s a mystery to unravel, complete with
trigger phrases, Kree symbols, and manufactured memories, all of which start to
give this elevated background player his own more typical comic-book origins,
even if he never has superpowers.
Though
it’s been a while since anyone mentioned Tahiti, that journey still informs the
character Coulson has become. He hasn’t
lost his liaison role, often having to convince the military why they should
take a step back and let S.H.I.E.L.D. maintain control of this or that
operation, and he’s still a bit of a dad to the agents on his team. But he’s also seen more, experienced more
manipulation and disillusionment, and lost small pieces of himself along the
way (to be traded, in some instances, with cool, tech-enhanced replacements!) And that leaves him shrewder, steelier,
prepared to step up and make the tough decisions when the circumstances call
for it. If, at first, Coulson looks a
little like a pleasant but slightly-boring suit in the middle of a group of
quirky scientists, orphan hacktivists, and badass pilots with brooding
backstories, he’s now more fully incorporated into the group and has a more
fleshed-out place of his own.
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