5/9/2012 – Remember where you heard it first.
BIG SPOILER for the Avengers movie below the cut, so be forewarned.
And frankly, if you haven’t already seen Avengers, that’s what you should be doing this very second instead of visiting our dopey site. I’d even say a second or third viewing is more important than this.
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y245/whitmore_sean/c.jpg
We told you. We goddamn told you.
I’m not saying that Joss Whedon is a one-trick pony. I’m just saying he loves this particular trick very, very much.
Fortunately, the only thing more predictable than this death was that the Avengers movie would be fan-fucking-tastic, and it was. There’s a school of thought that says, after so many successful setup movies, that this would be next to impossible to get wrong. Even a half-assed Avengers movie would drive comic fans and moviegoers wild. But this was not half-assed in the least. I’ve seen it twice, and I’m still amazed at how lean it is; so much going on in every scene, and so little fat. At 2 hours and 20 minutes, the movie still flew by, leaving me wanting an entire 4th act in lieu of the usual after-credit scene. (Of which there are two; one mid-way through, and another at the very end. Our boys are reacting to the first of these)
Quotable quotes from @JoshCritic:
“Avengers FCBD: How hilarious is it that they went back and colored the nude Spider-Woman to make it look like her costume’s still on? Where was this concern for the non-adult-male audience Marvel pretends to court back when the issue was first fucking published?”
May 10th, 2012 at 4:37 am
This strip is unreadable. Can’t you make it larger?
May 10th, 2012 at 5:13 am
As much as I like to rag on Whedon, it has been admitted that the death of Agent Coulson was by the hand of Kevin Feige. Read that here: http://io9.com/5909088/joss-whedon-explains-why-he-had-to-do-unspeakable-things-to-one-character-on-the-avengers
So, yeah, Whedon didn’t kill Coulson. Feige killed Cheese.
May 10th, 2012 at 5:33 am
I really thought that he was going to pull a false-Whedon. When it’s revealed that the Cards were in the locker, and not on the person, I thought it was a sign that it was all part of Fury’s manipulation, and I fully thought the second post-credits scene would establish that the thing didn’t happen the way we were led to believe.
May 10th, 2012 at 7:14 pm
Coulson, we hardly knew ye. At least we got that cool little short film last summer. That was fun.
I talked about this a little bit in the comments under today’s strip, but it’s a testament to how engaging the movie was throughout its running time that I never took a moment to connect the dots leading to the post-credits reveal until it was actually happening. I mean, in retrospect Loki is clearly using the Mind Gem (or maybe Soul Gem?) in his staff, but who has time to ponder that sort of stuff when shit is getting very real on-screen?
May 11th, 2012 at 10:25 am
As I always tell people, there’s always Valhalla.
May 11th, 2012 at 8:55 pm
I think Joss did leave it vague enough to bring him back as all part of Fury’s manipulation. (He’s just mostly dead)
Especially as Agent Coulson is starring in the new Spider-man cartoon on Disney
May 13th, 2012 at 2:45 pm
LMDs. All dead SHIELD guys are LMDs. 🙂
May 14th, 2012 at 11:42 am
You beat me to the LMD reference. Just like Doombots, LMD’s have been used to reverse many deaths and mischaracterizations.
May 15th, 2012 at 3:34 pm
After reading some of the recent interviews, I’m putting my money on him staying (technically) dead, but wouldn’t be surprised if Clark Gregg managed to stick around somehow. Maybe Stark and SHIELD managed to copy/replicate his personality and we’ll see him as the helicarrier’s version of Jarvis.
May 16th, 2012 at 1:46 am
I heard somewhere that Coulson survived and the whole thing was just Fury being smart. If the knife missed his heart and important arteries, then it would take quite a bit longer than that to bleed out. (And since he was able to talk and pull the trigger, we can presume it).
When I first watched the movie, I tried to find the comic in question to comment, but thought better of it.