Everyone wants to like Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D, but people seem to be giving up on it in droves. It's boring, they say. It's not going anywhere, they say. WHEN IS SOMETHING INTERESTING GOING TO HAPPEN FOR GOD'S SAKE??? they say.
Well, here are five (or so) ideas for spicing up the show before it gets cancelled like every other cool geek offering that has potential but can't seem to find an audience fast enough.
Let's start with...
1. Introduce An Evil Counter Agency - MI6 had SPECTRE. The FBI and CIA had the KGB. S.H.I.E.L.D. needs its A.I.M or its HYDRA. Seriously. There are no evil empires anymore. This isn't the cold war of the 80's. Without a persistent counter threat, who really cares what S.H.I.E.L.D does? I don't. A.I.M. was introduced in Iron Man 3 (albeit terribly). Use them!
Now that we have our A.I.M, start an arms race with them! That would lead us to cool new gadgets. Espionage. Maybe even the Dreadnought - A.I.M.'s killer robot sent to kill Nick Fury! No way this thing is going to be used in any other Marvel movie, so why not break it out? It's rad!
[ Is it just me or does Nick Fury look kind of pale? ]
2. Super Villains - Where are they? We already don't have a recognizable (or feared) counter agency, so WTF is S.H.I.E.L.D protecting us from? How about some villains? There are thousands of them in the Mighty Marvel Universe that, like the Dreadnought, won't ever be used in a major Marvel film. How about Hydro Man? Whirlwind? The (already used and still alive) Abomination? The Blizzard? Oooh...The Taskmaster! Give the S.H.I.E.L.D team something cool and menacing to take down!
[ He TASKS me!]
Why? Because, hey, once we have Super Villains, we'd have to lock them in...
3. The Vault - Super villain prison extraordinaire! Would make for an interesting base camp when they're not roaming around in the plane or messing with the Helicarrier. Lots of cool opportunities to introduce villains, do training and otherwise showcase the cool backstory of the Marvel mythos. The place is cool!
And if you have the vault, you have...
4. The Guardsman - We've got Iron Man. That led us to Iron Patriot. Shouldn't that lead us to The Guardsman? Why not give one of the S.H.I.E.L.D agents the chance to don the Guardsman armor when the aforementioned super villains or Dreadnought shows up? This S.H.I.E.L.D team needs some firepower to be relevant in a world that has Loki and other big bads in it. This would be a way to give it to them! It worked on Deep Space Nine, right? Can you say "Defiant?"
[ Iron who? ]
Which leads me to the final thing this show needs...
5. A Super Hero S.H.I.E.L.D Agent - Hawkeye and The Black Widow aren't available regularly because they are Avengers (and also too expensive to pay to be on a TV show)now, so why not introduce another super powered agent? Dare I suggest...Spider Woman? How cool would she be? Pretty darned cool, methinks! And, I know I sound like a broken record here, but there's no way she's ever going to get her own movie or T.V. show, so why not put her to good use? Mix it up!
[ Because you KNOW they'd go with the black costume... ]
There you have it: five (or so) ways to spice up Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. The bottom line is, this thing has Marvel's name on it and it's trying to play off of the success of The Avengers. That means you need to "supe" it up! Pronto!
Get on it, Joss...before it's too late!
