This weekend has been filled with great news for the character of Phil Coulson and actor Clark Gregg. Clark Gregg is the man behind Marvel character Phil Coulson, the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent who first appeared in Marvel Studios’ Iron Man movie back in 2008. Since then, Gregg has played Coulson in all his many Marvel Studio’s appearances, such as Iron Man 2, Thor, and The Avengers as well as Marvel One-Shot short films that featured Coulson as the main character. The two shorts so far have been The Consultant and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Thor’s Hammer. Coulson and Gregg have even found their way into the Marvel cartoon universe as Special Agent Coulson/principal of Midtown High, where Gregg voices the animated version of Agent Coulson, assigned to watch over Spider-man and friends in the Ultimate Spider-Man cartoon series. But unfortunately we saw Coulson die on screen in The Avengers…or did we?

At today’s Marvel Television Presents panel at New York Comic Con, Clark Gregg was a guest to discuss his role in Ultimate Spider-Man when things took a surprise turn. Rumors had been abound for sometime about a S.H.I.E.L.D. TV series set in the Marvel movie universe, which Joss Whedon would co-create under his new contract with the company. Today officially saw confirmation that the TV series was under production with Joss Whedon, and furthermore that Clark Gregg would be in it. This news came through a short video played during the panel, where Director Joss Whedon and Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige announced Gregg’s return to the role of Agent Coulson in the upcoming TV pilot. Whedon also announced he will co-write the pilot to “Marvel’s S.H.I.E.L.D.” with Jed Whedon and Maurissa Tancharoen (his brother and sister-in-law). “Marvel’s S.H.I.E.L.D.” will be Executive Produced by Joss Whedon, Jed Whedon, Maurissa Tancharoen, Jeffrey Bell, and Jeph Loeb.
Now how the dead Agent Coulson will play a role in this series is still up to question. Our theory is that Coulson himself never died, but rather a Life Model Decoy was killed in his place (a common thing in old Marvel comics involving S.H.I.E.L.D. or Nick Fury). Other speculation says it is merely a flashback appearance, only existing in the pilot episode, which is quite possible. However, we keep our theory that Coulson is still alive because suddenly Coulson is a character in the actual comic books! Yes, some months ago in Marvel’s comic book mini-series, Battle Scars, we were introduced to Nick Fury Jr. (the African American son of Nick Fury) and Phil Coulson. These movie-turned-comic characters are now about to take over S.H.I.E.L.D. in the comic book universe, as well as star in the recently announced Secret Avengers comic series.
Set to release in February 2013, Secret Avengers focuses on S.H.I.E.L.D.’s personal Avengers team. The series will be written by Nick Spencer and feature art from Luke Ross and Matthew Wilson. Nick claims that he is using a plot device made by Brian Michael Bendis back during his 2004 Secret War event. The same memory implant technology that caused Wolverine, Captain America, and others to forget about a secret war they had been involved in against Latverian terrorists is now being used by S.H.I.E.L.D. to make a secret team of Avengers. A special code word will turn on the agents to do secret black ops missions and then turn them off, leaving them no memory of their actions. The team consists of Hawkeye, Black Widow, Taskmaster, Mockingbird, Hulk, a new Iron Patriot, the Winter Soldier (though not officially part of the team, just playing a major role in the book), Nick Fury Jr., and of course Agent Coulson. The cover to issue #1 even teases at the movie universe by having a file entitled Budapest on it, a nod to the joke between Black Widow and Hawkeye in The Avengers movie.
Sadly we don’t know much about either the upcoming Secret Avengers comic or the S.H.I.E.L.D. TV series. But as information comes up, we will certainly keep you informed. Until then, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Thor’s Hammer…