‘Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D.’ 4.02: ‘Meet The New Boss’ Easter Eggs

Agents of SHIELD Meet The New Boss

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. premiered tonight. Check out our review here. It looks like Daisy and Robby Reyes are going to be a vigilante team and perhaps romantic eventually. Speaking of which, Daisy was also briefly reunited with the old team as they were investigating the mysterious ghosts. Some people can forgive her, some can’t. At S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters, we got finally to meet the new director and learn a little bit about him.

Tonight’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. episode was loaded with a bunch of Easter Eggs related to Marvel comics and the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). Let’s take a look at a few of them…….

Did We See The Patriot?

Everything about the new director of S.H.I.E.L.D. is mysterious. He certainly can put on the charm offensive, especially when it came to impressing government officials. However, he still is drastically changing S.H.I.E.L.D. in regards to bureaucracy and security. He forces Coulson and May to wait two hours for a meeting and even has his own bouncer guarding his office. Something else is revealed later in the episode in regards to him which we will get to, but he might be a classic marvel character.

If you were are a close captioning person, then you would see that in the opening scene the new directors was identified as “MACE” and his first name is Jeffrey. Comic book fans know the name Jeffrey Mace from back in the days. He was “The Patriot.”

Patriot was a character from the 1940s who was so inspired by Captain America that he became his own superhero (even though he had no powers) and eventually took up the mantle of Captain America when Steve Rogers was in suspended animation. It seems that this is not a complete comic-to-screen adaptation (for reasons we will say next), but this is a good callback to old-school comic books. Now that Steve Rogers is “AWOL” and no longer Captain America, Director Mace could fit in.

The New Boss Is “Special”

When May is having her breakdown and fighting everyone she is pretty much beating everyone, including her hit squad as well as Coulson (why can’t she and Black Widow fight to settle once and for all who’s the biggest badass?). After she dismantles all of them, Director Mace comes in and she tries to take him on. However no matter what she does (punches, using pipes, instead, Mace is an Inhuman who seems to have super strength and invulnerability. So why does he need that big bodyguard?

Laster on he and Coulson talk about Mace assuming the title of director instead of Coulson and it was Coulson’s idea to have the agency run by one of the Inhumans. Almost like Heroes, it’s kind of a “one of us, one of them” situation. This will help the public trust Inhumans if the world’s best agency can be run by one of them.

We Get To See Hellfire In Action

With the introduction of Robbie Reyes AKA Ghost Rider last week, we got to see his Hell Charger light up as well as his super cool skull light up. However, one of Ghost Rider’s key powers is the ability to use Hellfire. Hellfire can be burning hot, or be scorching cold. Hellfire can also burn the soul of the Ghost Riders victims as well. In tonight’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. episode, we got to see Hellfire used in two different ways.

After Daisy reveals to Robbie that she knows about his younger brother, that triggers him. He previously spared her during their fight last week, but once you threaten family all bets are off. During their fight, he grabs a tool which he lights up with Hellfire and when he strikes Daisy with it. It doesn’t burn her the way normal fire would. It looks like Hellfire is having the “burning cold” properties of the comic book. In addition to her already having a hurt arm, he did some real damage to her.

When Daisy and Robbie save Mack and Fitz from the ghosts, Robbie grabs the ghost and completely disintegrates him with the Hellfire. This is an instance of the Hellfire being used as “hot fire.” The only form we haven’t seen yet is the one that burns the soul and we’ll probably see that one soon enough.

Just What Is Darkhold?

Speaking of the ghosts from last week, it turns out there’ a lot of them. The mystery box was some sort of containment field that was holding them in. The ghosts also appear to be just regular folks that were experimenting with “something” and ended up getting locked in those boxes. When they finally escaped, they became astral projections of some sort.

After they are freed at the facility and are bickering amongst each other, the lead one we met last week mentions needing something called the Darkhold. Comic book fans know that the Darkhold is a book of magic. Other names for the Darkhold are “Book of the Damned” or “Book of Sins.” In the comics, the Darkhold was written by an “Elder God” named Chthon and those who use the book end up becoming possessed by Chthon and lose their souls. There was also a group in the comics called the Darkhold Redeemers, who were associated with the Midnight Sons (who the original Ghost Rider Johnny Blaze was a part of).

While it doesn’t appear that these ghosts are associated with Kaecilius from Doctor Strange as we noted last week, but we are certainly in the world of the supernatural. In fact in the comic books, Doctor Strange eventually gains control of the Darkhold as he uses the “Montesi Formula” which was written in the Darkhold to rid the world of vampires. So it looks like eventually these events on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. will be impacted by the events of the upcoming film.

Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. airs on Tuesday nights at 10/9c on ABC.

Khalil Johnson

Khalil Johnson

Khalil is a ride or die fanboy who was bitten by a radioactive blogger. Now, he uses his superpowers for online entertainment journalism. ...