Joss Whedon up to his old tricks again here, with the shocking death of Agent Coulson (Clark Gregg) mid-way through The Avengers. Loki attempts to flee the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier, and because Coulson gets in his way, he ends up being stabbed through the chest, dying not long thereafter. Nick Fury then uses his death to help unite The Avengers and make them co-operate with one another, even showing them some blood-stained Captain America trading cards that Coulson apparently had on him when he died. Maria Hill later goes on to note, however, that Fury doctored the bloody cards himself in order to give the team the "push" they so desperately needed. What's particularly important about Coulson's death is that it wasn't permanent. He was controversially resurrected for the TV show Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., and easily the most compelling part of the show has been having the nature of his revival drip-fed over the course of the first season. It's eventually revealed that Coulson was eventually brought back to life after a number of complicated surgeries, but his memories of this were altered to avoid a psychotic episode that could arise from the trauma of this knowledge. Smartly, Coulson has been kept out of any post-Avengers Marvel Cinematic Universe movies so far, and it's probably best to keep it that way, as movie-only MCU fans can simply pretend the show doesn't exist, and that way it doesn't cheapen what was a pretty huge moment in The Avengers.
Stay at home dad who spends as much time teaching his kids the merits of Martin Scorsese as possible (against the missus' wishes).
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