Why I Believe the Avengers knew about Coulson
By: Nhyira M
Tags: TV, Film

Alright so chances are, if you’ve read one or more of my Marvel-related articles, you’ll know I like to over-analyse stuff in that particular fictional world and sure there are always many reason realistically why the writers/directors make stuff happen or the opposite. But honestly, there’s more fun dissecting things in the MCU as though it were real-life. And the ‘thing’ here would be how the Avengers supposedly do not know about Coulson, like they’re in different universes.

Firstly, everyone who’s watched the first Avengers movie, the first 2 Iron Man movies and Captain Marvel will be familiar with: Agent Philip J “Phil” Coulson of the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division, once known as the Strategic Scientific Reserve (SSR — watch CA: The First Avenger & Agent Carter to find out more), which saying this each time, in The Avengers especially, always got a few raised eyebrows from the sheer length, but eventually was put together as an acronym of ‘SHIELD’- or as Grant Ward puts it “someone really wanted the name to spell out SHIELD”. And for those of you who’ve only watched the Marvel Movies, *SPOILER ALERT* — go and watch Agents of SHIELD if you’d rather find out the next piece of info yourself. Or at the very least watch the trailer below.

Right, here it comes: Agent Coulson is indeed not dead, very much alive in fact. Yes, it seemed very real when Loki supposedly a final blow to the heart-warming Avengers-Card-Collector, and he proved to be much of a ‘martyr’ for the team, causing them to properly to band together in the Battle of New York (go watch The Avengers/Avengers Assemble). However, Fury knew that he had to use any means possible to get that outcome or Loki would’ve come out triumphant, and so he let them believe Coulson was dead, meanwhile he was using Kree blood to save him with some of SHIELD’s top-notch bio-chem scientists. All of this is explained in much more detail throughout Agents of SHIELD, as we see Phil leading his own team.

But cutting to the chase here, we are led to believe that the Avengers never found out about the truth, apart from maybe Tony, as he was in close partnership with Nick and SHIELD, however disputing this, I believe they would’ve found out about it, maybe with the only exception being Thor, back in Asgard.

One reason I believe this is because of the fact that there were certainly numerous times where Coulson’s face was plastered all over the news, being painted as a villain, from the time HYDRA emerged from within SHIELD during CA: The Winter Soldier and Agents of SHIELD S2. From then on, SHIELD were routinely known to the public as either not existing or as enemies/fugitives of law — much like Cap’s side in Civil War. All Romanoff, Rogers, Stark (if he indeed didn’t know), Banner (apart from when he fled from Earth after Age of Ultron), Barton, and Thor (if he keeps up with Earth news) would’ve had to do is switch the news on, even once from that time onward. But what actually happened was they went on from film to film, event to event, seemingly unaware.]

Then, if you do decide to watch Agents of SHIELD, you’ll discover that Nick Fury passes directorship to Philip Coulson. And though the Avengers weren’t exactly in direct partnership with SHIELD, half of them were basically part of it at sometime: Tony, well his father founded it and he played a big role himself in founding the OG6 Avengers; Steve, after his 70-year sleep, guess who’s been keeping him safe and warm? And Barton — in The Avengers, he’s at a SHIELD base guarding, before being mind-controlled by Loki. So, my point here is, these 3 at least would’ve felt a ‘change in the wind’ once leadership roles were changed.

So, maybe it is just my mind reading wayyy too much into this, or it could be a slight inconsistency from the filmmakers/top team or maybe they just wanted to keep it that way or maybe I’m right to bring attention to this 😏. Either way, I hope you enjoyed reading this post & make sure to check out my others, old and in the future! :).