Phil Coulson

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*"I swore an oath. We all did. To serve when everything else fails, to be humanity's last line of defense, to be the shield."*

―Phil Coulson[src]
**Phillip J. "Phil" Coulson** was a former Director of S.H.I.E.L.D., before that one of its best agents and Nick Fury's right-hand man for many important missions. He served as the primary operative in the Avengers Initiative following a Skrull Invasion on Earth in the 1990s, which led to the surfacing of Captain Marvel. Coulson also ran ground interference, surveillance and tactical operations in Puente Antiguo, New Mexico as part of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s investigation surrounding an incident with Thor and the Destroyer. He was also the primary S.H.I.E.L.D. operative in the investigation into Stark Industries.

During the Attack on the Helicarrier, Coulson was killed by Loki. His death gave the Avengers the push they needed to band together and stop the Chitauri invasion. On Fury's orders, Coulson was brought to the Guest House, a secret facility where he was brought back to life using treatments developed by Project T.A.H.I.T.I., which he had formerly presided over. To preserve his sanity after he was healed, all memories of these events were removed from his mind.

Coulson returned to S.H.I.E.L.D. to lead a new team to investigate the cases S.H.I.E.L.D. had not yet classified. While on this team, Coulson discovered the truth about the events after his death. During the HYDRA Uprising, despite the dissolution of S.H.I.E.L.D. and the betrayal of Grant Ward, he led his team against the forces of HYDRA. He the led the charge in the final battle against John Garrett, in which Garrett was ultimately defeated. After the battle, Nick Fury appointed him the new Director of S.H.I.E.L.D., ordering him to rebuild the organization from scratch.

To perform that task, Coulson led the remains of S.H.I.E.L.D. in many battles against HYDRA, crippling the terrorist organization. He even made some contacts with the United States Air Force via Glenn Talbot. However, he became a fugitive when another faction of S.H.I.E.L.D., led by Robert Gonzales, attacked and occupied his base. Now accompanied by only a few loyal friends, Coulson started a battle to reclaim S.H.I.E.L.D. He eventually made a deal with Gonzales, and they worked together against HYDRA, finally reunifying the two factions into one organization with Coulson as its rightful director. However, a new threat soon arose, the Inhumans led by Jiaying. In the ensuing conflict, both S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Inhumans suffered casualties, and even Coulson paid an extreme price to achieve victory, having his left arm cut off. But even that loss did not stop him, and he started a new project that would ensure the safety of humanity.

The mission of recruiting Inhumans for the team became more difficult, as the Advanced Threat Containment Unit, led by Rosalind Price, was dealing with the threat of the new Inhumans. However, Coulson developed a relationship with Price while facing the threats of Ward's new version of HYDRA, as well as Lash and the Inhumans. After Ward killed Price, Coulson followed him to the planet Maveth and killed him to avenge all the people that he had murdered. Believing that Gideon Malick was the last remaining leader of HYDRA, Coulson discovered that the Hive had returned to Earth from Maveth, using Ward's body as a host. With Malick's death, Coulson, feeling responsible for the new threat, invested efforts to prevent Hive from accomplishing his plan to change all Humans to Inhumans and them. Once Lincoln Campbell sacrificed himself to kill Hive and saved humanity, the directorship of S.H.I.E.L.D. passed to Jeffrey Mace, while Coulson and Alphonso Mackenzie conducted a pursuit of the former agent turned vigilante, Daisy Johnson.

With the revelation of Lucy Bauer's ambition to find the Darkhold, Coulson created an alliance with Johnson and Ghost Rider to find the book before the Bauer did. He was caught in an explosion with Ghost Rider and Leo Fitz by Eli Morrow and nearly got trapped in another dimension, but he managed to return with help from Holden Radcliffe and his Life-Model Decoy, Aida. Coulson then led the last fight against Morrow. Following the revelation that Mace was not actually an Inhuman, Coulson assumed the position of *de facto* Director while Mace remained *de jure* Director. Under Coulson's directorship, S.H.I.E.L.D. continued fighting the anti-Inhuman hate group known as the Watchdogs, led by Anton Ivanov, who targeted him. Coulson was kidnapped by Holden Radcliffe, replaced by an LMD, and put inside the Framework, where he lived as a history teacher. With the help of Daisy Johnson and Jemma Simmons, Coulson escaped the Framework, only to face against Aida's threat to the real world.

Coulson killed Aida by temporarily bonding with the Spirit of Vengeance and was sent to the year 2091 along with other S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. The team discovered that Earth had been destroyed, and the surviving humans were enslaved by the Kree. He and the other agents eventually returned to the present day, although Coulson revealed that he was dying from his old injury due to his deal with the Spirit of Vengeance. In order to learn more about the destruction of Earth, Coulson was imprisoned by Hale, who not only revealed that HYDRA still existed under her leadership, but also that there was an impending alien invasion. Following his escape, S.H.I.E.L.D. entered into a conflict with the Confederacy, but as he was trying to negotiate with them, Glenn Talbot attempted to become a savior but instead became bent on becoming more powerful. Coulson, despite knowing that this meant sacrificing himself, aided in defeating Talbot in the Battle of Chicago and stopped him from amassing the planet's Gravitonium, successfully averting the destruction of Earth. Coming to peace with the terms of his impending death, Coulson retired from S.H.I.E.L.D. and lived out his remaining days in Tahiti with Melinda May, eventually succumbing to his illness.

A Life-Model Decoy of Coulson was created by Enoch, Leo Fitz, and Jemma Simmons, using the Chronicom technology. With the Chronicom Hunters planning on wiping S.H.I.E.L.D. throughout history so they could establish Earth as Chronyca-3, the Chronicom LMD was designed to help the team navigate the past as Alphonso Mackenzie's second-in-command. As he came to terms with his new reality, he helped the team navigate 1931, 1955, and 1973, before making the heroic sacrifice by destroying the Chronicom Time Ship, with their Hunters and him still inside it.

Although his body was destroyed, all of his data were preserved on a hard drive. While stuck in the 1980s, Coulson's hard drive was recovered by Deke Shaw, who hooked it up to a TV system, before he, Shaw and Mackenzie were rescued by the team. Once back on Zephyr One, Coulson received a new LMD body.

Following the defeat of the Chronicoms, Coulson decided to make the most of his third life. He took to exploring the world to find the new and unusual.