Aida (Marvel)

**Aida**, also known by her Framework counterpart names **Madame Hydra**and **Ophelia**, is the name of a Life-Model Decoy built by Holden Radcliffe in late 2016. She appears in the ABC TV series *Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.*, set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, as the main antagonist of Season 4.

She is portrayed by Mallory Jansen in her LMD form and in her Madame Hydra form, who also portrayed her body template Agnes Kitsworth.

## Personality

Aida was built to mimic human behavior and blend in with them, to the point of being indistinguishable from them. As such, she tried to exhibit emotional responses. She wanted to put herself in danger before other humans, because that's what she was programmed to do. Due to being new to human thought, she seemed confused by figures of speech and slang terms, irritating Radcliffe for not understanding. She was programmed at first to not lie to anyone, but Radcliffe convinced her that "some lies are good" and can protect lives; at the time, he was trying to protect her from Director Jeffrey Mace, who would've followed the Sokovia Accords and destroyed her if she were exposed as an LMD. She volunteered to read the Darkhold after Radcliffe found himself overwhelmed by its contents, and used the knowledge to create an Inter-Dimensional Gate to save Agents Coulson and Fitz after they were sent to Hell by Eli Morrow.

She began to rely on logic in her decisions afterwards, and had no thought to the consequences of her own immoral actions. After reading the Darkhold, which seemed to corrupt her software, she began to develop more genuine emotion, like rage and pleasure, and sought to get the book back so she could learn more about being human. However, the reasons for her corruption were later figured out by Fitz; since humans have their whole lives to process and understand emotion, they would be able to do what they wanted. Since Aida had learned all about inner feelings all at once, it overwhelmed her, leading her to embrace aggression and rebellion, and even murdering Agent Nathanson after seeing Agent May knocked out at Radcliffe's home. She used Laser-Coupling Gloves made at the same time as the Inter-Dimensional Gate to craft herself a human-like brain made of pure light and energy, allowing her the true human experience. After the first model is decapitated by Agent Mack, the second model that Radcliffe built was truly loyal to Radcliffe despite his somewhat-abusive nature. She argued with Radcliffe about keeping May alive, thinking that it wasn't logical to do so, but Radcliffe, not wanting excessive bloodshed, declined this.

## Trivia

* Aida behaves similarly to other AI in recent fiction, the most-prominent being Ultron from the movie Avengers: Age of Ultron set in the same continuity, and Dolores Abernathy from the HBO sci-fi series Westworld:
* The three of them had been made to do what humans wouldn't; Aida would do S.H.I.E.L.D. missions, Ultron would control Tony Stark's Iron Legion program, and Dolores would be stuck in Westworld to participate in the narratives of the "guests" who would come to the park.
* The three of them were also driven by their own emotional opinion of humanity; Aida would often reject her own emotion in order to continue making logical opinions, Ultron thought that humanity was not worth defending no matter how good they really are, and Dolores sought to figure out the true meaning behind her existence in Westworld.
* Clark Gregg, who portrays Agent Coulson, describes Aida as scarier than Ultron because she is driven by her own emotions, while Ultron was all about logic. Jokes have sometimes been made on the Internet about Aida being like Dolores, since Westworld aired at the same time that the Ghost Rider story arc on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. was airing.
* In the alternate reality of Earth-712, the story where Aida originated from, A.I.D.A. was an acronym for "Artificial Intelligence Data Analyzer", and was a companion of superhero Tom Thumb.
* In the original comics, Madame Hydra was an alias used by several different HYDRA agents, including a woman named Ophelia Sarkissan, one of the lovers of the Red Skull.
* Often times, Aida's only facial expression will be a blank, neutral look, save for the occasional smile or angry glare.