Two short films that were on the Blu-Ray predecessors of The Avengers are now on line, both starring the current fanfic favourite, agent Phil Coulson:


The Consultant


A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Thor's Hammer


Both fun, but still not enough to make me want to buy blu-ray.

Hi Marcus:

The first clip is blocked in the U.S. but the second one:

definitely worth the look-see. (funnier if you've watched Thor or The Avengers and know who this guy is.)

Can't watch the first one, but the second one is awesome.

Agent Coulson is the bomb. Thanks, Marcus!

Apparently there's a new Spider-Man animated series - with a high school setting - in which Coulson (under cover for some reason) is the principal of Peter Parker's high school.

Haha. That would be interesting-- pre-Spidey recruiting, he monitors his activity... then again, it could just be an interesting connection they're waiting for the hardcore superhero fans/viewers to catch. More likely that's the case instead of prepping him for an eventuality with the Avengers.

I found out a little more about it - it's called Ultimate Spiderman, basically there are teen versions of several Marvel heroes - the school is cover for a training operation run by SHIELD to teach them to work as a team before joining the avengers. Apparently it hasn't had good reviews.

Why do they keep doing that? Is it necessary to try to rewrite history by making adult superheroes into teenagers. I thought it might be Shield trying to sort out X-Men type people to send to Xavier's school, but I guess I was wrong. This concept might work if they skip the main heroes (Hulk, Ironman, Thor, Captain America, and Black Panther - who all have definite orgin stories that would be hard to adapt to this setting) and just focus on the other Avengers (Antman, Wasp, Hawkeye, Black Widow, that fire guy from the Fantastic 4, etc). Also, wouldn't Colson get in trouble for sending Peter Parker on that field trip to the spider labs that got him bit? Unless they WANTED one of the teenagers to be bit?! How about MJ or Green Goblin's son, they went to this high school too? I mean I read somewhere (in one of my son's Spiderman books) that Peter Parker's parents were Shield agents who disappeared / died, which is why he was being raised by his aunt and uncle, so it makes sense that Shield would invite Peter to their high school.

For anyone who's interested, here's an article about Item 47 , the one-shot that's going to be released on The Avengers blu-ray.

Just found the "Ultimate Spider-man" on Netflix's instant list. We've seen the first few episodes and it's pretty funny. The other members of Spidy's team are: Iron Fist, White Tiger, Power Man, and Nova... all teenage superheroes, so not revamping the Avengers team as kids (phew). They are training under Nick Fury (S.H.I.E.L.D.) to learn the ropes and be the next wave gen of superheroes. But Pete still has a "private life" at MidTown High; so SHIELD puts Colson in as principal and the other four members of Spider-man's training team as his classmates.

It looks like the same quality as The Avengers show, only funnier.

MJ's character has been re-vamped though. She's like a teenage Lois (with red hair), who's been Peter's best friend since preschool. She's trying to break into the news business. J. Jonah Jameson is a talking head (er... commentator) on a TV news station DBC. (Daily Bugle Commentary, or Channel, I'm guessing). Harry Osborn is still Peter's other BFF (his words, not mine) and at one time becomes the Viper

What I'm looking forward to is Joss Whedon's live action S.H.I.E.L.D. TV series; they've started preparing to film the pilot, and Coulson is apparently going to be a major character.

Link to the wikipedia article:
http://tinyurl.com/ax9b9y5
Had to use tinyurl since there are parentheses in the link.

Just watched the first episode of Ultimate Spiderman, it's actually quite good fun, with lots of glimpses into Peter Parker's thoughts, animated Stan Lee as the janitor, etc. Not sure I'm going to bother with the rest, it's not so good that I'd want to give it a huge amount of time when I have a lot of other things to do, but it isn't bad.