I’ll be the first to admit, after falling head over heels in nerd with Marvel’s The Avengers, I began to brace for the embarrassing crash and burn of Marvel Studios. The reason for this negative outlook was simple: Cynicism. Marvel had created too much of a good thing. And as any nerd who follows any sci-fi ANYTHING can tell you…nothing good lasts forever.

For awhile there, I thought I was 100% correct in anticipating the fall of Feige. Iron Man 3 and Thor: The Dark World began Phase 2 with a whimper instead of a bang (more on that some other time) and my excitement for Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. began to wane with each episode.

But then something major happened…

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In Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Arnim Zola introduced a far-reaching conspiracy. A conspiracy that the Nazi science unit named “Hydra” had been pulling the strings of S.H.I.E.L.D. (and key government officials) all the way through present day.

The Marvel landscape had turned a corner and it had done so in the most powerful way possible: By, once again, staying true to the source material. Just like in the comics, “Earth’s Mightiest Heroes” were discovering that the government wasn’t playing by the same rules. And just like the comics, Marvel Studios wanted this to have universe-shattering ramifications.

Suddenly, some weak spots in the MCU started to line up. Things like…

Captain America discovering all that Hydra gear on the Hellicarrier…

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Tony Stark’s seemingly plot convenient paranoia about SHIELD was valid…

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And The Council’s knee-jerk decision to blow up New York wasn’t really knee-jerk at all…

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Tony Stark’s once laughable “daddy issues” are far more valid than even he understood… 

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Senator Stern definitely had a totally separate agenda for coming down on Tony Stark in Iron Man 2…

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Also, does that mean Marvel is going to silence all the smart alecks and have Bucky’s resurrection play out out like it did in the comics?

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Also also, was Marvel Studios simply trolling continuity purists when they disconnected Red Skull and Hydra from the Nazi party in The First Avenger?  

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Wait…do I need to reevaluate my criticisms of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.?

 

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Whoa. Does that mean Red Skull is actually coming back…or is he already here? (More on that one at a later date)

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Yep, after Captain America: The Winter Soldier $#!+ got real. But how real?

In the following article from Bad Ass Digest, Devin Faraci helps us fill in the blanks on how exactly Hydra came into power. Impressively, he does so using real world events that actually parallel Arnim Zola’s sea-changing exposition dump from Winter Soldier.

How could evil infiltrate our highest sections of government without raising an eyebrow? Just click on Sitwell too find out.

Special thanks to “Lady Viper” for some of these links.

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Troy-Jeffrey Allen writes about action/adventure for Action A Go Go. He is a comic book writer whose works include BamnComics.com, The Magic Bullet, Dr. Dremo’s Taphouse of Tall Tales, and the Harvey Award nominated District Comics. In addition, Allen has been a contributing writer for ComicBookBin.com, OfNote Magazine, and ForcesOfGeek.com. His work has been featured in the City Paper, The Baltimore Sun, Bethesda Magazine, The Examiner, and The Washington Post. Yes, he wrote this bio.