Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD S2-E1: Starring Xena Warrior Princess as the Pink Power Ranger

Series Two- Episode One: ‘Shadows’

UK premiere: 24th October 2014 (on Channel 4)


‘The American Government is one of the lesser evils,’ so says one of the special agent/power-rangers near the end of the episode, thus encapsulating the entire problem with the premise of the show. When you choose a lesser evil, what do you get?

You get evil.

Oh, by the way, the power-ranger (I’m just going to call them that now, because that’s what they are) who made that statement about supporting evil was Xena Warrior Princess, or at least the actress who used to play her. No, I’m not making this all up. I don’t drink, and I don’t take drugs either. All of this is very real, and very, very stupid.

Agent Coulson. Still the best thing about the show.

So why did I bother watching it in the first place? Because of the last Captain America movie where SHIELD was shown to be compromised by foreign elements, a group called Hydra, who were a very obvious stand-in for the real world globalists, or new world order group that controls western governments. It was a situation where the world of comics had to recognise real world concerns that have been brought to light in recent years by revelations by actual, flesh and blood real American heroes like Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden.

Marvel comic books usually ignore the world around them. It’s difficult for them, because they need simple heroes and simple villains. For over a decade now America has been waging war around the globe for corporate profit, based on obvious deceptions and with Orwellian level propaganda being pumped out by the corporate media to justify these crimes against humanity. I assume that Marvel comic book writers are not stupid people. They must realise what is going on, but rather than deal with the contradictions and controversies of our times, they prefer to ignore them, and instead pick up a pay cheque.

The last Captain America movie was such a success because it dealt with the issues that Marvel comic books have been ignoring, and it was bloody entertaining as well. So this new series of MAOS was interesting to me, as it had the opportunity to take the ball from an excellent movie, and run with it.

What it actually did is devolve everything back to simplistic heroes and villains, with a group of childish Power Rangers running around saving poor helpless Americans from the evil bad guys who hate their freedoms. It was the same statist loving propaganda that is being pushed by the comics. Trust the uniforms, trust the politicians, be a helpless victim, do what you are told, all questioning is bad, business as usual.

Twenty minutes in I was finding it all very difficult to watch. There is enjoyment to be had in some of the character interactions, and as a cartoon about villains with cool super-powers, but when you strip it down as an ideological construct it’s as ignorantly chilling as a fly-over before a football match. Support the troops, support perpetual war, trust authority, go back to sleep.

Rating: 2/10