For people who've seen The Avengers

[starlady]

Poll #10387 THIS POLL IS MADE OF AVENGERS SPOILERS

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 35

View Respondents

Phil Coulson is dead.

View Answers

Yes. Joss' cinema deaths tend to stick.
8 (22.9%)

No. Fury is a manipulative bastard.
10 (28.6%)

Maybe. (Schrodinger's SHIELD agent?)
17 (48.6%)

Context: I have a lot of pretty good scenes with Coulson written in this XMFC fic, and I…kind of don't want to rewrite them. But otoh, him being dead would be a really good emotional hook for the Avengers side of this story. IDK. Thoughts? Beta readers? Bueller?

Comments

[lilacsigil]

They neatly omitted the medical staff tending to Coulson (or actually calling the time of death as Fury said they did) so we have no on-screen body and therefore no death. As an extra pointer, Maria Hill spent the next scene telling Fury he was being manipulative!

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

Yeah . . . it's the scene with Hill that made me vote for "manipulative bastrad."

[starlady]

Well, yes. See also the bloodstain on the fucking compartment wall! :P

[contrary]

I think I'm somewhere between Yes and Maybe. I really, genuinely didn't think he was dead until the end of the movie; but on the other hand, I think not giving us anything stronger than the hints I was reading before the movie ended would make it kind of cheesy to bring him back at this point. Not that I would care.

Fans go crazy about interviews Clark Gregg has given that state or imply that he survives the movie or is in talks for further movies (http://www.craveonline.com/film/articles/173736-clark-gregg-on-the-avengers-marvel-one-shots-iron-man-3-and-more or http://www.comicbookmovie.com/fansites/GraphicCity/news/?a=59241) but I can't bring myself to build too much on those because it's hard to know if they're real or a) out of date or b) him obfuscating to prevent spoiling the movie. I mean, it's entirely possible that at one point Joss totally didn't plan to kill him off. :\

He's noncommittal/it's over, here: http://www.comicbookmovie.com/avengers/news/?a=58262

Also, Loki would like you to know that it's Joss's fault, not his.

[seekingferret]

I mean, I think the question is a little moot when it comes to your story. There's no reason why you can't keep him alive even if he's really dead, or vice versa, and make your fic just AUish on that one ground.

On the other hand, I think the stuff about not seeing the body misses the point. In Marvel comic books, it doesn't matter if you see the body or not, if they want the character to come back they can bring him back. Even if the death was intended by the writer as a "This time it counts, death is real" moment, that doesn't mean some other writer won't decide to bring the character back.

[starlady]

Well, that's certainly true - this is a covert way of trying to judge whether I should make it AUish. :P

I take your point about the malleability of death in comics, but I do think that comics movies tend to be a little less flexible on that point. Film doesn't quite lend itself to the plasticity of death in the same way (though I will grant that there aren't very many deaths in comics movies that aren't the kind of Bruce Wayne's Parents Must Die unavoidable cruxes, so small sample size, etc).

[seekingferret]

I take your point. The typical comic movie response to a death is a reboot. Joker died in 1989 Batman, but that didn't stop Nolan from bringing him back, right?

Still, if they brought back Clark Gregg in Thor 2 and told us he was Phil Coulson's clone or twin brother or future self or life model decoy, would anybody raise an eyebrow?

[recessional]

Well, that and the audience for comic books movies is different from the audience for comic books themselves.

I'm a case in point. Part of why I don't read comics is because the intense plasticity makes them meaningless and pointless for me. *hands* Lots of people go to the movies who'd never read the actual comics, because they like big action movies with familiar names.

[seekingferret]

For what it's worth, there was a Phil Coulson: Agent of SHIELD one-shot comic that Marvel put out when Iron Man 2 came out, and Coulson also fakes his death in that. So there's canon that faking his death is part of Coulson's playbook.

[starlady]

Oh REALLY. Good to know, thanks!

[ellen_fremedon]

Would the Avengers having been lied to by Fury be an equally good emotional hook?

[recessional]

The "maybe" is entirely Doylistic: I think it'll depend wholly on what they decide they want for films to come.

(Personally I think Fury's an IDIOT if he's not dead. A deathly-wounded Coulson - especially one barely clinging to life - would have worked just as well as an impetus for the team, and absolutely none of them will forgive THAT level of lying if they ever find out Coulson's alive. ESPECIALLY not Tony Stark. Lying like that is a good way to get the title "guy who originally put together the super-team that now hates his guts and ignores him.")

[were_duck]

*waves hand energetically for beta duty*

[starlady]

You may regret waving your hand! *sends you an email*

[epershand]

Well the ambiguity definitely felt intentional, so I feel like you could fictionally play it either way. I don't know--I do feel like his actually being dead is a more satisfying emotional hook generally, but the FURY YOU BASTARD feelings are already there so... IDK.

(But then I strung myself out for two years on the basis of the ambiguity of Sirius falling through a mystery curtain. Don't want to do THAT to myself again....)

[starlady]

My gut feeling is that he's dead. FURY YOU BASTARD holds either way.

[fairestcat]

On the one hand, Joss' character deaths tend to stick, on the other hand this death was apparently Marvel's choice, not his, and I feel like he left it just ambiguous enough in the movie for a resurrection to be possible.

[starlady]

What does Marvel have against Phil Coulson?

It is ambiguous, but I'm still learning very slightly towards Yes.

[fairestcat]

There's a recording of an interview with Kevin Feige going around where he says that since there really have not been any Big Deaths in any of the avengers franchise movies yet, marvel wanted Coulson to die in this one to show how serious the situation was.

When I'm home I'll see if I can find a link to that interview again.

[recessional]

since there really have not been any Big Deaths in any of the avengers franchise movies yet, marvel wanted Coulson to die in this one to show how serious the situation was.

Yup. I went in, unspoiled, knowing that someone was going to die because they were at that point, where someone had to die or it was just going to look too easy. I was afraid it was going to be one of the Girlfriends or female agents. (Personally, I'd've killed Fury, but hey.)

[starlady]

Fury would have made sense given comics canon, actually. Maybe that'll be Avengers 2?

I was expecting someone to die too, but I honestly thought it was going to be Hawkeye or Black Widow.

[lian]

Maybe I'm in super fanon denial but the death didn't feel real to me. As in, it's entirely possibly I built up Coulson way bigger in my head, and so even his cutting -- dying? -- remark to Loki didn't have the necessary gravitas to me. Also, I am forever suspicious of off-screen confirmation of death. So rationally it's a narrative Schrödinger's cat but emotionally, ...nah, I 99% expected him to turn up in an extra scene after credits. ... *sulks*

(But I've been wrong about deaths before -- Too Awesome To Die applied to Dragon Age's Duncan as well, and then he...DIED. In like, the 2nd scene. Wat. /will never get over this.)