Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Comic Characters who HAVE shown up in Agents of SHIELD

[Jammat]

Be honest with yourself: without checking through Wiki or whatever website, had *you* heard of a Scorch in Marvel Comics? Unless you're the World's Biggest Night Thrasher Fan (there are at least four members of that fanclub worldwide, so I dunno mebbe), chances are the honest answer is "no." Because Tommy Ng was a blip of an afterthought on the back page of a flashback in a throwaway comic about an unpopular comic book character in a time when nobody was reading comic books because Marvel was on the edge of bankruptcy.

If you choose to believe that Mo and Jed or whomever went digging through the trashbin at Marvel Comics and spotted some two-bit thug in a flashback panel that really captured their imagination and said "We've got to get Tommy Ng into the MCU --- we've just *got* to," then more power to you. But the more likely explanation is that yes, it is just a coincidence. Like Mike Peterson. Or Tobias. Or Po. And it's going to happen a lot, because the Marvel Comics Universe is a big, big, big place, with lots, lots, lots of characters over at least 70 years. Not even the Marvel Wiki has catalogued them all.

When they discuss examples of AOS introducing new characters from the comics, the showrunners have pointed to Victoria Hand and Graviton in more than one interview. I haven't read of any of them mentioning Scorch as one of those instances. Have you?

I suspect what happened was that a script was devised which focussed on how the different organisations dealt with a potentially unstable 'gifted' individual, and fire creation was chosen as his skill because it was a) dangerous and b) visually interesting. That script was then looked at in light of the Marvel database and they found an insignificant character called Scorch, and decided to use the name as a throwaway reference.

In that particular episode, it was important for 'Scorch' to be killed off for the story, it showed SHIELD were right to keep his powers hidden, and Centipede reckless in encouraging him to come out for their own gain. Had they picked a more well known villain, it would have been a waste to have Coulson kill him when he had to, but without that act, the story would have been different - in fact it would have been a copy of the Graviton episode only shown a few weeks earlier.

In other words, I suspect he was named after the comic character, but always deemed to be expendable, and therefore a waste of a better known character.

 

[Whiskey Tango]

It's not inconceivable that one of the writers read that Night Thrasher comic long ago and decided to use this minor one-shot character on the show. I'd think that more likely than "just randomly came up with an Asian pyrokinetic who just happens to have the same name as a minor one-shot character from the comics who was also an Asian pyrokinetic."

I really don't see what the fuss is about but hey, internet.

 

[Dr. Evil]

It's not like we'll ever see Night Thrasher in MCU.

 

[Xeno]

It's not inconceivable that one of the writers read that Night Thrasher comic long ago and decided to use this minor one-shot character on the show. I'd think that more likely than "just randomly came up with an Asian pyrokinetic who just happens to have the same name as a minor one-shot character from the comics who was also an Asian pyrokinetic."

I really don't see what the fuss is about but hey, internet.

In their Collider interview Tancheroen and Jed Whedon said that the writers will come up with character concepts in terms of abilities that they want to use and then see if there is a Marvel character who fits the bill. That's an ass-backward way of doing it, IMO, but these people don't know the source so it's to be expected.

Collider: How much are you allowed to draw on the already existing Marvel universe, and how much are you allowed to add your own characters with super powers that don’t already exist?

TANCHAROEN: We’re trying to do an even balance of both. We asked them what we can use. There’s a list of characters that we are allowed to use. Sometimes when we come across others in the comics, we pose that question. If the answer is yes, then we pursue it.

WHEDON: We also work from a place of coming up with a story, and then asking if there’s someone already in the universe. It’s such a vast universe that sometimes we come up with an idea, and then we’ll be flipping through the pages to see if there’s someone who has that ability or fits that profile. So, it goes both ways. Creating new characters is something we have a little bit more freedom with.

TANCHAROEN: We always start from the place of theme and emotion. If there’s something that can exemplify that or if there’s a character that already exists that can play into that theme, then we go for it.

http://collider.com/maurissa-tancharoen-jed-whedon-agents-of-shield-interview/#j7kZmYGYZFxUwDX9.99

 

[The Question]

I also heard that Joss Whedon never heard of Quicksilver either. He just came up with the idea of guy who moved fast and happened to pick the same name as some obscure character from the comics. And then to top it all off Fox came up with the exact same idea at the same time too! Amazing coincidence!

Seeing as Whedon has been a regular reader of both The Avengers and X-Men since the 1970s, I very much doubt that.

 

[cherokeesam]

It's not inconceivable that one of the writers read that Night Thrasher comic long ago and decided to use this minor one-shot character on the show. I'd think that more likely than "just randomly came up with an Asian pyrokinetic who just happens to have the same name as a minor one-shot character from the comics who was also an Asian pyrokinetic."

I really don't see what the fuss is about but hey, internet.

Given Jammat's reasonable description of what might have happened, and xeno's post of the Mo and Jed interview, yeah, it's possible that they came up with an Asian pyro as an original character, then asked Marvel if it resembled anyone they could use from the comics (other than the glaringly obvious one --- Sunfire), and proceeded to loosely base him on Tommy Ng.

We'll have to agree to disagree about including Scorch, though....to me, it makes no sense for them to change the name, nationality and backstory from Tommy Ng to Chew Your Fat or whatever his name was. When they've tampered with identities before --- Mandarin and Whiplash come to mind --- there was specific reasons for that, usually geopolitical. I just don't see why, if they wanted to base this guy on an obscure comic-book character, they couldn't have kept him as Tommy Ng.

 

[OB12]

I just don't see why, if they wanted to base this guy on an obscure comic-book character, they couldn't have kept him as Tommy Ng.

How likely is it that someone living in China is named Tommy Ng? I mean I don't actually know, but I feel like Chan Ho Yin seems more native to China. If the setting for the episode was somewhere in the US and he was a Filipino-American, then sure Tommy Ng would be fine.

 

[batnkevlar]

Why Fillipino-American? Ng is a Chinese last name...

 

[OB12]

Why Fillipino-American? Ng is a Chinese last name...

OK, sure. The point was more that Tommy is not really a first name that I would expect to see a lot of in China.

 

[cherokeesam]

OK, sure. The point was more that Tommy is not really a first name that I would expect to see a lot of in China.

In Hong Kong? Which was under British rule for centuries? There's still a lot of English spoken there, and plenty of anglicized Chinese names. Jackie Chan, John Woo, Bruce Lee, Andy Lau among some of the most famous. A name like Tommy Ng would be right at home in Hong Kong.

 

[OB12]

In Hong Kong? Which was under British rule for centuries? There's still a lot of English spoken there, and plenty of anglicized Chinese names. Jackie Chan, John Woo, Bruce Lee, Andy Lau among some of the most famous. A name like Tommy Ng would be right at home in Hong Kong.

Good point, I didn't really remember that the episode was set specifically in Hong Kong. Nonetheless, Scorch counts as a comic character.

 

[Dasher10]

The second Episode was actaully a pretty loose adaptation of the Shining Path storyline from Cable's own series (one that's so obscure that Fox would never use it)

 

[Shikamaru]

Scorch wasn't really a comic book character. As cherokeesam pointed out, it was merely a coincidence that there was a guy in the comics with the same powers and name. Honestly, the name "scorch" is not that hard to come up with when you're dealing with a fire guy just like how the name "Batman" or something very similar (Bat-Man, Bat Man, etc.) wouldn't be a hard name to come up with if you introduced the Batman concept to a tribal group in Africa that hasn't heard of the name before.

 

[cherokeesam]

Scorch wasn't really a comic book character. As cherokeesam pointed out, it was merely a coincidence that there was a guy in the comics with the same powers and name. Honestly, the name "scorch" is not that hard to come up with when you're dealing with a fire guy just like how the name "Batman" or something very similar (Bat-Man, Bat Man, etc.) wouldn't be a hard name to come up with if you introduced the Batman concept to a tribal group in Africa that hasn't heard of the name before.

And, as I pointed out, Marvel has had at least two pyrokinetics named Scorch in the comics, so even The Bullpen has "double-dipped" without even being aware of the other namesake's existence. It's a common power set, and a fairly generic nickname....beyond that, there's no resemblance between Chan Ho Yin and either of the two comic-book Scorches or their thumbnail storylines.

 

[Savage]

While all of that is true, after Crimson Dynamo became Whiplash and Aldrich Killian (a guy who killed himself in the same issue that he debuted and had no resemblance to his movie counterpart) became the Mandarin, I'm willing to forgive it. It certainly isn't the biggest character change in the MCU.

 

[cherokeesam]

While all of that is true, after Crimson Dynamo became Whiplash and Aldrich Killian (a guy who killed himself in the same issue that he debuted and had no resemblance to his movie counterpart) became the Mandarin, I'm willing to forgive it. It certainly isn't the biggest character change in the MCU.

Tru dat. Even if MCU Scorch was even very loosely based on either of the comic-book namesakes, they greatly improved on either character, in just the short time that Chan Ho Yin was onscreen.

 

[metaphysician]

And, as I pointed out, Marvel has had at least two pyrokinetics named Scorch in the comics, so even The Bullpen has "double-dipped" without even being aware of the other namesake's existence. It's a common power set, and a fairly generic nickname....beyond that, there's no resemblance between Chan Ho Yin and either of the two comic-book Scorches or their thumbnail storylines.

So what your saying is, seeing as he was a throwaway character reusing the name and powerset, he's. . . faithful to the comics?

 

[ctsketch]

Why Fillipino-American? Ng is a Chinese last name...

Ummm Most people I know with the surname Ng are vietnamese

 

[Whiskey Tango]

Ummm Most people I know with the surname Ng are vietnamese

I thought the same thing but I looked it up and apparently it's only a Vietnamese name when it's a part of a larger name like 'Nguyen'. 'Ng' is straight up Chinese.

 

[Dr. Evil]

Ummm Most people I know with the surname Ng are vietnamese

Eh. It's mainly Chinese.

 

[Dr. Evil]

I thought the same thing but I looked it up and apparently it's only a Vietnamese name when it's a part of a larger name like 'Nguyen'. 'Ng' is straight up Chinese.

As a Vietnamese American, this is true. Ng is Chinese. In English, "Nguyen" is usually pronounced as "New-When" and not "New-Gen."

 

[ctsketch]

learn something new every day!

 

[Pokkle]

List: - Victoria Hand
- Graviton
- Scorch
- Jasper Sitwell
- Nick Fury
- Maria Hill
- Phil Coulson
+ Donnie Gill/ Blizzard

 

[Alex_Kidd]

I would very much a great saga against the Hydra and Lady Hydra or a furious one vs one between agent Ward and the Traskmaster, something like a solo episode, man vs man Jason Bourne style

 

[Guard82]

I'm listing characters from the show in two different categories. In Category #1, I list characters in the show who are taken directly from the comics and who were meant from the beginning to be directly adapted from the source material.

In Category #2, I list some characters in the show who possess similarities to certain Marvel characters, but who are not directly adapted from those characters. Instead, they appear to be indirectly based on certain characters from the comics. In my opinion, these AoS characters could easily have been influenced by the Marvel characters they resemble.

CATEGORY #1:
-Victoria Hand
-Jasper Sitwell
-Maria Hill
-Nick Fury
-Franklin Hall (Graviton)
-Phil Coulson (Coulson counts since even though he was first an original character created for the movies, his popularity led him to be incorporated into the comics)

CATEGORY #2:

-Scorch - As people have already discussed, the Scorch from AoS is similar to a minor Marvel character of the same name, but with some key differences in character. The AoS Scorch seems to be loosely based on the comics Scorch.

-The Mad Thinker - Edison Po reminds me very much of the Marvel supervillain the Mad Thinker. His rich voice, his intellectual-but-eerie mannerisms, his role as a master planner, and his habit of engineering schemes while locked up in prison remind me a lot of the Mad Thinker. I would not be at all surprised if the Mad Thinker was one of the influences for Po's character.

-The Ghost - Tobias Ford from the episode "Repairs" is similar to the Marvel supervillain the Ghost. First, he has similar powers since he can vanish and teleport, and can become practically invisible. Second, Tobias is shown to be an expert technician, like the Ghost in the comics. Lastly, Tobias is really into sabotage and raiding, which was the Ghost's modus operandi. The SHIELD agents also describe him as a "ghost" during the episode.

-The Wizard - In the episode "The Well," the Norse paganist villain Jakob Nystrom reminds me of the Marvel villain the Wizard (Bentley Wittman, enemy of the Fantastic Four, Avengers, and other heroes). Like the Wizard, Nystrom was egotistical, megalomaniacal, and convinced of his own brilliance. His leering expressions reminded me of the Wizard in the comics, as well as his mustache and beard. The character could easily have been influenced in part by the Wizard.

It's a lot of fun picking up different details like these to see how the show is influenced by various elements of the Marvel comics source material.