On the DEWLine 2.0: Dwight Williams

Update - 18 Sept. 2014: Thanks to thetimesink for his help with this one. But if anyone still wants to pitch in with their own thoughts, I'll leave this open to comments for a while yet.

Okay, here we are: a publicity still from the Agents of SHIELD episode "Shadows", kicking off the second season.

My question - which I expect I'll be trying to answer for myself - is what do those 20 decorations under the pilot's wings represent about Talbot's career before crossing paths with Coulson's Crew? I'm guessing right now that this version of Talbot's been in the USAF for 25 to 30 years, so service in conflicts before 1984 is probably right out for the purpose of this version of continuity. And yes, I'm looking at a higher-resolution version of this image at home.

So...subject to revision and/or correction:

1.
2.
3.
4.
5. Aerial Achievement Medal
6.
7. Joint Meritorious Unit Award
8. Air Force Outstanding Unit Award with what looks like three Oak Leaf Clusters and a "V" Device
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15. Humanitarian Service Medal
16. Air Force Overseas Short Tour Service Ribbon
17. Air Force Longevity Service Award with what looks like one silver and three bronze oak leaf clusters. (32 years' service, then?)
18. Air Force Military Training Instructor Ribbon
19. Air Force Small Arms Expert Marksmanship Ribbon
20. Air Force Training Ribbon

Okay...this is going to be a bit of a ramble.

( Spoilers after the cut )

I'm probably forgetting and ignoring other issues of interest, aren't I?

Ummm...no. I have to disagree on at least one point in your "statement, not a discussion".

SHIELD works for the UN.

Marvel/Disney gets away with saying it flat out in the comics for reasons unclear to me, but in the movies they have to call the people that SHIELD's Director reports to the "World Security Council". Otherwise, the UN's trademark/copyright-defence lawyers get all cranky. Therefore, not a "shadowy cabal". Putting the Security Council members in shadow in Avengers was a nod to how Fury Sr.'s bosses used to be depicted in the comics, but explaining that further involves a lot of continuity stuff that people don't like to make newcomers get into.

There was a similar fuss over UNIT in Doctor Who a few years back, as Whovians will definitely recall. The UN didn't want their name to be part of the full spelling-out of that fictional organization's acronym anymore after that TV series was revived.

Also, one of the long-haul arcs of Agents of SHIELD on TV appears to be the organization's process of learning how to live and work in the open, as spearheaded by the regular cast. I wonder if Coulson's roving field team has realized that this is what they're doing, but at least one other reviewer's made an interesting case over at tor.com.

Whether or not the organization as depicted across the TV/Movie is a "secret police" regime...well, some of the characters are going to want it to be exactly that. That's part of the point of Winter Soldier next spring: having that argument play out amongst the characters. A battle for the soul of SHIELD...one that's been playing out for decades in the comics themselves.

Spotted this over at Screenrant today.

Which now has me somewhat more curious than I already was as of this morning.

Personally, I stick with the assumption that SHIELD already has a few metric tonnes of stuff going on off-camera between episodes and movies. What that stuff is might be worth a couple of movies off to one side. Coulson's team isn't the only thing in progress. It can't be.

Now back to finding that missing paperwork of mine...

Some of us have been following this particular serial within a serial for a while now...and Wired's Underwire blog has some interesting backstory stuff for you today.

http://www.wired.com/underwire/2013/08/xkcd-time-comic/

...without getting into spoiler details here, I get the sense that the Doctor's seen this sort of issue crop up before. And it ended very badly that time.

Would I be wrong?

Spoilers for Batgirl # 14 below the cut!

Also, apologies for being a month or two behind the curve on realizing this. There are likely a couple dozen Bat-fans who've already gone over this.

( Read more... )

Feel free to discuss any or all of these as your interests guide you...

1. On movies: I went to see Gunless on Monday, The Trotsky on Friday...and I had fun watching both of them. Seems like it was a good week for me to see CanCon movies overall.

Haven't seen Iron Man 2 yet, although I fully expect to enjoy it as I did the first film.

2. InsideTheCBC.com asks a simple question about bias issues, and look at all the dog-piling going on in response. Amazing, isn't it?

I'm reminded of a recent installment of Age of Persuasion, "Where the Power Resides", wherein the power of the audience was discussed at some length. In the course of this episode, a clip from a Rod Serling interview was re-aired wherein Serling spoke of his POV on that episode of Lassie wherein she gave birth to puppies. Whereupon the producers and network responsible were flooded with what apparently turned out to be a handful of people cranking out letters of complaint by the thousands levelling accusations of producing and airing obscene material. Nonetheless, despite the source, the letters had their intended impact. Sad, and precedent-enforcing impact.

3. Watched "Flesh and Stone" on Doctor Who tonight. Fun, and more than a little chilling at all the points where it was intended. Including the final act, I daresay.

4. Noticed in Flash # 2 this week that the noble habit of fictional municipalities having their own Departments of Motor Vehicles in the DC Universe is apparently continuing...and with DNA profiles included on their smart-strips as well. We can probably blame the Durlan participation in the Alliance Invasion of 1988 for that last item, but the former - the bit about municipal DMVs? - that bothers me more than a little. Seeing as we've known for some years that - for Barry Allen's hometown's example - Central City's in Missouri, what's the point of devolving DMV duties onto Central City?

Any theories?

Continuing an irregular series on fictional comics geography...

If you've been reading Final Crisis Aftermath: Ink, then you've heard of this addition to the roster of DCU cities and towns, Liberty Hill.

In Ink # 1, it's described as being "in the shadow of the (American) nation's capital". In # 2, now on sale, one of the main TV stations in Liberty Hill's region is Baltimore. So Maryland's not a bad guess for the town's host state if anyone's interested.