SPOILER Sunday--Noman, Agent Of S.H.I.E.L.D?!?

All right, I'm going to SPOIL a thing or three about the 2nd story in this week's S.H.I.E.L.D. #9--the 50th anniversary issue!!--and it's a prett good story, so if you don't wanna know, came back later.

SPOILERS commence after the four S.H.I.E.L.D. pictures...

Still here? Good.

So, as you recall, the stupidest, most upsetting thing Marvel has done in recent years was in the abominable Original Sin event, wherein we learned that...

Yup...we learned that Dum Dum Dugan was killed by Hydra about 10 minutes after he joined S.H.I.E.L.D., and Nick Fury used super-alien tech to Make his own Dum Dum LMD that thought he was still human.

Yes, every single appearance of Dum Dum Dugan post-1966 was not really Dugan.

Sigh....

Me, I had hoped that the Secret Wars reset was going to undo that, or bring over a Dum Dum from Earth-56123 or something.

Nope:

Only now, he knows that he's an LMD...

He's a bit of a super-powered LMD...

...and whenever he dies, his consciousness is transferred to one of  "hundreds" of replacement bodies...

That's right...Dum Dum Dugan of S.H.I.E.L.D. is now essentially...

...Noman of T.H.UN.D.E.R. Agents (without the invisibility cloak).

Look, I won't lie. I despise with the passion of a thousand exploding sons what Original Sin did to Dugan (and to Nick Fury). But if you're not going to retcon that idiocy away, I guess this is a pretty good way to go.

And I have to confess, this is a really good story by Al Ewing and Stefano Caselli. It serves as a "pilot" for the forthcoming Howling Commandos Of S.H.I.E.L.D. series, which Maria Hill describes as "send scary monsters to fight scary monsters."

But here's the odd part...

This isn't the creative team that's doing the actual series! Why did Marvel have one set of hands make the "pilot," when someone completely different will be doing the regular series? This is no critique of Barbiere and Schoonover--I'm just saying that a story by Ewing and Caselli might not be a fair indication of what the series will actually be like.

So in summation--I still loathe what they did to Dugan; this is probably the best way to salvage it without retconning; Dugan is now Noman; this is a really good story and a promising pilot for the series; but the actual series is being made by different hands, so who knows?

Meanwhile, Nick Fury is still chained to the moon...