If you watched the season finale of Marvel’s Agents of S.H.E.I.L.D. last week, you were probably surprised at what happened to Agent Phil Coulson.
But, you shouldn’t have been, as I’ll explain later.
Now, that doesn’t mean, we shouldn’t feel sorry for Phil Coulson, who has become the new chew toy of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). In three years, Coulson has been stabbed in the heart and killed by Loki, painfully resurrected in multiple surgeries by Project T.A.H.I.T.I., infused with Kree blood leading to the questioning of his own sanity by himself and others, assumed and lost control of S.H.I.E.L.D. (recently regaining it) and now is maimed.
Remember that scene in Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back where Luke loses his hand? Well, so does the MCU and they have constantly been paying homage to that scene.
In the 11 films released by the MCU since 2008, no less than 5 characters have lost limbs in a Star Wars tribute supposedly attributed to Marvel Studios president, Kevin Feige.
In Iron Man 3, Aldrich Killian loses his hand. He grows it back prior to his being killed by Pepper Potts.
In Thor: The Dark World, as part of a ruse against Malekith, Loki pretends to chop off Thor’s hand.
In Captain America: The Winter Soldier, we see Bucky who lost his arm in Captain America: The First Avenger when he fell from the HYDRA train. HYDRA later replaced his missing arm with the metal one shown.
In Guardians of the Galaxy, Gamora chops Groot’s arms off when he stands in her way on Xandar as she seeks to retrieve the orb Peter Quill stole. In a bit of foreshadowing, Groot is reminded by Rocket that his limbs will grow back. By the way, as a shout out to Vader losing his mechanical hand in Return of the Jedi, Nebula also loses her mechanical hand while battling Gamora.
In Avengers: Age of Ultron, Ulysses Klaue (Klaw) and Ultron have a disagreement which will leave Klaue at a distinct physical disadvantage by the end of the day.
Phil Coulson certainly won’t be the last Marvel character to pay homage to Star Wars in such a gruesome manner. So the question is, will someone lose an arm (or limb) in Ant-Man which will be released in July. The answer is probably. What do you think?
