5 Reasons You Should Care About … Daisy Johnson

Fresh off an Agent Carter-induced winter hiatus, Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD is back with new episodes tonight.

When we last left Phil Coulson’s team, Agent Skye had gone through terrigenesis and was revealed to be an Inhuman, gibing with the new Marvel philosophy in which dormant Inhumans are everywhere and just need to be woken up so the Marvel Cinematic Universe can have its own mutants.

We also learned that Skye – who as an Inhuman has earthquake powers – is the MCU version of Daisy Johnson, a character who has existed in the comics since 2004 and had key roles in several major events, including the Secret War (that’s War, singular) and Secret Invasion.

Here are some more things you may not have known about Agent Skye, if that is her real name, which it isn’t:

She’s the daughter of a supervillain: Daisy’s dad is Mr. Hyde, a superstrong, supersmart, supercrazy baddie who has bedeviled Marvel heroes from Thor to Captain America to Daredevil to Spider-Man. Hyde was created by Stan Lee and Don Heck and first appeared in 1963’s Journey Into Mystery #99, the book that would become The Mighty Thor. Hyde was played on Agents of SHIELD by Kyle MacLachlan, star of Dune, Twin Peaks, Portlandia and other things relevant to your interests. According to the comics, Hyde mucked with his genetic makeup so much that he ended up passing powers on to his daughter, whose mother was a prostitute.

She once fought on a team made up of the children of supervillains: Fury’s Team White, featured in the book Secret Warriors, consists of Johnson and the children of Ares, the god of War; Doctor Druid, a former Avenger; the Griffin; the Phantom Rider; and the Absorbing Man. A seventh member, Eden Fesi, is the protégé of Gateway, the X-Men’s teleportation buddy from their days in the Australian Outback.

She’s pretty high up on the SHIELD clearance scale: Johnson first appeared in 2004’s Secret War #2 as an agent of original-recipe Nick Fury during a covert op against the Latverian government. She has Level 10 security clearance within SHIELD, a classification only otherwise afforded to Fury himself and the Black Widow. For a time, she ends up leading the organization, between stints by Maria Hill.

She’s taken down Wolverine and Magneto: During Secret War, when a berserker Wolverine tried to attack Nick Fury, Johnson exploded his heart with a mini-earthquake. Obviously, he got better. Later, in New Avengers Vol. 1 #20, she did the same thing to Magneto’s brain, rendering him unconscious.

She’s not in the current SHIELD comic: At least not in the first three issues, anyway. Writer Mark Waid’s book straddles the worlds of the TV show and the comics, working Agents Coulson, May, Fitz and Simmons (and Fitz’s monkey OS) into monthly standalone stories featuring the other denizens of the 616. Fitting all that Daisy/Skye baggage into a book like that probably isn’t the best idea. Still a very enjoyable read, though.

Read this: Secret Warriors #1-28 by Brian Michael Bendis, Jonathan Hickman and Stefano Caselli.

Watch that: Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD, Tuesdays on ABC.

Dan Grote’s new novel, Magic Pier, is available however you get your books online. He has been writing for The Matt Signal since 2014. He and Matt have been friends since the days when making it to issue 25 guaranteed you a foil cover.

5 reasons you should care about … Leviathan

“Leviathan is coming.”

“Who?”

“Leviathan”

“The mythical sea beast of the Old Testament?”

“No.”

“The eidolon that crashes the ship in Final Fantasy IV?”

“No.”

“The evil organization from Grant Morrison’s Batman run?”

“No. I mean, yes, it’s an evil organization, but this one’s Marvel.”

“Oh, so it’s like Hydra?”

“Wellllllll…”

The big bad of Marvel’s Agent Carter series has been hinted at as Leviathan, as bespake by the electro-throated men doing its bidding. If you’re like me, you heard the name and thought of all the above examples. But it’s none of those. Here’s what it is.

1. It’s the Cold War Hydra: Just like Hydra was a by-product of Nazi Germany, Leviathan was a by-product of Communist Russia, except most of its members were cryogenically frozen, much like a certain Winter Soldier, which is a great way to explain away how new characters with Cold War roots were supposedly always there and able to still operate in the 21^st century. Apparently, back in the day, SHIELD, Hydra, Leviathan and the Hand used to play war games, but as could be expected, things got out of hand and double-cross-y.

2. It was created by the architect of the Marvel Universe’s destruction: Jonathan Hickman created Leviathan during his run on Secret Warriors, the book about original-recipe Nick Fury’s underground special ops team made up of the children of supervillains. Hickman also wrote the SHIELD series that traced the agency’s origins back to the Egyptian Imhotep in a sort of League of Extraordinary Historical Gentlemen. Hickman can currently be found preparing to smash the multiverse together for this year’s Secret Wars event that may or may not be the end of the Marvel Universe as we know it.

3. One of its members was killed by Bill Paxton: Well, not really, but Magadan, Leviathan’s leader, was assassinated by cybernetically enhanced SHIELD Agent John Garrett, whom Paxton played on the TV show as the eventual big bad of Season 1. Garrett was created by Frank Miller and Bill Sienkiewicz for the 1980s Elektra: Assassin miniseries.

4. Nick Fury’s girlfriend was one of its leaders: Among the Leviathan brass was the Contessa Valentina Allegra de la Fontaine, regular flame of Fury and creation of SHIELD progenitor Jim Steranko. The contessa acted as a mole inside SHIELD and Hydra but was apparently working for the Russian organization the whole time. … except at some point she had been replaced by a Skrull, according to Secret Invasion. Twice.

5. There’s Brood stuff: X-Men fans know the Brood as the Chris Claremont-created Alien ripoffs that like to try to lay their eggs in mutants. Apparently, SHIELD, Hydra, Leviathan and the Hand at one point tried to use Brood technology to create super soldiers (because that’s all any global Marvel organization wants), which is where all the double-crossing comes into play.

Read this: Secret Warriors 1-28 by Brian Michael Bendis, Jonathan Hickman and Stefano Castelli

Watch that: Agent Carter, 9 p.m. Tuesdays on ABC.

Dan Grote has been a Matt Signal contributor since 2014 and friends with Matt since there were four Supermen and two Psylockes. His two novels, My Evil Twin and I and Of Robots, God and Government, are available on Amazon.