- —Phil Coulson[src]
History
Battle Scars[]
Since he was a child, Phil Coulson was obsessed with super heroes. As he grew up, he would constantly study and keep track of them, having created his own database of super humans for fun.[8] As an adult he joined the United States Army Rangers, where he befriended Marcus Johnson and earned the callsign "Cheese." During the War of the Serpent, Cheese and Johnson were stationed in Afghanistan, and fought against the fear-induced riots caused by the Serpent's global influence.[2]
Unbeknownst to Marcus, he was the secret son of legendary spy Nick Fury.[9] When the secret was leaked, enemies of Fury killed Marcus' mother Nia using the worldwide riots as a cover to draw him out.[10] Johnson was notified of his mother's death when the War of the Serpent ended, and he came back home for her funeral.[2] Coulson returned to America around the same time on a leave of absence. When Marcus investigated Nia's murder, he called Cheese for help in tracking down their killers.[11] In the resulting adventure, Coulson joined forces with the Avengers and S.H.I.E.L.D. to rescue Marcus when he and Fury were captured by the would-be world conqueror Orion. In the aftermath, both Coulson and Johnson joined S.H.I.E.L.D.. In addition to having discovered the truth of his parentage, Marcus also learned that his legal name was Nick Fury, Jr. and decided to adopt that name.[12]
Coulson and Fury Jr. later joined S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Secret Avengers black-ops team, and was responsible for the recruitment of its first members, Black Widow and Hawkeye.[13] Following the dissolution of the Secret Avengers, Coulson became S.H.I.E.L.D.'s supreme commander for Special Ops.[8] In one of the team's first big missions, he faced off against Dormammu to prevent humankind from turning into Mindless Ones. He subsequently freed Doctor Strange from Dormammu's imprisonment, after Strange had helped Coulson put together the pieces in order to find out about Dormammu's secret mission.[14]
Axiom Protocols[]
Coulson reached out to his former fiancée Lola Daniels after discovering she was attached to a project stolen from the Pentagon by a mysterious person wearing a counterfeit Iron Man Armor. The project turned out to be a database named the Quantum Drive which contained highly sensitive plans on how to take out every super hero on Earth,[15] created from Coulson's knowledge of super heroes, retrieved directly from his mind years ago by Lola using her secret telepathic powers.
In order to atone for her past actions, and because the Department of Defense didn't want it in the wrong hands either, Lola helped Coulson learn the time and date when an auction for the Quantum Drive was going to be held.[16] Once his agents investigated the place of the auction, Barbuda, Coulson infiltrated the island posing as Wolverine.[17] While the D.O.D.'s operative John Walker won the auction, Coulson stole the drive from him and his agents got their hands on it.[18] However, Coulson was immediately attacked and captured by the counterfeit Iron Man, who turned out to be Coulson's former partner Grant Ward, and now an agent of Hydra. Ward additionally kidnapped Lola, and forced her to extract once again the information used to make the Axiom Protocols so they could be replicated.[19]
While Hydra launched several attacks on super heroes using more knock-off Iron Man suits funded with the profit from the auction, Coulson escaped imprisonment and attempted to stop Ward and his master, Gorgon. Coulson and Lola were soon rescued by Coulson's agents and several super heroes. Ward and Gorgon were eventually defeated, but Lola was killed in the middle of the battle. This incident involving the Axiom Protocols also damaged the trust between Coulson and his team, as they realized Coulson hadn't merely thought of protocols against super heroes, but also his closest allies.[20]
Civil War II[]
During the early days of the second superhuman Civil War, Coulson and his team were deployed to arrest Iron Man, who had invaded New Attilan to investigate an Inhuman who could profile the future. Knowing the agents were on his trail, Iron Man lured them to one of his bases and tried to convince Coulson to join his cause, explaining him details about the events which Director Maria Hill had omitted. Coulson let Iron Man go free and expressed his willingness to refuse orders if S.H.I.E.L.D. decided to use the Inhuman for proactive justice together with Captain Marvel, for which Hill discharged him.[21]
Via his spy within S.H.I.E.L.D., S.H.E.R.B.I.E., Coulson learned that Captain Marvel was about to conduct another preemptive arrest and tried to prevent that – only to find out that the alleged arrest had been a trap and be arrested himself.[22] Director Hill eventually admitted Coulson's value as an asset, and decided to keep him in lockup until the Civil War blew over, cutting him loose after that. After the D.O.D.'s head General Strakofsky had confessed to Agent Fitz that he planned to illegally sell weapons to Russia, Strakofsky was arrested and Coulson was reinstated as an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D..[23]
Secret Empire[]
When time-travellers arrived from the future to try to kill Captain America, Rogers subdued them with help from Agent Coulson and Deadpool. In the process, Rogers had Deadpool shoot one of the attackers despite having been disarmed. Coulson became suspicious of Captain America and started to investigate him.[24] In reality, Captain America had been secretly supplanted by a fascist version of himself from another timeline.[25] Coulson soon learned that Rogers was involved in a secret plan that consisted of attracting the Chitauri to invade the Earth. When Coulson was en route to a safehouse in his flying car Lola, Rogers ordered Deadpool to kill him, claiming Coulson had gone rogue. Deadpool, convinced that his idol couldn't stand on the wrong side, shot Lola from the sky, chased Coulson to his hideout and shot him in the chest despite Phil's pleas that he listen to him.[6]
Squadron Supreme of America[]
Coulson was returned to life, some time after the fall of the fascist Captain America,[7] with the help of Mephisto.[26] The trauma that resulted from his death turned Phil into a cynic, disillusioning him of super heroes.[27] Following the appointment of Wakanda's king Black Panther as chairman of the Avengers, US government agent Thunderbolt Ross determined that it would be harder for the United States to turn to the Avengers to act in their interests. In response to this, Ross called in Coulson to build a government-sanctioned super-team, the Squadron Supreme of America.[7]
Heroes Reborn[]
Wanting a world where the Avengers never existed, Coulson sold his soul to Mephisto to obtain the Pandemonium Cube, a demonic artifact with which Coulson warped reality into Earth-21798,[28] a reality where the Avengers never existed, the Squadron Supreme was the world's premiere superhero team,[29] and the majority of the United States worshipped Mephisto.[30]
However, Blade the Vampire Hunter was unaffected by the reality warp and began assembling his own team of Avengers to restore reality to its proper state.[31] Blade and his Avengers were ultimately successful, and reality was restored. Coulson ended up trapped inside his Pandemonium Cube, and Mephisto revealed that the whole reality warp was just a demonstration to the Council of Red, an interdimensional group of various Mephistos, how much reality could be changed by just one Mephisto.[28]Attributes
Abilities
Paraphernalia
Equipment
Transportation
Notes
- The comics have presented contradictory information regarding Coulson's past. Despite Battle Scars establishing Coulson as an Army Ranger who didn't join S.H.I.E.L.D. until the events of the series (set chronologically after Fear Itself), S.H.I.E.L.D. (Vol. 3) #1 showed Coulson working as a data analyst for S.H.I.E.L.D. when he was twenty-five years old (roughly ten years before the present), and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. #5 placed him as a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent sometime before Civil War (Event).
Trivia
- Phil Coulson was the first S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent that didn't originate from the comics, but from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. He is modeled after his MCU counterpart's actor, Clark Gregg.
- Throughout the majority of Battle Scars, Coulson was only called by his callsign, "Cheese." His identity was only revealed in the final pages of the series. Battle Scars #2 includes a hint at Cheese's identity, when he becomes excited after learning that Marcus Johnson met Captain America and points out that Marcus knows how he feels about the hero. In the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Coulson is a big fan of Captain America.
- As a S.H.I.E.L.D. operative, Phil Coulson was a Level 7 agent.[33][24]
- Coulson used to moderate a fanfic website called FreakingAwesome.com. His username was "ROFLCopter."[4]
See Also
- 132 appearance(s) of Phillip Coulson (Earth-616)
- 7 appearance(s) in handbook(s) of Phillip Coulson (Earth-616)
- 17 minor appearance(s) of Phillip Coulson (Earth-616)
- 25 mention(s) of Phillip Coulson (Earth-616)
- 3 mention(s) in handbook(s) of Phillip Coulson (Earth-616)
- 89 image(s) of Phillip Coulson (Earth-616)
- 13 quotation(s) by or about Phillip Coulson (Earth-616)
- 1 item(s) used/owned by Phillip Coulson (Earth-616)
Links and References
References
- ↑ Avengers (Vol. 8) #21
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Battle Scars #1
- ↑ S.H.I.E.L.D. (Vol. 3) #11
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 All-New, All-Different Avengers Annual #1
- ↑ Battle Scars #3
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Deadpool (Vol. 6) #31
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 Avengers (Vol. 8) #10
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 S.H.I.E.L.D. (Vol. 3) #1
- ↑ Battle Scars #5
- ↑ Fear Itself #7
- ↑ Battle Scars #2
- ↑ Battle Scars #6
- ↑ Secret Avengers (Vol. 2) #1
- ↑ S.H.I.E.L.D. (Vol. 3) #6
- ↑ Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. #1
- ↑ Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. #2
- ↑ Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. #3
- ↑ Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. #4
- ↑ Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. #5
- ↑ Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. #6
- ↑ Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. #7
- ↑ Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. #9
- ↑ Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. #10
- ↑ 24.0 24.1 Deadpool (Vol. 6) #27
- ↑ Captain America: Steve Rogers #2
- ↑ Avengers (Vol. 8) #18
- ↑ Avengers (Vol. 8) #11
- ↑ 28.0 28.1 Heroes Return #1
- ↑ Heroes Reborn (Vol. 2) #1
- ↑ Heroes Reborn (Vol. 2) #4
- ↑ Heroes Reborn (Vol. 2) #1–7
- ↑ Secret Avengers (Vol. 3) #9
- ↑ Deadpool (Vol. 6) #26
- ↑ Marvel Avengers: The Ultimate Character Guide #2
- ↑ Avengers NOW! Vol 1 1