Nick Fury And Phil Coulson Have A “Meet-Cute” In ‘Captain Marvel,’ Clark Gregg Teases
When we first meet fan-favorite character Agent Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg) inIron Man, he barely blinks an eye at the sight of metal flying men and gods of thunder. “This isn’t my first rodeo, Mr. Stark,” he says calmly to Robert Downey Jr.’s billionaire superhero.
ButCaptain Marvelwill take us back to that first rodeo — or at least one of Coulson’s early rodeos. More importantly, it will show us the first meeting between Coulson and his longtime boss, Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson). And more exciting than the ’90s fashion and de-aging that we’ll get to see inCaptain Marvelis the prospect of what Gregg teases as a “meet-cute” between Coulson and Fury.
Captain Marveltakes us back to the ’90s, when Nick Fury is still just a desk jockey and Coulson is a fresh-faced agent at S.H.I.E.L.D. And that means we get to see him cut loose a little, especially when it comes to fashion, Gregg revealed in an interview withEntertainment Weekly.
Coulson in hammer pants? That seals it,Captain Marvelis the best Marvel movie. But still, it seems an odd choice of uniform for an agent who regularly works with otherworldly elements. However, EW reveals that this is before Coulson has learned that there are extraterrestial forces at work in the world. He’s in for a rude awakening with the introduction of the Kree, who lendBrie Larson’s Captain Marvel their powers, and the Skrulls, the shape-shifting aliens that infiltrate S.H.I.E.L.D.
He’s also in for a rude awakening when it comes to working with his superiors — namely Fury, who is still a lower-level bureaucrat (with two eyes) at the time ofCaptain Marvel. Coulson and Fury’s first meeting is a “meet-cute moment,” Gregg describes, though, he adds with a laugh, “I don’t think Sam will put it that way.”
So what else can you expect from a young and fresh-faced (literally, with the de-aging technology used in this film) Coulson? “There was something really special about going back to the early days when he was just kind of coming up the ranks,” Gregg says. “I had to take innocence workshops and go back to when he was a little less crusty and jaded!”
It’s worlds away from the cynical Coulson we know in ABC’sAgents of S.H.I.E.L.D.,and even from the mild-mannered badass who becomes the heart of the Marvel Cinematic Universe until his “death” in 2012’sThe Avengers. But mostly I’m excited to see Coulson in hammer pants.
