Does it make me a bad person if I'm still surprised each time Patton Oswalt is cast as an actor?
Don't get me wrong… I think he's very good. I think the work he's done in films like “Big Fan” and “Ratatouille” and “Young Adult” is great. It's just that I still think of him primarily as a stand-up. I also think of him as a consummate fanboy, a guy who unabashedly loves what he loves, and a big part of what he loves is the world of comic books.
It must be delightful when your various passions all converge, and I'm willing to bet that Patton practically sprinted to set when he got the call to join “Marvel's Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D.” as Agent Eric Koenig.
If you're a fan of Nick Fury's history, you might recognize Koenig's name. He was a member of the Howling Commandos and fought in WWII, and after the war, he was part of the formation of S.H.I.E.L.D. He's one of those names that you might flash on as a Marvel fan, but there's plenty of room to decide how they're going to use him here. I hope he's still got strong ties to Fury, though, because it feels like the show is starting to get into some very interesting territory with Nick Fury having gone off the grid and existing more as a phantom than as an active presence.
There are some big seismic shifts ahead for the S.H.I.E.L.D. of the Marvel movie universe, and I'm hoping Oswalt's introduction here is just that… an introduction. They're pretty good on the show about not just burning through a character in one episode, and I'm curious to see if the movies in the future will ever feature characters who are introduced first on the television side of things. I know there's some irritation on the feature side when the subject of “Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D.” comes up, but if the entire experiment's going to work, there needs to be a coherent mythology going back and forth, and it looks like Oswalt's in the mix now.
“Marvel's Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D' airs Tuesdays on ABC.