Strapping Up and Serving Coffee

Rumor has it we might get another female character in Joss Whedon's Avengers movie. While y'all know my feelings on the subject of the awesomeness of She-Hulk, I do find the suggestion that the lady in question be Maria Hill interesting.

One of the things that was best about The Incredibles was the ways it teased out the infrastructure that superheroes need to do their work, from the allusions to Rick Dicker's work in the National Supers Agency to the immortal Edna Mole (all of which would make for great elements of a sequel). Before Iron Man and the current progression towards The Avengers, super-heroes either operated independently like Spider-Man, or operated within the aegis of the X-Men. Either way, those organizations and fraternities have had more to do with how super-heroes and villains govern themselves internally and align themselves with and against each other than how superheroes relate to the rest of humanity.

Obviously, that's been changing in the Iron Man movies, and it's going to change with the role of S.H.I.E.L.D. in Thor. I think having someone like Maria Hill, who is a major character and a major player in super-heroes governance, but is not herself super-powered, be a major player, is a nice bridge. Would I prefer a full-on super-heroine movie? Sure. But I'll take—and give Joss Whedon—whatever we can get to work with. And Maria Hill would be a smart expansion of the genre, rather than a compromise.