Marvel One-Shot: The Consultant

Marvel One-Shot: The Consultant

During the first phase of the MCU, Marvel released these very short pieces to help bridge some of the other gaps, or connect characters that might have been forgotten about. In the Consultant, there is talk that the Abomination from The Incredible Hulk (2008) was being considered to be an Avenger. Obviously that doesn't happen, but it's cute to see a rerun of Tony Stark's talk with General Ross in the bar from the end of that movie. Comic books are well known for telling vast stories that can last decades, but every once in a while a "one-shot" book will be released just to paint a fuller picture. There are others, and I will review them in the order that they were shown to audiences. This one took place between Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger.

An interesting Marvel mini! It was actually pleasant!

While this one shot was sort of a quick connection between movies, it doesn't really do much or add to the overall story in any way. It was more to just give a quick reasoning as to why Stark went to Ross in the first place.

I did like the conversation between Coulson and Sitwell. I have always liked Coulson as the straight shooting agent but this flick shows that he has a personality and some humor with him. Sitwell is OK though, as we haven't seen much of him anyway. I did find it interesting that the government wanted to send Blonsky over Banner though. Blonsky is a soldier and Banner was a fugitive so it does sort of make sense that they pick the Abomination over the Hulk, but as Shield knows the real story,it kind of adds as to how exactly the Hulk was actually recruited for the Avengers.

+ Coulson and Sitwell + Quick explanation for Hulk, Avengers and Stark - Didn't add anything for overall story - Not as good as other one shots - Could have possibly done more

Final Score 6.8/10

Agents Coulson and Sitwell meet in a diner to figure out a Level 6 clearance issue.

So this almost definitely started out as course correction. They didn't know exactly how to tie the Cinematic Universe together yet, so when they were doing the post credit scene for The Incredible Hulk, they tried to set up a very straightforward way for the Hulk to end up on the team, and later decided to handle that within the first Avengers movie instead. Well, that leaves this to tie up the loose end. And considering that, it actually is a lot better than you might think. It's essentially mostly people talking, but even this early on the mcu were excellent at dialogue and character interactions. This is 3 and a half minutes long, or three if you don't count the end credits.

This is currently available on the Disney plus streaming service. I recommend it to any fan of the franchise. 7/10.

These One Shots are really fan bait. Often understated, single concept and great character pieces, these are delightful. I give this short film a 7 (delightful) out of 10. {Marvel Segue}