MCU misses opportunity with SHIELD replacement: Damage Control

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In the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), there was a group called SHIELD that was important in the beginning of the movies. It had characters like Nick Fury, Maria Hill, and Agent Coulson. However, in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, it was revealed that a bad group called HYDRA was inside SHIELD and caused it to fall apart. After that, the MCU did not have a replacement for SHIELD until Wanda Vision introduced a new group called SWORD that protects Earth from aliens.

SWORD is undoubtedly significant to the MCU, given its role in upcoming films such as Secret Invasion and The Marvels. Damage Control, who first appeared in the comics in 1988 and in Spider-Man: Homecoming for the MCU, has emerged as SHIELD’s true replacement. Surprisingly, this organisation has deviated from its comic book origins, picking up the shattered pieces of SHIELD and absorbing its responsibilities and tactics. The current function of Damage Control in the MCU appears to be very similar to SHIELD’s during Phases 1 and 2.

In the Marvel comics, there is a company called Damage Control that fixes things that are broken by superheroes. In the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), Damage Control is more like a government agency that deals with superpowered people. In Spider-Man: Homecoming, they are shown as a government agency and in other movies and shows, they are like the FBI for superheroes. In Spider-Man: No Way Home, they arrested Peter Parker after he was exposed by Mysterio. In Ms. Marvel, they were the bad guys who were trying to capture Kamala and Kamran.

Damage Control’s appeal in the comics stems from its often-comical depiction of ordinary people dealing with powerful and destructive superheroes and villains. If there’s a way to go back to that, just as there’s a way for SHIELD to return via Chloe Bennett’s Quake, the MCU should go for it. Such would not have to violate canon or necessitate massive retcons. Simply put, the MCU could show actual agents, or better yet, construction workers performing the functions of Damage Control. Damage Control could atone for its strangely villainous past if it returned to and maintained its roots.