An Introduction To Daisy Johnson And Calvin Zabo
The winter finale of Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. opened quite a few new doors and may have invariably changed how the show will look going forward. Spoilers ahead, so if you haven’t seen “What They Become,” bookmark this and read it after you’ve watched it!
It’s funny, because commenting on the show with my nerdfriend Austin and my fiancee, my fiancee confessed that he’s not as obsessed with the show as I am. “Honestly, I need more superheroes in it,” he said over coffee, and Austin and I just looked at each other, because my fiancee had yet to see the winter finale.
If you are not seeped in the comic book lore, you may have found yourself lost at the many reveals that happened during “What They Become.” Heck, even I didn’t blink an eye when Skye’s dad said, “Hi, I’m Cal.” But I did freak when he called Skye “Daisy.” And if you read my review, I didn’t give you much information about Daisy Johnson and Calvin Zabo, aside from their names.
Here is your introductory course to these two comic book characters. I don’t plan on going so horribly deep that you’ll be lost, but I will give you a fair base so you aren’t lost when the show comes back in March.
Calvin Zabo is a brilliant scientist who is obsessed with hormonal influences on human physiology. He takes a particular liking to Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde because he believed what happens in that story can be duplicated in real life. So he tries to do it on himself and is successful in creating a hulking beast form where he has superhuman strength. Not unlike the Hulk (though nowhere near that ridiculously strong, though in the comics he does attempt to take on Thor).
Half the time, you get a genius of incredible regard, knowledgeable in many different fields, and the rest of the time, you get an enormous green rage monster, minus the green.
This isn’t exactly what we get in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., but Marvel’s adaptations aren’t always note for note. Especially for a show that’s trying to ground itself in (somewhat) reality. We have seen that Cal loses his cool fairly quickly and “snaps,” we have seen him kill a large number of people and just in this last episode, kick the crap out of Coulson without regard for anything else as well as completely decimate a Hydra guard by snapping his neck with relative ease.
In the comics, he has a daughter with a prostitute who gave the daughter up for adoption. His daughter is Daisy Johnson, who discovered she had superpowers due to his self-mutated genes.
Who knows where Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. will take his character in the rest of the season, but I can see him either going off the deep end completely and becoming their new big baddie rather than Whitehall, or casually coming in every now and then to give Skye some guidance on how to control her transformation and come to terms with it. Most likely the latter.
Which brings me to…
Daisy Johnson is S.H.I.E.L.D. agent who has the power to generate waves of vibrations similar to earthquakes, hence why she is also known as Quake. In the comics, she is taken under wing by Nick Fury personally and became part of his underground network. She even took over as Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. when Fury went off-grid, at the ripe age of 18. She has a “Level 10” clearance, which only Fury and Natasha Romanoff hold.
Training under Fury, much like the X-Men under Professor X, taught her how to use her seismic powers with an incredible accuracy. Terrifyingly so: she can make one particular object vibrate itself apart from the inside out. She once defeated Magneto, making him lose consciousness by vibrating his brain. She also helps out during the Skrull invasion (though I don’t know if that will come to fruition–does Marvel have the rights to the Skrull?)
Quake is also adept at hand-to-hand combat, has a great shot, and is an all-around athlete. Take out the last one, and Skye pretty much fits those parameters. That is about all we have seen of “Daisy Johnson” in the show, but expect that to change drastically.
In the comics, Quake/Daisy is not an Inhuman. But since Marvel can’t use that “mutant” word, they have tweaked her origin just a bit. We haven’t gotten much in the way of her superpowers, only the Hydra hideout beginning to crumble down. Inhumans all have the trait of not aging–or at least aging slowly, much like the Asgardians compared to humans. I can only assume that Skye will be the same.
This will also be the first foray into the superhuman for a main character that Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has tried (unless you want to count Deathlok, but he was more recurring than main). It marks a completely different path for the show, one that people thought would happen at the start of the series.
It will be interesting to see if it pays off, where they take it, and just how much about the Inhumans they will divulge this soon before the movie hits theaters in just under four years.