“Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD:” An Introduction To Holden Radcliffe

He showed up in the last few episodes of “Agents of SHIELD’s” third season. So what do the comics tell us about him?

Holden Radcliffe was a late addition to Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD, only showing up in the last handful of episodes. He was explained as a scientist obsessed with cybernetics and enhancing humankind through technology.

He ended up getting “recruited” (read: kidnapped/threatened) by Hive to recreate the Kree serum used to make him what he was. Of course, it didn’t go so well, and Radcliffe bolted for SHIELD at the first chance he got.

In that flash-forward, he looks to have aligned himself with SHIELD for the time being, and seems to be making his AI assistant AIDA into a living, corporeal being. This is intriguing, sketchy, and leaves me with a lot of questions.

Let’s turn to the source material: the comics.

Well… there’s not much to Holden Radcliffe. At least–not as much as you would think. He was in the comic series Machine Teen in 2004 as a wealthy business owner obsessed with building androids as soldiers. He hires a man named Aaron Isaacs, who is streets ahead in robotics, and creates ADAM, the Autonomously Decisive Automated Mechanism.

Naturally, there’s betrayal between Radcliffe and Isaacs, so Isaacs takes his work with him, builds a beta version of his AI project, and changes his name to go into hiding.

At some point, Adam realizes he’s a robot, confides in a friend, who happens to tell a cop, and that gets back to Holden. Holden hunts him down and captures Adam and Isaacs. He attempts to hack Adam’s brain to get him under control. Adam fakes being part of Holden’s team to help Isaacs escape and ends up self-destructing, taking Holden with him to the grave.

There’s not much in common between the comics and the television show, but Agents of SHIELD does take some liberties with the source material. However, our television Radcliffe drops many an easter egg in that last scene. Mostly with the name AIDA.

In the comics, AIDA is the creation of one Thomas Thompson, also known as Tom Thumb, who happened to be a member of something called the Squadron Supreme. AIDA, or Artificial Intelligence Data Analyser, is an AI assistant to Thumb, which he treats more as a friend and companion than a computer program.

As she progressed in the comics, she showed signs of a distinct personality and so much more than a machine is programmed to do. She tends to act more like Tony Stark’s Jarvis/FRIDAY than just a computer program.

There’s more to her than meets the eye in the comics, and if that quick glance at a humanlike figure behind frosted glass, the AIDA in Agents of SHIELD will have more to her than who or whatever we first meet.

So there’s not much to Holden Radcliffe’s story in the comics, but what about Tom Thumb and the Squadron Supreme? Stay tuned for our next SHIELD article this Friday when we take on the Squadron Supreme head on and make a few guesses as to how they might appear in season four!