User blog comment:Demileto/Is Lincoln Campbell really an alias for Thomas Ward?/@comment-26844548-20150801151422/@comment-26918230-20150902073324

@Demileto: There wouldn’t necessarily have to be a conflict between them. I have yet to see The Avengers: Age of Ultron so I’m not really sure what’s their classification in the MCU, but from all the promotional material got the impression we’re supposed to assume for now that Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch are Inhuman. And from what I understand of it Wanda Maximoff is supposed to have an additional appearance next year as either a student or fellow classmate of Doctor Strange in order to get a better mastery of her abilities. I personally don’t think they’re Inhuman, as their powers were seemingly activated by Loki’s sceptre over anything Terrigenic, but goes to show in that universe that even some rare products of experimentation can manifest abilities that can be likened to magic (and what are Inhumans in the end but a long line of products of Kree experimentation). I haven’t really been following his interviews in a while, but Kevin Feige always used to express a lot of enthusiasm for being able to introduce the more magical and mystical aspects of Marvel into the MCU with the advent of Doctor Strange. And knowing them they’ll probably continue to try and give magic in the MCU some sort of weird comic-book science grounding which in a lot of areas probably wouldn’t be too far off from the knowledge and technology of say the Kree or in the nine realms. I mean, who really knows about the mechanics of it until they start to explain it but from interviews they seemed to present the individual ability to wield magic as little more than some showy manipulation of the laws of physics (not very intelligently put by me but I thought that was the basic gist of it). Do you remember Simmons’s frustrated ponderings in Episode 2.13, “One of Us”, I think it was, as to how Skye’s Inhumanity is able to allow her to tap into nature’s vibrations and in the worst cases become, in Skye’s words, “a walking natural disaster”? We’ve sort of already opened the doors into these new areas for characters like FitzSimmons to explore and the seemingly unlimited potential of at least some powered individuals. If going through the mist activates potential in Skye to tap into the vibrations around her then why wouldn’t doing so for Grant not only give him his Hellfire powers but also an ability to tap into means of manipulating reality. Or whatever it would mean for him exactly, as I don’t know much about the abilities of James Taylor Slade in the comics, though I can see them trying to line it up with the Doctor Strange corner of the universe. And one way or another, A. o. S. is going to have to link up to these upcoming developments. Consider that Doctor Strange is the only Phase Three film that can be fully addressed within Season 4 of A.o.S. I mean, there’s also Guardians of the Galaxy: Volume Two six months later but for now I think it’s still supposed to be semi-separate from the show. And while the show may be way ahead of the rest of the MCU on the front of Inhumans, it’s going to need to start setting up for magic and mysticism. What better way to do that than with one of the original six -- Grant who turns out to be Inhuman like Skye, but in addition to having some element-based powers like her (fire to her earth) has abilities that allow him to participate in this next step, next phase of exploring what’s possible in this universe. And through him we have access in a familiar character to whatever they’re planning to start to show us in Season 4.:-)

(I could see them sort of superficially referencing the Phantom Rider imagery and mythology, but otherwise not have either Carter or Lincoln Slade (Carter or Lincoln Ward), having served as the character, or for the role to have actually existed at all in the MCU. Still, I’m hoping they take all of this Slade family stuff in the comics and adapt it for their own purposes; it looks really boring on paper in its original run but I could see a lot of potential with it if they mash it with what they’ve already set up with the Ward family stuff in the show.)