I wasn't really specifically referring to the show as much as the organization in the MU. SHIELD generally reflects the government's desire to have some sort of control over all this madness, but failing spectacularly to actually succeed at anything other than comic book, over the top spy games.
Fair enough, in the current century. I think it hewed closer to the crazy sci-fi spy genre back in the past century, and particularly in its Steranko heyday. I don't think I have to say which version I prefer.
They're quite a bit more powerful in the Ultimate setting, where they're basically at the center of everything, but they still manage to fuck things up more often than not.
And of course the film universe is an often-awkward sort of hybrid between the two. The designs are mostly Hitch or Hitch-influenced (except Iron Man, which is pure Granov), while the characters and their origins are closer to their Kirby/Lee/et al incarnations. It's an attempt to reconcile the aspirational, if flawed, heroes of the 1960's with more modern, grim-'n'-gritty sensibilities, and the SHIELD series, by going ground-level, makes that awkward contradiction all the plainer. The climax of the episode has one character talking about how terrifying it is to have actual gods walking the Earth and hitting aliens with hammers and seriously, how the hell is one man supposed to feel like he can do anything; Coulson responds that they don't do what they do because of their gifts, they do it because of the kind of people they are.
(Which reminds me of something Evanier has often said about Kirby: "You will probably never be able to draw like him, but you do have the ability to work as hard as he did.")
It really didn't work for me. But I appreciate the effort.
I haven't actually watched the pilot for the show yet, but guys, it's about SHIELD. They're not just, like, contractors for SHIELD, they're actually fucking SHIELD, so they kind of have to be shown as being in the right.
Well yes, that's it exactly -- so if they're depicted as being Big Brother, then ipso facto Big Brother has to be shown as being in the right.
The question then becomes, is it possible at all to depict a covert government organization in 2013 without showing it spying on its citizens and violating their fundamental rights?
My answer is yes, it is, IF you're doing escapist fantasy.
They don't need to make any statement at all about current events or the modern surveillance state, but they've chosen to wade into it. And while one character pretty effectively calls out how terrifying this all is, she comes around by the end of the episode and realizes they're the good guys.
Now, it's entirely possible she'll continue to be a voice of protest throughout the show, try to reform them from the inside -- possibly even play the kind of role that Green Arrow did on JLU. That would be great! But judging by the pilot alone, the whole thing's pretty disquieting and fuck no I do not consider SHIELD to be in the right and find it deeply problematic that the writers/producers/network think I SHOULD after that hour.
Also, the problem with Civil War was that they fucked it up by completely failing to portray both sides as equally valid (as promised), and turning Tony Stark into a "THEY SAID I WAS CRAZY" mad scientist villain, along with Reed. CLONE THOR IS PERFECTLY ETHICAL. NO I DIDN'T STOP TAKING MY MEDS. It then transitioned into being about Tony and Cap's failed marriage and then stumbled into an awkward faceplant of an ending.
Yeah, Tony and Reed really didn't come off well and the whole Clone Thor thing was just bonkers. But I still think the premise is flawed from the start, at least as set in the Marvel Universe -- the premise of a Registration Act would work fine in the Ultimate Universe, though the UU would have its own problems with the story (mainly, too small a cast to make for much of a Civil War, and a much harder case for who would be on the anti-registration side -- as Millar himself noted, Ultimate Cap would definitely be pro-).