'Agents of SHIELD' Season 7 Episode 1: Was the Coulson LMD inspired by Dum Dum Dugan from the comics?
We can't imagine a season of 'Agents of SHIELD' without Agent Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg) and two seasons after his death, the character still manages to stick around on the show. While last season featured an alien who was basically a clone of Coulson, Season 7 features a Life Model Decoy of the former SHIELD director and it looks like this latest reincarnation may have been inspired by a classic SHIELD character from the comics.
Marvel Cinematic Univers (MCU) fans would remember Timothy "Dum Dum" Dugan as played by Neal McDonough in 'Captain America: The First Avenger'. In the MCU, Dugan was a member of the 69th Infantry Regiment and later the Howling Commandos, Captain America's (Chris Evans) handpicked team of soldiers fighting the threat of Hydra.
The comic book version of Dugan would go on to become a high-ranking member of SHIELD until his death during a secret mission alongside his best friend Nick Fury. Unable to let go of his friend, Fury brings Dugan back as an LMD, though he doesn't reveal this to him for years.
Much like Coulson, Dugan's LMD was also enhanced with alien technology though the encyclopedic knowledge of SHIELD history is all Coulson. While Dugan initially believed himself to be an AI, it was eventually revealed that his mind was actually being projected from his real body, which is kept in stasis at an unknown location.
That's not the case with Coulson though, as it is revealed in Season 7 Episode 1 'The New Deal' that a copy of his mind created by SHIELD's Framework technology was uploaded to the LMD. However, despite that minor difference, the similarities between the two characters are uncanny.
Considering the SHIELD team will be traveling through history in Season 7, there's every chance that Coulson might run into Dugan at some point. We don't know if the MCU version of Dugan was replaced with an LMD too but it is pretty unlikely, though we're sure Coulson would still greatly enjoy meeting one of his heroes from history.
Here's the synopsis for Season 7 Episode 2 'Know Your Onions': "With the identity of the timeline-unraveling 'thread' revealed, the team’s mission to protect him at all costs leads each agent to question their own values. Is preserving the future of the world as they know it worth the destruction they could prevent?"
'Agents of SHIELD' Season 7 airs Wednesdays at 10 pm ET on ABC.