PATTON OSWALT to guest star on ‘AGENTS OF SHIELD.’ Wee?
Nary a day ago I was complaining about Patton Oswalt Fatigue. Yes — he can be funny. Yes — he likes the same things I do! Wee! But it feels as though Oswalt’s almost in everyone’s fucking face about his nerd credentials. You don’t need to flaunt that geek swagger, dude. Just wear your badge and be proud of it. But low and behold, the Good Lord Odin fucking hates me. For he heard my protestations and has responded by ingratiating Oswalt into yet another dork phenomenon that I dig.
Marvel announced today that comedian and geek celebrity Patton Oswalt will be appearing in one episode of Agents of SHIELD as Eric Koenig, a Nazi soldier who defected to join Nick Fury’s Howling Commandos and later became an agent of SHIELD. I think it’s a safe bet, however, that for the show, Koenig’s backstory will not extend all the way back to World War II.
Oswalt couldn’t be more excited, or at least that’s the sense I get from his interview with Marvel.com.
I got a call from my agent saying they want you on Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., and I said ‘hell, yes. I’m lucky that I’m visible enough that they wanted to bring me in to play this character. I’d worked with Joss before on ‘Dollhouse,’ and I guess I wasn’t too annoying and they decided to put me on another one of his shows.
The comedian said that he’s really digging the “wheels-within-wheels” spy stories the show has started to unfold. His appreciation for the show content is what lead him to name drop The Wire, one of the best regarded television shows of the past decade.
[The main characters are] a scrappy bunch of agents who are sort of working on the lower tier levels of the Marvel Universe and trying to stop threats before they even get to the Avengers-level threats. It’s almost like when you watch ‘The Wire,’ and the guys like Pryzbylewski are just chasing the paper trail but that’s kind of the whole case. That’s where they can bring these guys down, is they’re doing the kind of brutal grunt work. There are these people doing the day to day that keeps the world from spinning into chaos. [The Mary Sue]