Will Clark Gregg’s Agent Coulson Return in ‘The Avengers 2’?

If you haven't seen 'The Avengers' yet, click away from the story right now. Seriously. Spoilers are going to begin once this sentence has concluded and there will be no further warnings. As over one billions dollars worth of people know, SHIELD Agent Phil Coulson was killed by the evil Loki during the events of 'The Avengers' and gave the titular team the needed motivation to come together and save the day. However, death is easily overturned in the comic book world, so why not here? MTV got Clark Gregg, Coulson himself, to set the record straight.

On the popular rumor that Coulson would return as the cybernetic Avenger The Vision, Gregg said:

"Vision is cool, but I would hate to be any AI life form. If I got to come back, I would need to still be somebody who could wisecrack, because my favorite part of the job was that if anybody was going to tease anybody about their diva superhero outfit or whatever, it would be me."

Unless Gregg is flat-out lying (and Marvel Studios representatives have blatantly lied to the internet before in their attempt to keep their plans hush-hush), that sounds like a pretty definitive answer: Agent Coulson is dead and buried, forever and ever, amen.

Still, Gregg has no regrets and is actually quite satisfied with the arc of his character:

"I really love what Joss did with Agent Coulson in 'The Avengers.' It seems like an idea that was in the cards, not only from Joss but from Marvel, in that you needed to ground the movie in some real emotion and stakes. I loved playing that guy, and I'll miss playing him, but I was glad to have that job."

As much as we'll miss Gregg's presence in the Marvel movie universe, his memorable death will hopefully mark his return behind the camera. In 2008 (the same year Coulson debuted with 'Iron Man'), Gregg made his directorial debut with 'Choke,' a memorable dark comedy based on a Chuck Palahniuk novel starring Sam Rockwell. It's not so much that the world needs more Agent Coulson, it's that the world needs more Clark Gregg.