Why Has Agents Of SHIELD Introduced General Rick Stoner?
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 5 has introduced General Rick Stoner as the man behind the Lighthouse. It seems that, back in the ’60s and ’70s, S.H.I.E.L.D. believed the world was facing an extinction-level event. They created a bunker, one that they thought was strong enough to actually survive the end of the world. Stoner planned to assemble Earth’s best and brightest in the Lighthouse; they would ride out the so-called “Hydrogen Wave,” and then return to the surface to reclaim their world.
In 1972, the Hydrogen Wave crisis was averted. But, mysteriously, Stoner didn’t choose to use the Lighthouse; instead, he had it systematically erased from S.H.I.E.L.D. records. Even Fury’s Toolbox, passed on to Coulson when he became Director, didn’t contain any reference to the Lighthouse. Why did Stoner do this? What use is a potential sanctuary for humanity, one that has presumably cost a fortune to build, if nobody knows it exists?
These are intriguing questions, and they raise another difficult one; why has Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. introduced the character of Rick Stoner in the first place?
Rick Stoner, Time Travel And Project Backslide
The reality is that Rick Stoner is a very deep cut in Marvel lore. In the comics, Stoner was actually Nick Fury’s predecessor as Director of S.H.I.E.L.D., but has only ever appeared in one issue; a flashback sequence in 1994’s Fury #1, which revealed he’d been assassinated by Hydra. Four years later, Marvel revisited the character, revealing that he’d survived the assassination attempt. Feeling abandoned by S.H.I.E.L.D., Stoner dedicated himself to rewriting history and became focused on Project Backslide. According to Fury, this was a S.H.I.E.L.D. attempt to master time-travel. Here’s how he described it in Fury / Agent 13 #2:
“A top secret project that [Stoner] had launched durin’ his run, attemptin’ to create a working time-tunnel with energies siphoned from a home-made Cosmic Cube. A project I’d shut down years ago, when one too many good agents died tryin’ to contain and control the Cube’s impossible forces, leavin’ nothin’ behind but a failed, empty, pocket dimension. Or so I’d been led to believe.”
Backslide was a failure. It didn’t actually create a time-tunnel; instead, it created a pocket dimension, one that would be shaped by the fears and memories of anyone who entered it. Fury pursued Stoner into the Backslide dimension and became trapped there. When Stoner realized he hadn’t actually traveled in time, he committed suicide, leaving Fury stranded and alone, playing war games with his own memories. Incredibly, Stoner himself didn’t appear in the comic at all - bar as a skeleton in the dirt.
Is Backslide Coming To SHIELD?
The promo for Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s 100th episode, “The Real Deal,” has dropped a number of intriguing hints. It’s confirmed reports that the episode will see figures from S.H.I.E.L.D.’s past return. In a surprising twist, though, two of the characters who’ve been teased are actually dead. The Inhumans Lash and Hive both died in Season 3 in rather decisive terms; Hive was literally blown apart in space. Meanwhile, the promo also promises the return of Ghost Rider.
On the face of it, this is a bewildering prospect. What do Lash, Hive, and Ghost Rider have to do with the current high-concept time-travel arc? The promo actually offers an answer, though, with a single shot of what appears to be a dimensional rift. It seems S.H.I.E.L.D. is encountering another dimension.
It’s important to note that all three of the cameo characters have strong emotional ties to the S.H.I.E.L.D. team: both Coulson and Mack have hosted the Spirit of Vengeance, and “The Real Deal” will reportedly reveal Coulson’s deal with the devil; Lash was May’s ex-husband; and Hive possessed the body of the treacherous Grant Ward, reducing Daisy to an addict desperate for a fix. All three are characters who would conceivably be summoned up by the Backslide project. There’s even a Vrellnexian creature from the future, too, one that would certainly be feared by Deke. This certainly sounds like Project Backslide.
But how could Project Backslide fit into the broader themes of Season 5?
Fitting Project Backslide Into Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D.
It’s actually not too difficult to imagine how Backslide could fit into Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.. Back in the ’70s, General Stoner was working on a project to allow the last remnant of humanity to survive an extinction-level event. Logically, though, that wouldn’t be good enough. A better option, surely, would be to create a way for the survivors to rewrite history. Project Backslide could have been envisioned as a way of stepping back in time and averting the end of the world, as in the comics possibly inspired by Tesseract technology (the MCU equivalent of the Cosmic Cube). In thematic terms, that’s pretty much what the S.H.I.E.L.D. team are trying to do right now.
However, the theory would be that it failed; instead of creating a time-tunnel, Backslide created an unstable pocket dimension, one where everyone’s worst fears and memories were brought back to life. Recognizing this as a terrifying weapon, Stoner keeps it in the Lighthouse and erased all records of the base’s existence. He understandably feared what would happen if S.H.I.E.L.D. agents’ fears and memories were given form, and began to wreak havoc in the real world.
The Lighthouse was forgotten, and claimed as a base by the Chronicoms. Although sentient, the Chronicoms are machines, and didn’t trigger Backslide. It remained dormant, awaiting human minds to give it shape. Then S.H.I.E.L.D. arrived, and the Backslide dimension has human minds to feed into it again. It’s even possible that Stoner managed to lock Backslide down, but the explosion at the end of “All the Comforts of Home” has damaged its containment unit, opening the dimensional breach once again.
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Project Backslide fits perfectly with Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 5. This forgotten comic book plot would allow S.H.I.E.L.D. to face the ghosts of the past, while continuing the themes and concepts of the present arc. It’s the perfect narrative device for a 100th episode anniversary, one that celebrates everything S.H.I.E.L.D. has accomplished since its launch in 2013.
MORE: Did Agents of SHIELD Just Change the Timeline?
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. season 5 continues next Friday March 9 with its 100th episode, The Real Deal at 9pm on ABC.
