ficwize | Marvel Knowleged

Someone with more SHIELD (and hopefully SWORD) knowledge, I need some help.

I am trying to figure out some general facts about Brand, plus a timeline for her employment with SHIELD/SWORD, promotion to director of SWORD, etc.

Facts I know from the internets:

1. Brand is the commanding officer of SWORD at the time of Secret Invasion.
2. She is 28 years old at the time of Secret Invasion.
3. She doesn't much like Nick Fury, but Maria Hill (SHIELD successor director?) considers Brand a Fury loyalist.
4. Brand also doesn't much like Maria Hill.

There is basically nothing known about Brand's past except that her father was an alien.

If anyone knows of any other canon background info, it would be greatly appreciated. There may or may not be fic involved. *shifty eyes*

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

selenak.livejournal.com

re: Brand's age, actually, no. Her age is stated as 28 in the Secret Invasion flashback she has while drifting in space, where she remembers meeting the Skrull ambassador. This flashback takes place immediately after she assumed command of SWORD, which given that the AXM events of "Gifted" take place BEFORE House of M in the Marvelverse has to be at least two or three years before Secret Invasion.

Nick Fury: actually, there is absolutely nothing to suggest she doesn't like him. When Scott is indignant about her in "Gifted" Fury says "yes, she's a peach" and then goes on to business as usual, plus he says she should just tell the X-men the Breakworld business, but he also defends her and says that Brand is responsible for way more than either he or the X-Men and has to keep that bigger picture in mind. At no point does Brand say anything negative about him. In her one scene with Maria Hill in "Dangerous" (which seems to be taking place mid-Civil War, because Hill stopped being director at the end of CW) when Hill says Fury let Brand get away with her thuggish ways Brand retorts Fury was the reason why she filled SHIELD in at all. And that's all she ever says about him.

Possibly more later.

From:

selenak.livejournal.com

More Brand background:

She's multilingual, which we see in action several times. Languages we know of: she can talk to Lockheed in his own language, knows enough Skrull to bluff the Skrulls about being one of them for the crucial minute it takes to get her hands on an weapon, knows enough of the Breakworld language to decypher the inscriptions (which is what makes Hank suspect her, remember), and speaks her father's language. (We don't know the species yet, and in the one panel from her childhood in Secret Invasion we see his speech bubble yelling in whatever language, but not him.) Whether this means she grew up off world or on Earth is up to fanfic to decide, so far, but considering she choose Earth as her loyalty, I'm assuming the later.

Then there are her tattoos on each forearm, "Grace" and "Anne". I can't make up my mind about whether they were girlfriends or sisters, but I bet the women in question are dead, and that's why she has the tattos. Note that "Abigail", "Grace" and "Anne" are all sort of old fashioned names.

From:

ficwize.livejournal.com

She also knows Kree - several dialects of it, if her comments in Secret Invasion are any indication.

About her father - she says he was a green furry alien right? And she does seem to remember him fondly. At least, that's my take on it.

I would tend to agree that she likely spent most of her youth on earth, but I'm at a bit of a loss whether or not she spent that time with her father. I know Skrulls and Krees are on earth in the Marvel 616 verse, but I'm not sure that there are a lot of other aliens roaming around. I think it would probably still be problematic.

Any idea whether her family is still alive? I think she refers to her father in the past tense, but I don't recall any mention of her mother (or sisters, but I like that idea).

I'd assumed the tatts were of old girlfriends, but I am intrigued by the idea that they might have been her sisters and note the similarities of their names.

I also found it interesting that Brand isn't her real last name. I don't even know if she has one...

From:

selenak.livejournal.com

It could be that she hasn't, and just assumed one as an adult. Or something happened to/with her human mother that made her choose another name.

Re: the possible sisters, one of the ideas I'm toying with is that while Brand herself is a healthy woman and can channel the ability to burn with her hands at her wish, I think it's entirely possible other hybrids between her father's species and humanity might not have been so lucky. Maybe I'm Farscape-influenced, but if she had sisters, they could easily have gotten not such a successful genetic combination and died young and painfully. Hence the tatts.

From:

ficwize.livejournal.com

Thank you, thank you! I was rereading my stash last night and couldn't figure out why wikipedia thinks Brand doesn't like Fury. Granted, she's not very cowed by him, but she doesn't seem to dislike him. And she doesn't seem to bother much with hiding who she dislikes.

Also, I did not realize that Gifted took place before House of M. When did House of M take place in Astonishing canon, because there is absolutely no mention of it, but it's a very interesting factor to consider alongside the mutant cure story line?

Re her age - so she was director of SWORD by 28? Possibly longer. I'm fascinated, because that is EXTREMELY young. Especially in light of Fury's comment about how much rests on her shoulders.

Also, since you know, and I hope you don't mind me picking your brain, but is she still the director of SWORD? I haven't seen her interact with Osborne at all, but that doesn't mean I didn't just miss it.

From:

selenak.livejournal.com

I have no idea why Wiki thinks that, either. As you say, she doesn't hide her dislikes. My own fanon is that she probably went through some training by him as a girl/young woman (depending on when she started), because SWORD as an independent agency is pretty new (nobody ever mentions a director before Brand), and presumably she started out as a SHIELD agent before it was decided that off world business was worth a seperate institution. But that's my speculation.

Age: yes. The Secret Invasion flashback is really explicit in this regard. We hear she just got appointed to the job and this is the celebration ceremony (also, this is the first and last time so far we see her in a dress), and the Skrull she gets introduced to says something like "we've been following your career with some interest; director at 28, that's impressive".

AXM and the general Marvel timeline is a headache. Gifted started to get published before House of M was, hence the school being full of mutant kids and hundreds of mutants overrunning Benetech wanting the "cure" in the climactic scene in #6 that convinces Hank Logan was right. But because of all the delays, the "Dangerous" arc hadn't even started before House of M had taken place, and I rather suspect this is why we never hear about the cure again - with the mutant population now drastically reduced, it became a redundant storyline. Gifted worked before the background of a lot of mutants all over the world.

Dangerous is dated by the Brand and Hill scene as being post-Secret War (because Nick Fury lost his job after that one) and pre-end of Civil War (because Hill got demoted from director of SHIELD to Tony's subdirector at the end of Civil War). Of course, when you read it, Dangerous seems to take place only days after Gifted, so make of that what you will.

Torn: no indication when it happens in the Marvelverse at large.

Unstoppable: definitely post-Civil War, because at the end Spider-man quips he hasn't seen that many superheroes in a spot "since we stopped civil warring".

The Warren Ellis AXMs all take place before Secret Invasion.

Is Brand still director? I wanted to know as well, especially since the Peak (SWORD HQ) got blown to kingdom come in Secret Invasion and it could have been possible SWORD ceased to exist altogether, and at long last harmonyangel and likeadeuce were able to tell me. Because apparantly in October we'll get an issue devoted to her, and yes, SWORD still exists and she's still director. How this squares with Osborn I have no idea, but we probably won't find out before October!

From:

ficwize.livejournal.com

FANTASTIC.

You are my new hero. ♥

Thanks so much for all the help. This makes things much more interesting.

From:

ficwize.livejournal.com

Age: yes. The Secret Invasion flashback is really explicit in this regard. We hear she just got appointed to the job and this is the celebration ceremony (also, this is the first and last time so far we see her in a dress), and the Skrull she gets introduced to says something like "we've been following your career with some interest; director at 28, that's impressive".

Do you recall which comic this was in? I've scanned through all 8 issues of Secret Invasion and didn't see it. I can look harder, but it's not jumping out at me...

From:

selenak.livejournal.com

It was not in the eight main ones but one of the addendums, a story by Mike Carey. I'll look up the title later.

From:

selenak.livejournal.com

Looked it up. Here are the useful data for you:

Name of volume: Secret Invasion: Whom do you trust?
Name of story: Agent Brand: In Plain Sight.
Writer: Mike Carey