Victoria Hand's ex-girlfriend

[stolisomancer]

It's come up on here before that, since not a lot of people in S_D read Dark Avengers, not a lot of people know that Victoria Hand is lesbian or bisexual. In keeping with the daily theme, since I think Hand's pretty cool overall, here are the pages from Dark Avengers #11 that detail Hand's past life as a SHIELD accountant.








Fun fact to know and tell about SHIELD: they appear to not only not have cared whether or not their agents were gay, but allowed them to cohabitate aboard the Helicarrier.

Comments

[benicio127]

:___;

Oh Victoria, you are so awesome, even though you work for stupid Norman Osborne.

[darkknightjrk]

Did they ever explain why she decided to work for him? I mean, maybe it's just because the whole concept of Dark Reign was idiotic in the first place, but I just don't see why anyone would willingly work for and believe in Norman Osborne unless they were a psychopathic super-villain.

[jlbarnett]

I wonder if she'll be at all interested now that Victoria's essentially gotten massively promoted.

[warpedhand]

I probably am a dissenting opinion here, but Victoria deserved much worse than what she got.

[stubbleupdate]

Because...

[warpedhand]

She's an accountant, she has absolutely no authority or clearance on any sort of strategic or tactical matters, so she basically has no idea what SHIELD is doing about "Global Terrorism". So basically her whining to Nick Fury is the absolute opposite of constructive anyways,

Now add to this she decides to betray SHIELD (For Osborn and his group of thugs, no less) after she is punished for bothering her ultimate boss makes the whole thing a little... deserved. Heck, she doesn't deserve the position she has now. And if you say she didn't betray anybody, why didn't she have any plans in place for when Osborn broke? Or get back into contact with Fury and give him security access? Or do something to combat Domestic Terrorism, since she was so concerned with it on a global scale?

[stubbleupdate]

Norman Osborn was combating Domestic Terrorism.

[jlbarnett]

she runs the numbers, crunches the figures. If you asked a member of SHIELD who was assigned to deal with AIM and you asked her what actions were being taken to deal with Hydra she probably has a better idea.

[shadowpsykie]

Victoria went about it the wrong way... but i think she was right here. Fury IS too close to it. he's been in the "game" for far too long. and cant see the forest for the trees. Now comming out scolding him was probably not the best way to do it. She had the right idea, but the wrong execution.

its true that i beleive she was a Patriot. She knew NOrman Osborn was crazy. she also knew that she could not change that. but what she could do is try to "control" norman, as best she could. so she did it. Norman would have fucked up things a lot worse if it wasn't for her. (Yes i know, Asgard, but before that, remember, it was her that was keeping Norman from doing worse)

[geoffsebesta]

Hell, Fury doesn't even know what Myspace is! :)

[auggie18]

Victoria was dating Artemis? Huh.

[xammax]

I love Victoria so damn much. I hope she never goes away.

[proteus_lives]

Motto!

[geoffsebesta]

+1

[ian_karkull]

It just occured to me that, for all the talk about how principled/partriotic/humanistic/what-have-you Victoria Hand is, I've never actually seen her actually express any kind of idea or principle, nor act politically or motivated clearly by a concrete higher ideal of any kind.
The only thing I can think of at the top of my hat was surrendering to the Molecule Man, which was arguably a smart move, but seemed to be more motivated by pragmatism than anything else. The narration always stops just shy of her actually expressing any kind of ideal that is not terminally vague.
For all we know, he could've been complaining about the size of the pudding cups in the SHIELD cafeteria here.

[stolisomancer]

I don't agree. Hand's thesis is that Nick Fury and SHIELD were playing the international espionage "game" rather than actually focusing on making the world better and safer. To some extent, that's in keeping with Fury's recent characterization as a sort of Cold War relic, and with revelations in Secret Warriors.

What she tells Steve in the final issue of Dark Avengers is that Osborn's promise of a new order - of a new, leaner organization with a more ruthless edge - took her in hook, line, and sinker; Osborn read her file, saw her objections, and knew exactly what to say to her.

[ian_karkull]

Yeah see, I find that terribly unconvincing and vague. It's a "game" because..? They should make the world better and safer how...? What is she actualy advocating? Damned if I know, she never says.
The implication here, specifically, seems to be that SHIELD is trapped in a neverending game of cat and mouse with AIM and HYDRA (instead of fixing "real world problems"), which of course they are, because it's a damn comic book. They're Super Spies who fight Super Terrorist because in the Marvel U, those are a real threats, while in the real world, they're most decidedly not. The problem is more of a narrative nature, with the entire concept of SHIELD lacking true direction or purpose with the great Cold War allegory out of the picture. The only way SHIELD would still make any sense is as a (global) superhuman policing agency and they didn't even do that right.
Besides, I'm real hard pressed to think of a single thing she did better or even slightly differently when she actually was in charge. All of HAMMER's exploits were pretty much standard SHIELD/Avengers fare except with a slightly evil twist because it was just psychopaths and serial killers now.
They might've seemed more proactive because someone dragged out the actual villains for once instead of just heroes fighting each other, but other than that, it was just business as usual.
The narration keeps telling me about all her unshakable values and grand idea for what SHIELD's supposed to be, but fails to mention what those values are or demonstrate what SHIELD, according to Victoria Hand is supposed to be. She's always just kind of... there.

[okkult3000]

SHIELD has its accountants wear the uniform?

[stolisomancer]

If it says SHIELD on your paycheck, you're wearing a binding blue unitard. It has been this way since old times.

[proteus_lives]

They're just lucky Fury doesn't make them smoke cigars too.

[glprime]

Except when the uniforms were orange.

[bradhanon]

Transferring someone to Portland, Oregon is not a punishment. We have the best video store in the country, the largest independent bookstore in the world, and more breweries per capita than any city in human history. If that doesn't spell fun to you, I question your spelling of fun.

[stolisomancer]

Yeah, Bendis is from Portland. It strikes me more like Fury just wanted to eliminate the possibility that he'd have to put up with this chick badgering him in the hallway.

[bradhanon]

True story: I was in my favorite local comics shop a few years ago, and I was talking about the latest Ultimate Spider-Man plotline with a fellow shopper, some short bald guy I didn't know. I criticized the story as being cheaply derivative of old plotlines without introducing anything really new.

Yeah, one guess who the short bald guy turned out to be. Awkward.

He was the guy who recommended I shave my head, though, and he was totally right about that. So I bear him no ill-will.

[geoffsebesta]

I know! That's what I thought too when I saw it. You also forgot to mention Stumptown Comics Fest, that huge city park, and zillions of beautiful bespectacled women everywhere you look.

I live in Austin instead because I'm solar-powered. THAT IS THE ONLY REASON.