There have been a number of shorts in the Marvel Cinematic Universe that add quite a bit to the ongoing story. Many times, these fill in small details or add information to the ongoing story.

In this case, The Consultant builds on the last scene of The Incredible Hulk, Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) was talking to General Ross (William Hurt) in that scene. This sort of surprised me, since General Ross was one of the bad guys. This one-shot resolves that story before the next movie entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Why was Tony Stark meeting with General Ross? Well, I asked that because it seemed out of character. The Avengers initiative was being handled by Nick Fury for the most part. If you didn’t want someone involved in the initiative, how would you get them to step aside?

Agent Coulson (Clark Gregg) meets with Agent Sitwell (Maximiliano Hernández) in a diner. Coulson tells Sitwell that Ross wants Blonsky as part of the team. They decide the best way to handle this is to alienate General Ross. To do that, they decide to send Tony Stark to meet with him. Tony is so abrasive and anti-authority that he will cause General Ross to remove himself from what they are trying to do.

Coulson is absolutely right. The scene that was at the end of The Incredible Hulk makes much more sense after seeing this. Tony ties what General Ross was doing to the super soldier program that produced Steve Rogers, which was also how it appeared but is now confirmed. Ross ends up trying to throw Tony out of the bar, which Tony then buys and demolishes.

Of course, watching this all these years later and knowing that Sitwell was involved with Hydra adds a lot more to this scene. Was Sitwell working against the initiative at this point?

That was what was great about the MCU: every time they answered a question, they also raised new ones.

I love Agent Coulson throughout the MCU. Clark Gregg is excellent here as we prepare to see a lot more of him in the next film. Did Maximiliano Hernández know yet that he was with Hydra? I don’t think so, which makes this all the better. Both men portray the situation seriously, trying to figure out a way to get Ross to remove himself from the initiative. They know their “Consultant” will do exactly what they want without having to instruct him to do so.