What exactly do you think of S.H.I.E.L.D. in the comics? I know for story purposes it can’t be perfect, but lately it seems like a giant mass of corruption and incompetence. Its agents get really racist towards mutants, its been run by Hydra on occasion, and it consistently fails to do its job. Is it less of an effective agency than a commentary on ineffective agencies? In an unrealistic way that would never happen because comics, is there a way to fix S.H.I.E.L.D.?

I think the recent problems with SHIELD came when the War on Terror made it hard to portray the national security state without reference to current events, as opposed to keeping SHIELD strictly in the realm of Bondesque super-spying.

So in terms of how to fix it, I think a decision has to be made about what SHIELD is and what it isn’t, what it does and what it doesn’t. And the way you do that is to have a flagship Nick Fury: Agent of SHIELD comic and you have Rucka and Brubaker write it as a Le Carre-esque espionage thriller.