Fans Question Captain America's SHIELD Clearance Level

Remember back when Marvel's Agents of SHIELD debuted and everyone was talking about Agent Coulson's "Level 8" clearance?

Well, be prepared for a flashback to those days of yore when you wander over to Reddit and take a look at an organizational structure for SHIELD put together by user punongbayankyle and using available information to determine who has what level of clearance at SHIELD.

The chart includes dead and discredited (HYDRA) agents for context, and marks Nick Fury and Maria Hill, who vanished into dust during the post-credits scene from Avengers: Infinity War, as dead as well.

So...where is Captain America's clearance level? That's where things can get interesting.

First of all, it's worth noting that Captain America is not the only clearance level under debate in the comments. Fans were quick to point out that while we may not have specifically heard anyone call out Coulson's later clearance raises, they are certain to have happened when he became director of SHIELD, a job which has traditionally carried the Alpha Level/level 10 clearance.

Knowledge of Coulson's revival from the dead after the events of Marvel's The Avengers is the question at issue, though: how could Captain America not know that Coulson was alive, since he has a Level 8 clearance, which should be high enough to have heard about it?

"Coulson may have been level 8, but him being alive was level 9 (Hill obviously knew when they video chat to tell where the HYDRA bases are before Age of Ultron)," speculated mlorusso4. "And then since Coulson got promoted to director he became level 10, above Cap's clearance level."

Another user, though, has what is ultimately probably the correct — if boring — answer:

"Probably because it was need to know," said Briley21. "That's how US Security clearances work anyway."

That would also explain why Coulson's team, who all started the series at Level Seven or below, would get so much information about Coulson, despite his revival ostensibly being above their pay grades.

At the end of the day, it is not necessarily an important piece of information: Cap doesn't know because he doesn't know. Either it was kept from him, or he never thought to ask (since you generally assume dead people to be dead). We assume his clearance was stripped from him altogether after the events of Captain America: Civil War.

And, now that half of the universe is gone, it seems likely Cap will be dealing with bigger issues when it comes time for Avengers 4.