Agents of SHIELD Season 6 Premiere Includes The Incredible Hulk Easter Egg

Minor Agents of SHIELD spoilers up ahead! Agents of SHIELD returned after a year-long hiatus with all kinds of high-flying cosmic action. In between the scenes among the cosmos, the Earth-bound SHIELD agents — led by Director Alphonso Mackenzie (Henry Simmons) and Agent Melinda May (Ming-Na Wen) — are trying to put together a new SHIELD Academy so they can build the organization into what it once was.

It's here we're introduced to a new recurring character, Dr. Henry Benson, and in turn, an Easter egg sure to ma fans of The Incredible Hulk happy. Benson, played by Barry Shabaka Henley, reveals that he's on the staff at Culver University.

For fans of the lone solo Hulk film, they'll recognize Culver as a location central to the plot, as it served as the workplace for both Bruce Banner (Ed Norton) and Betty Ross (Liv Tyler) and later in the film, the scene of a battle between the Hulk and Thaddeus Ross (William Hurt).

Outside of The Incredible Hulk, Culver serves as the MCU's equivalency of an Ivy League school with the shared universe having many of its characters either teach or attend to school. Benson brings up the fact that he used to be colleagues with Andrew Garner, May's ex-husband on Agents of SHIELD. The school also served as home to theoretical physicist Erik Selvig. The school also appeared in Hulu's Runaways, as it's the college Victor and Janet Stein attended before getting married. Other notable alumni include Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) and Darcy Lewis (Kat Dennings).

Agents of SHIELD stars Clark Gregg (Sarge), Ming-Na Wen (Melinda May), Chloe Bennet (Daisy "Quake" Johnson), Elizabeth Henstridge (Jemma Simmons), Iain De Caestecker (Fitz), Henry Simmons (Mack), Natalia Cordova-Buckley (Elena "Yo-Yo" Rodriguez), and Jeff Ward (Deke).

Agents of SHIELD airs Friday nights on ABC at 8/7 p.m. Central.

What other Easter eggs did you catch on Agents of SHIELD? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below or by hitting me up on Twitter at @AdamBarnhardt!

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