Maria Hill (Earth-616)

Director Maria Hill
Name	Maria Hill
Aliases	Special Agent Hill
Affiliation and Relationships
Affiliation	S.H.I.E.L.D. (director), Secret Avengers (S.H.I.E.L.D.), Avengers
Marital Status	Single
Physical Characteristics
Gender	Female
Height	5′10″ (1.78 m)
Weight	135 lbs (61.23 kg)
Eyes	Irises: Brown
Hair	Black
Origin and Living Status
Origin	Human
Living Status	Alive
Reality	Earth-616
Place of Birth	Chicago, Illinois
Personal Information
Identity	No Dual
Citizenship	American
Occupation	Director of S.H.I.E.L.D.; former acting director
Base of Operations	S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier; S.H.I.E.L.D. Station: Golgotha, Manhattan, New York City, New York Formerly Georgetown, Virginia
Creators and Appearances
Creators	Brian Michael Bendis, David Finch
First	New Avengers #4 (March, 2005)
First	New Avengers #4 (March, 2005)

 I'm the director of S.H.I.E.L.D.. Lying to the entire world is in the job description. Right next to "some overtime required," which I would like to point out is a severe understatement. 

—Maria Hill

History

Early Life

Maria Hill was born in Chicago, Illinois, she lost her mother the day of her birth when temperatures hit 44 degrees below 0 while her mom was still in the hospital. Because of this, her father never forgave her, which made Maria a cold hearted person. Hill had a brief stint in Madripoor that got her noticed by various heads of state and governments around the world.

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Maria Hill

S.H.I.E.L.D.

After the scandalous affair of the Secret War and its disastrous effect on New York City, S.H.I.E.L.D. director Nick Fury went into hiding. Maria Hill, viewed by the leaders of several nations as being both an efficient agent and, more importantly in their eyes, not directly loyal to Fury or any of his personal cadre, was appointed interim Executive Director. Hill's role had apparently not been announced to the public as yet; a Life-Model Decoy of Fury was regularly used in public to maintain an illusion of normalcy within the Directorate's ranks. Hill was expected to be loyal to United States interests before those of the United Nations, which S.H.I.E.L.D. was supposed to serve before any other country. Hill quickly established new policies on super-powered heroes, as requested by the President of the United States and his peers in other national governments: to end S.H.I.E.L.D. support for the heroes. These policies were in full effect when Hill tried to prevent the Avengers from re-forming.

In the wake of events in the Savage Land that led to their reorganization, the Avengers suspected her of being complicit in various crimes, but lacked the evidence to prove her malfeasance. For her part, Hill had suspected the latest incarnation of the Avengers of harboring an illicit agenda in connection with, among other things, the House of M affair.

Civil War

While her tough attitude had not made her very popular among the super-hero community, she earned Iron Man's respect when she ignored the president's orders to nuke an island the Avengers were on. Maria Hill was directly responsible for Captain America going underground to lead the opposition against the Superhuman Registration Act. Weeks before the act became law, Hill summoned Captain America to gain insight into the developments inside the super-hero community. When the Captain informed her that the registration issue was dividing heroes and setting them against each other, Hill attempted to force him into leading the Avengers in a preemptive measure to capture and detain heroes who would not consent to having their identities revealed. Since the act had not yet become law, the Captain dismissed her command as politically skewed, saying that heroes needed to "stay above" such affairs. Following Captain America's refusal, Hill summoned a battalion of soldiers armed with tranquilizers. Left with no other choice, Captain America fought his way out of the Helicarrier, becoming a fugitive. As S.H.I.E.L.D. Director, Hill was one of the leading enforcers of the Superhuman Registration Act, a task she carried out with relish and absolute ruthlessness. She blackmailed Wonder Man into actively supporting S.H.I.E.L.D.'s crusade to hunt down the super-heroes opposed to the Registration Act. She sent Kree supersoldier Noh-Varr, already brainwashed, to capture the Runaways and directed the murderous Thunderbolts to capture Spider-Man after he went rogue.

After foiling an attack on Stark Tower, Maria Hill admitted to Tony Stark (with the film A Few Good Men in mind; she had tried to make this exact speech a few weeks prior to this following their skirmish with Magneto) that she didn't want her job as director of S.H.I.E.L.D. and thought she shouldn't have been offered it in the first place. She suggested that the only other person besides Nick Fury who should lead the organization was Stark himself. At the conclusion of the Civil War, the president of the United States appointed Tony Stark the new director of S.H.I.E.L.D., with Maria Hill as his acting deputy director. Stark seemed somewhat dismissive of her, offhandedly asking her to get him a cup of coffee. She did not look pleased.

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Hill blowing up the Helicarrier during the Skrull invasion

Secret Invasion

When the alien Skrulls attacked the Earth as part of their long-term secret invasion, Maria Hill abandoned the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier after its systems had been infected by Skrull posing as the Avengers' butler, Edwin Jarvis.

Later, Maria reunited with Nick Fury who had not been seen in many months. Fury suspected Hill of being a Skrull, but this was later shown to not be the case.

Dark Reign

Following the Secret Invasion, S.H.I.E.L.D. was decommissioned and Maria was let go. The organization was replaced with a new peacekeeping agency known as H.A.M.M.E.R.. The group's new director, Norman Osborn, knew that Maria was still colluding with Tony Stark after the latter deleted that Superhuman Registration Act database, and declared her a fugitive of justice.

Maria was sent on a mission by Tony, having found the Controller holed up in the basement of Futurepharm, hooked into a large machine holding many people in containers. She herself fell victim and was placed under his control. She eventually fought off his control and freed his mind slaves and managed to acquire the hard drive Stark sent her for. She then made her way to New York, where she enlisted the aid of a reluctant Black Widow in delivering the drive to Captain America. Unfortunately, the trauma during her time as a thrall of the Controller made her paranoid and disturbed.

While trying to deliver the drive, H.A.M.M.E.R., having intercepted an e-mail sent from Stark to Hill, captured them and locked them in Avengers Tower. Luckily, Pepper Potts, disguised as Madame Masque, rescued them. After managing to steal back the drive, Maria demanded to the H.A.M.M.E.R. agents waiting to shoot as to why they should take orders from a madman like Osborn, thus the agents let them leave.

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Maria Hill as an Avenger

Siege

Maria was looking after an unconscious Tony Stark with Doctor Don Blake when all of a sudden an explosion happened nearby from the neighboring town of Broxton, Oklahoma - this was Don Blake left to protect Asgard. Later on, when Thor was beaten down by Osborn and his Dark Avengers, Hill showed up with a local named Jason to rescue him. She launched many bazooka rounds on Osborn and laid down cover fire for Jason to grab Thor. Later, she transmitted images and reports on Asgard to the President. She then went back to Stark to protect him when Speed arrives with the Iron Man Armor.

Heroic Age

After Osborn's reign was over, Hill was put in charge of the Avengers. She was later replaced by Captain America when the war against the Serpent was over.

Return to S.H.I.E.L.D.

After the attack of the Serpent was over, Rogers decided to reactivate S.H.I.E.L.D., with Maria again in the charge of deputy director. After director Daisy Johnson broke the protocols by sending the Secret Avengers to kill A.I.M. leader Andrew Forson, Quake was suspended indefinitely and Maria was put in charge of S.H.I.E.L.D. once more.

Pleasant Hill

In the eight months after what should have been the final Incursion, Maria Hill initiated a program known as the Kobik Initiative, using Cosmic Cubes for unknown purposes. When the project was revealed by the hacker known as the Whisperer, Maria was forced to shut down the project, then attempted to hunt down the Whisperer, only to be stopped by Captain America. Disgusted by all of this, Captain America quit S.H.I.E.L.D. with Maria all too happy to see him go.

However, the Kobik Initiative hadn't been shut down. During the process, the Cosmic Cubes exploded and created a new being known as Kobik. A new project was started, known as Pleasant Hill, capturing super villains and using Kobik to turn them into friendly, productive members of society with Maria Hill posing as the Mayor of Pleasant Hill. The Whisperer tipped off Captain America over the town while Bucky Barnes warned Steve Rogers about the town, just in time for Maria to pick him up and take him to Pleasant Hill. However, despite her reassurances, Steve proved to be disgusted by the place and ordered her to have it shut down. Before anything could come to that, Baron Zemo began his revolt, gravely wounded Maria.

Knowing Maria wouldn't survive too much longer, Steve convinced Zemo to allow him to get Maria medical attention. With the aid of a priest named Father Patrick (who was actually Red Skull in disguise), Steve was able to get Maria to a doctor within the town. However, Maria attempted to escape only to be was recaptured and returned to Zemo. Whatever plans he had were scuttled when the Avengers and the Avengers Unity Division worked together to rescue the hostages and end the standoff. Soon afterwards, she was brought before the World Security Council and reprimanded her for her incompetence. For her actions, Maria Hill was placed on administrative watch only acting as Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. as the World Security Council decided if she should be brought before a tribunal.

Attributes

Power Grid

Abilities

Trained S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, experienced in espionage, hand-to-hand combat and the use of a variety of weapons.

Paraphernalia

Weapons

Handguns

Notes

• Joe Quesada: "Hill is such a strong personality, she's like a force of nature and quite frankly, while perhaps not immediately loved by all involved, she's certainly as strong and imposing a figure as Nick Fury. Right now I feel that people view her as the outsider but while I don't think she’s any harsher than Fury has ever been, what's different is that we aren't quite clear about her motives".
• In New Avengers #4, Tony Stark addresses Hill as "Agent Hill," and she quickly corrects him, saying "Special Agent Hill and Acting Director of S.H.I.E.L.D."; the heads-up display identifies her as "Maria Hill, S.H.I.E.L.D. Deputy Director" and "Super Power Division Class 8."
• She was promoted to S.H.I.E.L.D. agent level nine while becoming S.H.I.E.L.D. director, and had the Code clearance white at least six hour after the one-year-anniversary/retaliation of Lucia von Bardas for the Secret War.

Trivia

• According to Avengers A.I. #6, Hill's favorite pizza is Vinnie's of Savannah, Georgia.
• She has a crush on Cyclops (Scott Summers).

See Also

• 492 appearance(s) of Maria Hill (Earth-616)
• 11 appearance(s) in handbook(s) of Maria Hill (Earth-616)
• 29 minor appearance(s) of Maria Hill (Earth-616)
• 77 mention(s) of Maria Hill (Earth-616)
• 7 mention(s) in handbook(s) of Maria Hill (Earth-616)
• 110 image(s) of Maria Hill (Earth-616)
• 34 quotation(s) by or about Maria Hill (Earth-616)
• 7 victim(s) killed by Maria Hill (Earth-616)

Links and References

• www.wikipedia.org