Still more SPECTRE filming photos emerge

With another weekend of filming London exteriors, still more SPECTRE filming photos are making the rounds on social media.

After almost six months of filming, there’s really not a whole lot left to say, so let’s go straight to a sampling.

The official James Bond Twitter feed got into the act, but its photo doesn’t give anything away.

London calling #SPECTRE pic.twitter.com/tSsZlUUGZl

— James Bond (@007) May 30, 2015

Another tweet included two photos of star Daniel Craig.

#Spectre #007 #DanielCraig – after 5 months of filming exhausted faces on London location today GSY pic.twitter.com/meG8d5v8Xw

— Spitzberg (@007current) May 30, 2015

And some more:

Camera set up for #SPECTRE filming tonight at Great Scotland Yard. Will film short scene with Craig at sunset pic.twitter.com/GnLnkaBXS6

— Anton Volkov (@antovolk) May 30, 2015

Still more, including some shots of director Sam Mendes, can be seen on THIS PAGE of the message board of the MI6 James Bond website. A whole gallery of photos was uploaded to THIS PAGE on the Imgur website. They include some shots of actress Naomie Harris.

S.H.I.E.L.D. at 50: bigger than it has ever been

Jack Kirby’s cover for Strange Tales 135 in 1965

This summer is the golden anniversary of S.H.I.E.L.D., Marvel Comics’ answer to the spy craze of the 1960s.

Marvel was barely hanging on at the start of the 1960s. Starting with The Fantastic Four in 1961, the comics company began a comeback. With new characters and revamped version of old characters, Marvel had momentum in the mid-1960s.

One obvious trend was the spy craze. Stan Lee and Jack Kirby already had launched a World War II war comic, Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos. The duo decided to also bring Fury into the “present day” of the 1960s and, an issue of the FF, established Fury survived the war and now worked for the CIA.

With S.H.I.E.L.D., Lee and Kirby took the concept a step further, establishing their own spy agency, which recruited Fury to be its new leader. S.H.I.E.L.D. even relied on Tony Stark to supply it with futuristic weaponry.

From its inception, S.H.I.E.L.D. had an uneven run. Lee hired Jim Steranko on the basis of his raw talent. Steranko chose S.H.I.E.L.D., in part because the comic wasn’t a huge success.

Steranko made his mark but was gone before the end of 1968. After his departure, there were attempts at revivals but none really took hold.

All of that changed in the 21st century. Marvel decided to make its own movies, starting with 2008’s Iron Man, starring Robert Downey Jr. S.H.I.E.L.D. was there at the start and, in an epilogue after the end titles, the audience saw a new Nick Fury in the person of Samuel L. Jackson.

Eventually, the Jackson version of Fury appeared in several Marvel movies (most recently in Avengers: Age of Ultron). Marvel, after it was acquired by Walt Disney Co., expanded into television. Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has been renewed by ABC (another Disney property) for a third season.

S.H.I.E.L.D. now is bigger than it has ever been. Middle age is treating the Lee-Kirby creation pretty well.

The nemesis of S.H.I.E.L.D. from the start was Hydra, a villainous organization. Lee has said (as early as the mid 1970s) that S.H.I.E.L.D. was inspired by James Bond movies and The Man From U.N.C.L.E. In 2015, there’s an U.N.C.L.E. movie but no Thrush (the villainous organization featured in the original 1964-68 television series).

Yet, in both movies and television, Hydra is still going strong. Meanwhile, with 007 movies, SPECTRE has been on the inactive list because of legal disputes until this year’s 007 film SPECTRE. Life can be funny.