In Marvel Comics, Rick Mason goes by the moniker of “The Agent.” He was created by James Hudnall and John Ridgway and first appeared in “Marvel Graphic Novel: Rick Mason, The Agent” in 1989. When asked if he researched any of this source material or just felt the need to be loyal to the “Black Widow” script, Fagbenle said:
“I mean, to be honest, I did start to do all of that. I had conversations with Eric [Pearson], who wrote ‘Black Widow,’ who’s become a friend of mine, he’s a genius and a beautiful person. In our conversations, in some ways I feel like this incarnation of Mason is an Eric creation … So although I did have a little peek at the original, I very soon just became focused on what Eric created for ‘Black Widow.'”
In “Black Widow,” Natasha came back to her safe house to find Mason snoozing in her bed, and the characters shared easy chemistry, which they never acted on. Mason’s status as a plainclothes arms dealer might make him a better fit for the tech-enhanced human side of the MCU. Knowing how much Marvel Studios thrives on interconnectedness, it wouldn’t be surprising to see him show up at some point in the near future in a series like “Armor Wars,” which sees James Rhodes (Don Cheadle) dealing with “what happens when Tony Stark’s tech falls into the wrong hands.” Maybe Mason’s hands are included among the wrong hands, or maybe he could use his black market contacts to help Rhodey track down some of Tony’s missing hardware? Another possibility is that Mason could rear his head in a movie like “Captain America 4.”
Either way, Fagbenle’s comments leave open the possibility that we haven’t seen the last of him in the MCU, so keep your eyes peeled. You never know when you might see Rick Mason again.
