Downton Abbey recently concluded its fifth season of beautiful costumes, stiff upper lips, and increasingly soapy storytelling, and although the show remains popular, it’s clear that the British period drama could benefit from some new, zeitgeist-grabbing ideas and energy. Enter The Book Of Eli screenwriter Gary Whitta, who posted a short script on his website that brings Downton Abbey together with its natural partner: the Marvel Cinematic Universe, in the form of fast-talking, propriety-ignoring American innovator and Iron Man dad Howard Stark.
Brought to Downton by Lady Cara’s brother Harold, Howard is full of big ideas and no respect for titles or the public hierarchy. He does everything you’d expect a maverick inventor to do in this stolid atmosphere: Scandalize the Dowager Countess, flirt with Lady Mary, and, of course, ignore Lady Edith’s awkward advances, all while trying to pitch Lord Grantham on the dangers of Nazism and the benefits of superpowered technology.
And while Whitta’s script cuts off before revealing who the subject of Stark’s proposed super-soldier experiment will be, that hasn’t stopped us from sketching out a comic book cover of a Union Jack-clad Mr. Bates socking Hitler in the jaw.