Photograph: Allstar/DISNEY/Sportsphoto Ltd By Helen Langdon
Today sees not just one piece of good news for TV news for Marvel fans, but two! Firstly, Agents of SHIELD has just been renewed for season two – good timing, considering the season finale airs in just a few days’ time. It’s the series that gets to show the wider implications of events in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, such as the clean-up of London after Thor: The Dark World, and surviving in the climate of betrayal after Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
But that’s not the most important news. Rumours have been flying around for months, and today it was confirmed that ABC will be airing a full series of Agent Carter, with Hayley Atwell starring as the character first introduced in Captain America: The First Avenger.
Today sees not just one piece of good news for TV news for Marvel fans, but two! Firstly, Agents of SHIELD has just been renewed for season two – good timing, considering the season finale airs in just a few days’ time. It’s the series that gets to show the wider implications of events in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, such as the clean-up of London after Thor: The Dark World, and surviving in the climate of betrayal after Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
But that’s not the most important news. Rumours have been flying around for months, and today it was confirmed that ABC will be airing a full series of Agent Carter, with Hayley Atwell starring as the character first introduced in Captain America: The First Avenger.
The series has already had a pseudo-pilot by way of the Marvel One Shot attached to the Iron Man 3 release, where post-Cap-freeze Peggy was idling away her time doing menial desk-work until Howard Stark rang to offer her the position of co-heading the newly created SHIELD. Agent Carter will be set in 1946, with Deadline and The Hollywood Reporter saying “Peggy must balance doing administrative work and going on secret missions for Howard Stark, all while trying to navigate life as a single woman in America, in the wake of losing the love of her life.” There’s no word yet on whether Dominic Cooper will be making an appearance, or phoning it in and treating Peggy like a ‘40s Charlie’s Angel (Stark’s Seraph?). The show is set for a short-order run during the second-season hiatus of Agents of Shield.
This new addition to the Marvel universe joins the Netflix quartet of shows currently in development, featuring Daredevil, Luke Cage, Iron Fist and Jessica Jones. It seems that Marvel are finally listening to the fans and creating some diversity in their output, with Agent Carter and the Jessica Jones series the first female-led Marvel things we’ll see on screen. It’s something that will hopefully transfer onto the big screen, too – while interviewers on the Captain America 2 press tour seemed intent upon Black Widow’s costume and the prospect of her romantic relationships, the film showed us a female character who was equal to the male hero. And it disproved the When Harry Met Sally rule of “men and women can’t be friends.” Kevin Feige has said that Marvel Studios have plans for films for the next 14 years, and it can’t be too much to hope that some of those will be female-led vehicles (maybe a film of her very own for Black Widow, or finally a place for Captain Marvel on screen?).
With Marvel seemingly moving down the route of presenting female characters in their own right, rather than merely as romantic interests, let’s hope that the Agent Carter series will lean more heavily on the “secret missions” angle than the “single woman in America” schtick.
With Marvel seemingly moving down the route of presenting female characters in their own right, rather than merely as romantic interests, let’s hope that the Agent Carter series will lean more heavily on the “secret missions” angle than the “single woman in America” schtick.
RSS Feed
