Joss Whedon's "S.H.I.E.L.D." series will feature new characters, according to an interview the director had with MTV News. Whedon said the new series would have to feature new characters despite being set in the "Avengers" movie universe.
"It's new characters. It needs to be its own thing," Whedon said. "It needs to be adjacent [to the MCU] but you don't want to do a show where you're constantly going, 'Iron Man just left, but he was totally here a minute ago.'"
S.H.I.E.L.D. is the fictional espionage and secret military law-enforcement agency seen in the Marvel Comics film Universe and publications. The agency was created by the legendary duo of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby in Strange Tales #135. The acronym stands for Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division.
In the comic book, Nicholas Joseph Fury created S.H.I.E.L.D, after the end of World War II, but Fury abandoned the idea and didn't know about the formation of such an agency till his recruitment to the post of executive director.
Most of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s agents are normal humans and include Timothy "Dum Dum" Dugan and Gabriel "Gabe" Jones, Contessa Valentina Allegra di Fontaine, Clay Quartermain, Jacob Strzeszewski, Jasper Sitwell, and Sharon Carter.
The agency's most persistent enemy is HYDRA, a criminal organization founded Baron Wolfgang von Strucker in comics and the Red Skull in the current Marvel Film Universe. The organizations name HYDRA is not an acronym but a reference to the mythical monster that grows an two heads to replace a head lost.
Whedon will write the project with his brother Jed Whedon and Jed's wife Maurissa Tancharoen. They will executive produce the ABC pilot alongside Jeffrey Bell and Marvel TV's Jeph Loeb.
S.H.I.E.L.D. is featured in the 2012 highest earning film "The Avengers." Nick Fury, Phil Coulson, Natasha Romanoff and Clint Barton appear as well as S.H.I.E.L.D. Deputy Director Maria Hill who was played by Cobie Smulders. The film takes place within the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier.
Besides the announcement of the show featuring new characters, no casting has been announced for the TV series, but hopefully the lovely Cobie Smulder will reprise her role as Maria Hill and give the show a connection to the film universe.
Smulders is currently ending her last season as Robin Scherbats on the television series "How I Met Your Mother." The CBS sitcom is ending a seven-year run on the network.
Whedon recently said in an interview with Vulture that he can't guarantee what is going to happen with the show, but that his team has some great ideas for the series.
"You know, I can't guarantee that any of that will happen! But so far, it feels just fine. The important thing to me is that we know what the show is. We love what it is.," Whedon told Vulture. "What I do know is that it's the show it should be, and we've got some really dope notions. It's going to work very well for people who either love the Marvel universe or for people who've never dipped a toe in the Marvel universe."
