How Marvel TV Can Revive Agent Carter

Looking back, the two seasons we got Agent Carter were but a glimpse of what the show could have been. Now that some time has passed, and an unfortunate cancellation by ABC, we never got the show most of us had hoped we would get. It was easy to assume that the show would pick up following the call Hayley Atwell’s Peggy Carter received from Dominic Cooper’s Howard Stark to help run S.H.I.E.L.D. in Los Angeles at the end of the Agent Carter One Shot. It feels like the show originally intended to show the progression of the SSR into the organization that would introduce us to the world of Nick Fury, Captain America, and Iron Man. Should Marvel TV decide to revive Agent Carter, as was suggested just this week by Chief of Marvel Television, Jeph Loeb, this is the direction that would have the strongest narrative tie to the MCU, and provide a rich back story to the early days of S.H.I.E.L.D. If the show were to make a slight time jump, to say the 1960s, could we see the story of the behind the birth of S.H.I.E.L.D., the recruitment of Hank Pym and Janet Van Dyne, and showcasing the leadership of Peggy Carter?

I know, it’s risky, and it could overshadow one of the main plot points of the show – Peggy Carter’s place in the world in a Post-World War II era. But that show had some issues, leading to declining viewership and ultimate cancellation. It dealt with story lines that didn’t impact the flagship Marvel Cinematic Universe in any meaningful way, and if it did, it was only peripherally, or an occasional nod. It couldn’t go through the struggles that Iron Man and Captain America faced, or even the plot beats of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Instead the show remained focused on the “woman in a man’s world” troupe. Don’t get me wrong, this is an important issue, and one that made the show compelling; but is that really all Agent Carter had to offer?

A revival gives the creative team behind the show the opportunity to showcase Peggy Carter and the growing pains of changing from a World War II-borne organization, the precursor of the S.H.I.E.L.D. we know, to the evolution of the organization into the S.H.I.E.LD. of 2008’s Iron Man onward.  One simple, and sure fire way to please audiences would be to add true super hero elements to the mix that may give the story the boost it needs.  It just so happens that we already know one of them, Hank Pym, introduced to us, and shown in action in flashback footage in 2015’s Ant-Man.