Image Credit: Zade Rosenthal
News broke last night that Joss Whedon’s long-rumored Avengers TV spinoff would focus on S.H.I.E.L.D., the shadowy government organization led by Nick Fury. ABC has already ordered a pilot for the series, which will be penned by Whedon and his family members/Dr. Horrible colleagues Jed Whedon and Maurissa Tancharoen. No other information is currently available about the show, and Marvel would not disclose any further details when contacted by EW. Now, this is exciting news for many reasons. But a good comic-book geek is also a skeptical comic-book geek. Follow along with us as we track our 21-step reaction to the news about S.H.I.E.L.D.–The Series.
1. A new Joss Whedon TV show? Fantastic. I’m there. Love Firefly. Love Buffy. Haven’t watched Angel but everyone tells me it’s great. I even love Dollhouse, a flawed-but-wonderful TV show that most closely resembled a mash-up between the French New Wave and The A-Team.
2. But a new Joss Whedon TV show starring a popular brand of licensed characters? Hmmm. Well, I’m a little bit concerned that working within the boardroom-mandated boundaries of big corporate multimedia brands will hamstring Whedon’s creativity.
3. Then again, he did great with The Avengers, which is as big and corporate and multimedia and branded as they come. And the fact that the TV show has a built-in fanbase will make the pilot look even more appealing to ABC, which ended the 2011-2012 season in fourth place and could really use a hail-mary ambitious mass-appeal cray-cray TV show. READ FULL STORY »
