SDCC: The Russo Brothers To Direct Two Episodes Of Marvel’s AGENT CARTER

I just got out of the Marvel TV panel, and while I was hoping for some news on their upcoming Netflix shows (featuring Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Iron Fist and Luke Cage), the panel just covered the premiere season of Agent Carter and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Season Two. But the panel, moderated by Marvel TV head honcho Jeph Loeb, was a lot of fun and very high-energy, as all of the Marvel presentations at SDCC tend to be.

I'm really excited about Agent Carter. We got to see a sneak preview, and while it was mostly old-timey stock footage, there were a few scenes from the show, including Carter (Hayley Atwell) kicking a bad guy through a wall like a total badass, and we see a glimpse of two headlines: "Stark Industries Under Investigation" and "Howard Stark - Traitor?"

The panel included Atwell, Lou D'Esposito (who directed the Marvel One Shot featuring Agent Carter and will direct the pilot of the show), Captain America: The First Avenger and Agent Carter writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely and producers Michele Fazekas and Tara Butters, who are also working on the ABC show Resurrection simultaneously - and I have to say that I'm really happy there are two women producing a show about a female superspy.

The most exciting thing we learned about the first season is probably that, after D'Esposito directs the pilot, Captain America: The Winter Soldier directors Joe Russo and Anthony Russo will direct episodes two and three, and The First Avenger director Joe Johnston is hoping to direct episode four, schedule permitting. The series will take place in 1946, after the war has ended, Steve has taken off for the future and Peggy's "picking up the pieces of her life." Fazekas said: "She’s a woman working in a man’s world after the war is over, and after the men have come home. But there are other women working in this world, powerful women, both good and bad.” So we'll have some female villains to contrast with Peggy's heroism, and Atwell discussed how happy she is to play this strong character that can be a role model for young women. As indicated by the multitude of women dressed as Peggy Carter at the presentation (including the first three fans to ask questions of the panel), she's an amazing character, and someone we can be happy will be explored in depth on a new series.

And finally, when a fan asked if we can expect to see Dominic Cooper reprise his role as Howard Stark, Loeb replied: "I think I speak for all of us that we would love for that to happen."

That was about it for information about Agent Carter, but it was enough to get me super excited. I think this one's going to be great.

Next Loeb brought out the creative team and cast behind Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., to much more enthusiastic response than I maybe would have expected. All sorts of hooting and hollering for these guys. The panel consisted of head writer Jeff Bell, producers Jed Whedon and Maurissa Tancharoen and stars Clark Gregg, Ming-Na Wen, Brett Dalton, Chloe Bennet, Iain De Caestecker and Elizabeth Henstridge. A lot was made of the decision in the S1 finale to reveal Brett Dalton (Grant Ward) as an agent of Hydra: Dalton said he was shocked at first "but I got to work with Bill Paxton, so I've embraced it now,"and Wen said she and Bennet both cried a little at the news of Ward's betrayal. "She said 'I kissed him!' and I was like 'I slept with him!'" But overall, everyone seems very excited that they can now freely discuss Hydra as part of the show. And there was lots of cheering every time someone called Coulson Director instead of Agent, as well.

Other scoop: they confirmed that Lucy Lawless will, in fact, join the show next season (as Evan reported last week). She'll play a long-time S.H.I.E.L.D. veteran named Isabel Hartly who "always keeps a knife by her side." An as-yet unknown British actor named Nick Blood (his real name, apparently) will play Lance Hunter - he's not a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, but he's one of the characters Coulson rounds up to help S.H.I.E.L.D. now that they're in such chaos. And the Hydra big bad for Season 2 will be named Daniel Whitehall and played by Secret Warrior's Reed Diamond. (Update! I had this wrong. Thanks to commenter madmatt213: "Daniel Whitehall was one of the big baddies from the comic SECRET WARRIORS, his codename/villain name is Kraken. The actor, Reed Diamond, was not in a movie/show named SECRET WARRIOR.")

Last tidbits: to a fan question, Loeb assured us that we'll never see Deadpool on the show. We got to watch a pretty hilarious blooper reel (I love blooper reels!), and then we saw a video with Patton Oswalt playing Agent Koenig and...Agent Koenig, both of whom name-dropped Bobbi Morse! Apparently she's eager to get in there and help Coulson however she can.