THE fascination with superheroes has been embedded since childhood. Watching all those cartoons from the traditional offerings like Batman, Superman and Spider-Man to Thundercats (this is now going way back), Dragon Ball Z and Ben 10, I guess we never outgrow the magnetism of do-gooder characters.
Of course, as we grow older, we gravitate more towards X-Men, Thor and Iron Man in 3D and on the big screen, while also getting those small screen fixes with offerings like Heroes, Smallville and Arrow.
That brings us to Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D, which has been generating quite a bit of hype, especially at this year’s San Diego Comic-Con International.
The brainchild of the Whedons: Joss, Jed and Maurissa Tancharoen, the series is centred on Agent Phil Coulson and his small team of expert agents as they intrepidly take on a myriad strange and supernatural cases threatening Earth.
In an interview with Collider. com, Joss Whedon shed light on how much carte blanche he got with this series.
He said: “We’ve got trust, which is different from freedom. My collaboration with Marvel on the movie was pretty extraordinary and, for me, unprecedented. It wasn’t a question of them getting out of the way. We really worked that story together. ABC and Marvel have been very active in making sure the show is what they want for their company and their network and their audiences and, at the same time, they are very supportive of the vision that we first laid out to them.”
As for what fans can expect, Whedon hints, “There’s not going to be some new hero every week. There could be a device. There could be a mystery. There are many aspects to what’s happened, since everybody in the world found out that there is a superhero team and there are aliens that invaded New York, and we want to be able to change it up, every week. We want to be able to deal with every aspect – the spy stuff, the hero stuff, the heartfelt stuff, the humour.”
Dismissing any talk about getting movie characters to appear in the TV series, Whedon is hoping this TV blueprint works with audiences.
With an ace pilot and weapons expert, a black ops specialist, a genius hacker, an engineering boffin and scientific mastermind as the arsenal in his entertainment kitty of characters – it might not be that difficult a feat to pull off!
• Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D airs on Wednesdays on M-Net at 8.30pm.