Joss Whedon is currently attending the Toronto International Film Festival to promote his latest movie Much Ado About Nothing (which we'll be reviewing later tonight), but of course much of the chatter has centred on his contributions to the Marvel Cinematic Universe - or, more specifically, the upcoming small screen spin-off S.H.I.E.L.D., which was announced at the back end of last month. Speaking to MTV News, Whedon has offered fans a brief update on the proposed series, confirming that it's highly unlikely we'll get to see any guest appearances from Earth's Mightiest Heroes...
"It's new characters. It needs to be its own thing. It needs to be adjacent [to the Marvel Cinematic Universe] 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.' You want them to do their own thing. Well, what does S.H.I.E.L.D. have that the other superheroes don't? And that, to me, is that they're not superheroes, but they live in that universe. Even though they're a big organization, that [lack of powers] makes them underdogs, and that's interesting to me."
In recent times, Marvel has tried to get several TV shows off the ground without success, including The Punisher and AKA Jessica Jones (which was rumoured to include the likes of Carol Danvers and Luke Cage), so with such a rich roster of characters at Whedon's disposal, you'd have to expect S.H.I.E.L.D. to feature plenty of familiar faces from within the pages of Marvel Comics, even if that doesn't quite extend to the cast of The Avengers. Let the speculation begin...
