Jed Whedon compares Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D to the X-Files, new cast portraits released

It won't be long now until we get the first airing of Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. in the US and there was the announcement recently that it will be shown on Channel 4 here in the UK this Fall. But what format will the show follow?

In an interview with The Huffington Post, producers Jed (brother of Joss) Whedon and Maurissa Tanchareon compared it to one of the most successful weekly TV series of all time, "It's a little bit like The X-Files model," Whedon said. "You can come each week and see [that episode] and not have seen everything, but if you have, it's a richer experience. And as we move forward, those things will start to weave together more and more. But we do want to always have every episode have its own beginning, middle and end, and feel like its own [thing]."

"We definitely don't want anybody ever to watch an episode and have to have watched all the others" he continued. "That's definitely a goal of ours. But we think there's a way to do that, [similarly to] the way that they've done it with [Marvel films] where it's just a better experience if you have been keeping track. And also we're pretty sure that we will be asking enough interesting questions that people will want to hear the answers. At least that's our goal."

They also talked about one of Marvel's comic traits - magic, "We will deal with two scientists facing things like a hammer that only one guy can pick up and trying to piece that together in their minds and get a grip on a world that doesn't make sense."

But one of the big questions that has been on everyone's mind since the show's announcement - will we see any of the Avengers in the show? Rumours of Abomination and Luke Cage have run wild around message boards, but what do the producers say? "We're open to any opportunity,"

Tancharoen said while Whedon added, "they all have an open invitation to swing by -- any Avenger".

Meanwhile, to coincide with its latest S.H.I.E.L.D.-centric issue, Entertainment Weekly has released new cast portraits of Agent Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg), Agent Melinda May (Ming-Na Wen), Agent Grant Ward (Brett Dalton), Agent Leo Fitz (Iain De Caestecker), Agent Jemma Simmons (Elizabeth Henstridge) and Skye (Chloe Bennet)...