ABC have now officially ordered "Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." to a full series (was it ever really in doubt?) and the first photo of the main cast has emerged. The show is expected to hit our screens this fall, though no word just yet on the amount of episodes that will be produced. The Hollywood Reporter claims that ABC are pushing for a "major marketing push" for the series that will actually begin as early as this Sunday where a special look at what's to come will air before Once Upon A Time's series finale (8pm). Presumably this will include the footage of The Hulk on a newscast that was part of the teaser video that leaked earlier this week. For Marvel's Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. - Clark Gregg reprises his role as Agent Phil Coulson from the Marvel films, as he assembles a highly select group of agents from the worldwide law-enforcement group known as S.H.I.E.L.D. to go underground and investigate the strange, new and unknown occurrences across the world. The "underground" aspect of the show is expected to explain how Coulson has been "brought back" from the dead. The idea is the team are under the radar and off the books, so not even The Avengers themselves will be aware of them, a plan Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) and Coulson came up with to give the superhero team the impetus to defeat Loki that his "death" would give him (the idea is that Loki actually killed a hologram). Coulson's team for the show consists of;
Agent Grant Ward (Brett Dalton), highly trained in combat and espionage, Agent Melinda May (Ming-Na Wen) expert pilot and martial artist, Agent Leo Fitz (Iain De Caestecker); brilliant engineer and Agent Jemma Simmons (Elizabeth Henstridge) genius bio-chemist. Joining them on their journey into mystery is new recruit and computer hacker Skye (Chloe Bennet).
Joss Whedon is Executive Producing with Jed Whedon & Maurissa Tancharoen. Jeph Loeb and Jeffrey Ball co-wrote the pilot which is Marvel's first TV series and will be produced by ABC Studios and Marvel Television.