The agency behind the Avengers gets its own team: no powers, one plane, and every mess the films leave behind.
It was the first television series set in this continuity, it ran for seven seasons and 136 episodes, and it is the entry in this catalogue that most rewards patience. It begins as a case-of-the-week show about the people who clean up after superheroes, and by the end it has been a spy thriller, a space opera and a time travel comedy.
Phil Coulson leads it, which is the first thing worth knowing about it, because he was killed in The Avengers.
Show detailsA one-way street
Its relationship to the films is documented, unequal and never fully resolved. Episodes were built around Thor: The Dark World and Captain America: The Winter Soldier, the latter forcing a retooling of the whole series mid-season, and the show introduced both the Kree and the Inhumans to this continuity.
The traffic never ran the other way. Joss Whedon described the process as meaning “the TV show gets, you know, leftovers”. Jed Whedon listed the early restrictions: no spies, no Hydra, no artificial intelligence, no robots. Access to characters was granted and withdrawn. In 2020 Chloe Bennet called the show “the black sheep of the Marvel Universe”.
And in August 2024, asked directly whether it belonged, Marvel Studios’ head of streaming praised its connections to the films, allowed that the studio could consider it part of the Multiverse Saga, and would not confirm it. That is where the question still stands.
Who is in it
- Alphonso MackenzieMackHenry Simmons
- Bobbi MorseMockingbirdAdrianne Palicki
- Carl Creel / Absorbing ManAbsorbing ManBrian Patrick Wade
- Daisy JohnsonQuakeChloe Bennet
- Deke ShawThe LighthouseJeff Ward
- Dum Dum DuganHowling CommandoNeal McDonough
- Elena RodriguezYo-YoNatalia Cordova-Buckley
- Grant WardThe specialistBrett Dalton
- Jasper SitwellAgent SitwellMaximiliano Hernández, Adam Faison
- Jemma SimmonsFitz-SimmonsElizabeth Henstridge
- Johnny Blaze / Ghost RiderThe Spirit of VengeanceTom McComas
- Lance HunterThe mercenaryNick Blood
- Leo FitzFitz-SimmonsIain De Caestecker
- Maria HillFury's right handCobie Smulders
- Melinda MayThe CavalryMing-Na Wen
- Peggy CarterStrategic Scientific ReserveHayley Atwell, Gabriella Graves
- Phil CoulsonAgent of S.H.I.E.L.D.Clark Gregg
- Robbie Reyes / Ghost RiderThe ChargerGabriel Luna
- SifLady SifJaimie Alexander
How it connects
Watching these first makes this one land.
Sources
Facts last checked on Sep 7, 2026
Released: September 24, 2013