Agent Carter

The renewals, pickups and cancellations are flying fast and furious at ABC, but Marvel fans have nothing but good news ahead. Not only will Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. return for a Season 3 this fall, but fan-favorite Agent Carter will suit up for a second season in 2016!

Captain Marvel got a major shot in the arm with the studio’s confirmation of Nicole Perlman and Meg LaFauve as the film’s writers, but fan-favorite Ms. Marvel Kamala Khan may beat her idol into the MCU. A new rumor suggests that ABC’s John Ridley-helmed series is none other than the Muslim-American superhero, potentially to be paired with the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. spinoff.

Although cosplay has been present for decades within the comics, anime, and sci-fi/fantasy fandoms, social media has played an integral role in the thriving communities of costuming that exist, such as Cosplay.com and the Superhero Costuming Forum. Over the years, the cosplay community has evolved into a creative outlet for many fans to establish and showcase some impressive feats of homemade disguise, craftsmanship, and sartorial superheroics at conventions. In honor of the caped crusaders of the convention scene, ComicsAlliance has created Best Cosplay Ever (This Week), an ongoing collection of some of the most impeccable, creative, and clever costumes that we’ve discovered and assembled into a super-showcase of pure fan-devoted talent.

Marvel’s Agent Carter at last got her “Valediction” with last night’s first season finale, finally letting go of Captain America, but surprisingly setting up The Winter Soldier along the way. ABC has yet to formally commit to Season 2, but what do Carter writers and executive producers have to say on its potential plot, and further Captain America crossover? You’re warned of spoilers for last night’s Agent Carter finale from here on out.

The end has come upon us. The eighth and final episode of Agent Carter has aired, and a show that was perhaps too beautiful for this world may have seen its last over-the-shoulder goon-toss with a finale that brought Peggy's war against Leviathan to an at times thrilling, and at times perhaps too-familiar conclusion --- featuring Dottie, Faustus, Jarvis, Howard, and all the gang. (Except Dooley. Sorry, Dooley.) Episode 8, 'Valediction,' was directed by Christopher Misiano and written by Michele Fazekas and Tara Butters. Was it a fitting end to the show, and is it really the end?

In last week's recap of Agent Carter I posited that this penultimate episode would see the cast largely confined to the SSR offices, which seems rather less interesting than seeing a rogue Peggy kicking ass at-large on the streets of 1940s New York City. And lo, the prophecy came to pass, with Peggy almost entirely sidelined in her own show, and no-one really stepping up to fill the void. As a result, episode 7, "Snafu," directed by Vincent Misiano and written by Chris Dingess, was a bit of a disappointment --- though it did offer some top quality Dottie (Bridget Regan), an actual super-villain, and a very welcome character development for Chief Dooley (Shea Whigham).

Agent Carter heads towards its end game with its sixth episode, 'A Sin To Err', directed by Stephen Williams and written by Lindsey Allen. The sad news is that it may be a permanent end, as the show hasn't been delivering ratings that would guarantee a second season -- but I'm not ready to rule it out. I'm hoping DVR numbers will save it. The good news is, with a tight eight episodes, the show is clearly structured as a self-contained story, and assuming a strong ending, this one season will endure as a solid installment in the Marvel canon. I think the Agent Carter model is a much stronger one for future Marvel TV shows on ABC -- the Netflix model on network, in essence -- than the meandering anticlimactic flab of Agents of SHIELD. Which is a show I don't want to have to think about yet. So let's talk about Agent Carter!

OMG you guys, Dum Dum Dugan is in this episode. Ahem. Also; 'The Iron Celing' is the fifth episode of Agent Carter, and quite comfortably the best, not just because of Dum Dum, but also because it changes the scenery, places Peggy on a real mission, fleshes out Chad Michael Murray's Agent Jack Thompson, and gives us a real taste of the breadth and color of this Marvel Universe. The only thing I didn't really like was the title, a too-cute hybridization of Iron Curtain and Glass Ceiling that doesn't ultimately capture what the episode was about. 'The Iron Ceiling' was directed by Peter Leto and written by Jose Molina. And Dum Dum Dugan was in it. Let's recap it, SSR-style.

We're halfway through the eight episode run of Agent Carter, and it's now very clear that this show isn't aiming to be a procedural, and that's both a strength and a weakness. Agent Carter has a clear idea what it's about and where it's going, with this week's episode focused on moving all the characters forward (and helping us to better get to know a few of them), but the lack of a 'monster of the week' structure leaves the show -- and this episode -- feeling unfocused. 'The Blizkrieg Button' is directed by Stephen Cragg and written by Brant Englestein, and has easily the best title of the show's run; but sadly the Blizkrieg Button proves to be a bit of a decoy duck, both in the title and in the episode itself.

If you think the Marvel Cinematic Universe is dominating your life now, just wait until 2016 when Steve Rogers and Tony Stark go head-to-head in ‘Captain America: Civil War.’ It’s a movie so big that it actually scared ‘Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice’ away from its original release date. So when you read the latest comments on the film by screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely (who also wrote the first two ‘Captain America’ films), just try to imagine the amount of pressure on their shoulders. Lesser screenwriters would be crushed.