Marvel TV has really grown in the last few years. On the heels of their success with The Avengers, in 2012, they quickly developed Agents of SHIELD for ABC. Now, going into their fifth season on that series, Marvel in that time also brought Agent Carter to ABC for two season as well as adding Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Iron Fist and The Defenders to their roster through Netflix. They also have a few shows coming up — Inhumans on ABC and in IMAX theatres, Cloak and Dagger and New Warriors on Freeform and The Runaways on Hulu.
Oh, and The Punisher. They’ve also got The Punisher, out on Netflix this November.
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But, that’s still not enough for them, as evidenced by Marvel Television SVP of Original Programming Karim Zreik speaking to The Hollywood Reporter at the Edinburgh TV Festival. At the festival, the SVP told the crowd that they are working with ABC on a “new female-focused show” that will be Jessica Jones-esque.”
However, he offered no other details than that, leaving us to wonder just what series or character he could be talking about. In fact, it’s still uncertain how he means to use his descriptor of “Jessica Jones-esque.” For instance, when he says that, does he mean ‘a series about a strong female hero who’s fallen on hard times’ or does he simply mean a female lead series. Jessica Jones is a very specific archetype: tough as nails, gritty, hard-boiled, hard-drinking detective with sharp wit and a sharper mouth. So are they looking to bring a more PG version of that to a network? Or, do they simply mean they want a female lead series on ABC similar to how Jessica Jones is a female?
Whatever direction they’re going, here are a couple ideas we had for possibilities.
Jennifer Walters, a.k.a. She-Hulk seems an obvious choice. Attorney by day, jade-skinned irradiated super-strong cousin to Bruce Banner by night — and by day also. She-Hulk could be a great attorney procedural series on ABC, giving us an hour long legal drama that also features a female superhero who actually takes pleasure in using her newfound powers to both help people out, but also just to have fun. Seriously — super strength would be super awesome to have.
A show like this could be great for the MCU, seeing Walters, as an attorney, taking on a cavalcade of cases involving superhuman cases. Sometimes defending villains, sometimes prosecuting heroes, taking on whatever cases she has to in order to stay afloat.
Another possibility could be doing something with a character already established. We’ve got Quake (Chloe Bennett) on Agents of SHIELD, who could definitely lead her own series, as well as Trish Walker, a.k.a. Hellcat, played by Rachael Taylor in Jessica Jones. Either of those series could do really well.
Before we go any further down this rabbithole, we should point out that Zreik also told the Edinburgh crowd that Marvel TV is looking to get more into comedy. As he said, “Comedy is something we really want to go into. It took us time to dip our foot in the comedy pool.” However, he did caution that they would “never do an office comedy” per say.
With that in mind, we give you Ms. Marvel, a.k.a. Kamala Khan, the Inhuman with the powers to change the shape of her body, a bit like Mr. Fantastic, though this also includes shrinking herself or “enbiggening” herself, as she says. For all intents and purposes, Kamala is very much a modern day Peter Parker — a Muslim girl living in the New York area who has to deal with helping her parents make ends meet, keeping her superheroic alter ego secret from her friends at school and her family, all while doing her best to keep up with her school work and private life while, you know, saving the world. Of course, being a Muslim in modern America doesn’t help either.
Seriously — how is this not a show already? Is it the budget? Figure it out ABC.
Again, like with Quake or Hellcat, ABC and Marvel could be looking to bring a character like Squirrel Girl over with her own solo series, though this seems unlikely since that character has not yet been tested on the TV audience.
Lastly, and just throwing this out there because — why not — there were rumors a couple years ago that Wesley Snipes had been in touch with Marvel about bringing the vampire hunter Blade out of the shadows, but with a twist — Blade has a daughter who inherited his same blessing/curse. It’s entirely possible that ABC wants to get into the Vampire Diaries business on their own, but with a superheroic Vampire hunter with a legacy.
Please do that?
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