Marvel's Damage Control Production Plans Revealed

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As if it wasn't enough to bear witness to the Agents of SHIELD clearing wreckage, ABC are dedicating a whole series to the subject...
The entertainment news site Variety has this week unveiled the first official production details surrounding a new Marvel Cinematic Universe project which ABC hope to air on their US network sometime in the not too distant future.

Marvel's Damage Control, as the in-development series in question is currently being referred to by its execs, will purportedly adopt the guise of a 30-minute sitcom, with its narrative's focus being on an intrepid team of administration experts whose efforts revolve around clearing and covering up the plentiful debris left by the Avengers in the wake of their explosive battles with the forces of evil.

If the semi-apocalyptic final acts of recent MCU blockbusters such as 2011's Thor, the following year's Avengers Assemble and most notably this Spring's Avengers: Age of Ultron have proven anything, it's that the Earth's Mightiest Heroes certainly don't tend to leave any of their geographical battlegrounds unscathed. At the same time, though, in spite of the comic potential contained within Damage Control's somewhat enticing premise and despite the fact that the team derives from a comic-book of the same name which has endured throughout Marvel's history, the first dilemma creators Marvel Television and ABC will need to navigate is just whether there's enough mileage here for a full-blown, The Big Bang Theory-rivalling laugh-fest, or whether one-off specials such as the planned pilot episode (which the latter studio will have to pay for in the event that it's not filmed, making its broadcast seem that much more likely, for better or for worse) might represent a superior course of action in the long run, especially with so many other small-screen superhero projects like Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Agent Carter and Daredevil - to name but a select few - already taking up space in the airwaves.

There's little point in anyone passing judgement just yet, mind - who's to say that with Kevin Feige now fully at the helm of Marvel Studios, he won't offer up at least one or two Avengers to spice some life into the all-important opening episode, or that Agents' beloved Clark Gregg won't reprise his role as Coulson to set up the titular band of under-appreciated disaster recovery experts? Nothing's out of the question in that regard and in fact, Feige stated only last week (whilst talking with IGN) that the chances of future crossovers between his much-adored multi-medium franchise's film and TV sectors now seems "inevitable", citing production schedules as being the only main difficulty which has prevented the two branches from crossing paths in a substantial manner to date. Whilst fans shouldn't hold out too much hope of full-scale convergence between Marvel's impending array of Phase Three movies and this latest small-screen effort, then, particularly given that Agents has gone three entire seasons without featuring any Avenger (and no, Nick Fury sadly doesn't count), the possibility of such a crossover alone as well as the potential for ABC to recruit some talented lead stars as they have with both Agents and Carter should prove more than comforting enough for those with initial reservations about this hefty titbit of leaked news.

Whatever the outcome, the process of witnessing Marvel's Damage Control's conception will doubtless be an experience to remember in and of itself, so with that in mind, feel free to stick around at On-Screen so as to discover every piece of breaking news surrounding its scripting stages, production and planned broadcast windows. No specific airdate has been set as of yet, but rather than waiting for updates on this front, Stateside MCU aficionados can catch "Purpose in the Machine", the sophomore episode of Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s third string of high-octane missions, next Tuesday, October 6th on ABC, while their British counterparts will gain access to Season Three's première instalment, "Laws of Nature", in early 2016 on Channel 4.