Marvel Secretly Set Up Its Next MCU TV Show 13 Years Ago

Published Oct 12, 2026, 6:30 PM EDT Once head of Screen Rant's Star Wars coverage and co-lead of Superheroes, Tom Bacon now works with the movies and books teams. He's a lifelong fan of the fantasy and sci-fi genres, and loves franchises such as Doctor Who and Marvel. You can find him on Twitter @TomABacon, on LinkedIn @tabacon, or on Muckrack under tombacon. Tom has a wide range of interests, and he continues to serve his university as a volunteer chaplain. He's heavily involved with his local church, and anyone who checks him out on Twitter will swiftly learn he's into British politics too. The MCU's next TV show, Zodiac, was set up 13 years ago — and most viewers have forgotten it. For a while now, there's been a lot of concern about the future of the MCU's TV shows; what's next after Daredevil: Born Again wraps up? We finally know the answer to that question; Marvel is now working on a mystery spy series called "Zodiac," set to release in 2028. Marvel's officially released a logo, but that's about all that is currently known. There's intense speculation Zodiac could be an Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. sequel, largely based on this logo: It incorporates both the SHIELD insignia and one comic book readers have immediately recognized as the so-called "Great Wheel" in comics, a secretive gathering of leading spies from across the world. There, the Great Wheel was created by the time traveling Leonardo Da Vinci (because, comics), and included representatives of every spy agency on Earth, plus S.H.I.E.L.D. and Hydra. But, surprisingly, Marvel viewers are looking in the wrong place for the biggest setup. We've Already Seen "Zodiac" In The MCU And No, We Don't Mean Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Before Disney+, even before the old Marvel Netflix deal that introduced Daredevil in 2015, the MCU expanded in a series of Marvel one-shots that served as DVD / Blu-Ray extras (they're now on Disney+, and officially recognized as part of the MCU timeline). They're basically short stories designed to flesh out the MCU; sometimes they're humorous (A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To Thor's Hammer), and sometimes they're designed to fix MCU plot holes (The Consultant). But the most interesting was an Agent Carter one-shot, which served as a proof of concept for a Marvel Television series. In Agent Carter, Hayley Atwell's Peggy Carter is still working for the SSR after the end of World War II. It's not exactly going well; she's basically consigned to a desk job, whether she likes it or not. Crucially, though, the SSR is in a state of alert because a mysterious villain codenamed Zodiac has arrived in New York. "Zodiac is on the move," the SSR is told. "Crossing the white stone bridge in a green sedan. This enemy is considered armed and extremely dangerous." Later, Peggy goes rogue when she's told her bosses have a locked position on Zodiac. "This enemy will not hesitate to use lethal force," she's told, but naturally is far from concerned about that. Curiously, though, when Peggy raids an enemy base — easily taking down a group of rival agents — she focuses on retrieving a vial of glowing blue liquid. Although this unidentified, a tie-in comic (which may or may not be canon) confirmed this was some sort of deadly chemical or virus. Agent Carter Never Really Explained What Zodiac Is (& The TV Show Ignored It) The TV Show Went In A Different Direction Agent Carter never really explained what Zodiac was. That was a deliberate decision on Marvel's part; the one-shot is an attempt to make the world feel more expansive, initially seeming to hint that Zodiac is some sort of rival agency. The oddity comes at the end of the story, though, when Peggy asks an enemy where Zodiac is; she's told it's "at the end of the hallway on the right," and subsequently retrieves the vial. Surprisingly, this seems to suggest the mysterious blue substance is in fact Zodiac. In truth, the one-shot probably wasn't thought through all that much. It served its purpose as a proof of concept, and Marvel Television subsequently made an entire Agent Carter TV show. Continuity between the show and the one-shot is more than a little clunky; the series was essentially the story of Carter's rise through the SSR, setting up her becoming S.H.I.E.L.D.'s first director, but the one-shot speed-runs that whole process. Zodiac was never revisited. Fast forward to 2020, though, and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. season 7's time travel plot introduced a character who went by a Zodiac callsign — and, interestingly, lived in the 1930s. Played by Patton Oswalt, Ernest Koenig was the ancestor of several established S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. He ran a speakeasy during Prohibition, and went by the codename Gemini. It was probably a pun on the fact Oswalt played multiple Koenigs in the show's normal timeline, but could potentially tie into the Zodiac theme. What Does Agent Carter's Zodiac Setup Mean For The MCU's Next TV Show? There Are A Lot More Questions Than Answers Viewers may have generally forgotten Zodiac; this was, after all, a throwaway reference in a one-shot that released back in 2013. But Marvel Studios certainly won't have forgotten, and it seems it's now time for Zodiac to take center-stage to an unprecedented degree. The Agent Carter one-shot now has the honor of being setup for not one but two TV shows; it was a successful proof of concept for Haylay Atwell's own two-season series (canceled too soon), and Zodiac has now become a Disney+ series too. The one-shot may present an inconsistent picture of Zodiac, but it does tell us a few things: Firstly, Zodiac is a conspiracy of some sort that has been active since at least the 1940s, dating back to the days of the SSR. Whatever the nature of this conspiracy, the U.S. intelligence services considered Zodiac to be a dangerous threat, and the SSR was charged with countering Zodiac operations as a priority. One of these involved an unidentified blue chemical compound, and retrieving this was so important that Peggy Carter became director of S.H.I.E.L.D. because she'd succeeded in the mission. That blue chemical compound is the real ministry. An Infinity Comic released alongside Captain America: The Winter Soldier revealed this was some kind of chemical weapon or virus, sought after by terrorists; but it's unclear how canon that comic really is, because Marvel has never tended to be bound by tie-ins of any kind. It wouldn't be a surprise to see it retconned into something totally different from the comics; perhaps the Infinity Formula, a drug used to grant long life, allowing Zodiac to bring back Marvel super-spies from earlier in the timeline. The entire Marvel one-shot program was the brainchild of Brad Winderbaum, now Head of Marvel Television, Animation, Comics & Franchise — the man responsible for commissioning this Zodiac TV show. We may not know what Zodiac is, but there's no way this connection is a coincidence, meaning we know a little more about the next MCU TV show than most people think. It really does seem that nothing is ever wasted in the MCU. Release Date 2015 - 2016-00-00 Network ABC Showrunner Tara Butters, Michele Fazekas Cast Dominic Cooper Howard Stark Directors Craig Zisk, David Platt, Jennifer Getzinger, Lawrence Trilling, Metin Hüseyin, Christopher Misiano, Joe Russo, Louis D'Esposito, Peter Leto, Scott Winant, Stephen Cragg, Stephen Williams Writers Eric Pearson, Brant Englestein, Lindsey Allen, Jose Molina, Andi Bushell, Christopher Markus, Stephen McFeely, Tara Butters, Michele Fazekas Franchise(s) Marvel Cinematic Universe