Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has brought on some pretty cool guest stars in its 11 episodes thus far, with actors like Samuel L. Jackson, Saffron Burrows, Peter MacNicol, J. August Richards and Maximiliano Hernández, but this latest announcement really takes the cake. TV Guide is reporting that the always awesome Bill Paxton is set to appear in at least four upcoming episodes of S.H.I.E.L.D. and is set to play Agent John Garrett.
Unlike many of the other characters on the show, Garrett is actually a character that comes from Marvel comics. He is a cybernetically enhanced S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, and according to executive producer Jed Whedon, in the show he will be a "rough-and-tumble former cohort of Agent Coulson [Clark Gregg] with a little bit of attitude and cigar-smoking swagger" (Marvel adds that he will also be Agent Ward's (Brett Dalton) former mentor). The details of his introduction plot-wise are being kept a secret for now, but apparently he will be teaming up mostly with Ward and Agent May (Ming-Na Wen) during his episodes. Said Whedon,
"When Garrett got his promotion to Level 7, he refused to sit behind a desk and doesn't like the formalities of S.H.I.E.L.D. He's going to help Coulson solve some mysteries and is not afraid to rig an explosive or two."
Garrett made his first appearance in the comic Elektra: Assassin #2 when the titular heroine put his mind in the body of the president in order to save the world. He is also now one of the characters working alongside Nick Fury in Secret Warriors comics.
For those of you super excited about this idea, I have some bad news. Paxton won't be showing up this week or next, but rather won't make his debut until March 4th. We will, however, have a new episode of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. on tomorrow night, titled Seeds. You can watch the trailer for the show below:
Nice to see Lola taking flight again! The episode looks like it will be continuing two of the first season arcs - What Happened To Coulson? and Who Are Skye's Parents? - but I'm curious if they will touch on what's happening to Mike Peterson. At the end of the last episode we saw him badly burned, missing limbs, and implanted with the same life-threatening device in his eyeball that appeared in earlier episodes, and I'm super curious about his fate.
Paxton has spent the last few years going back and forth between film and television, going to the small screen for the HBO series Big Love and the award-winning miniseries Hatfields & McCoys. He has three movies coming out in 2014, including the Craig Gillespie-directed baseball drama Million Dollar Arm and Doug Liman's sci-fi thriller Edge of Tomorrow. You can watch trailers for both below:
