We started off our day on Saturday, March 24 at WonderCon 2018 in the Arena of the Anaheim Convention Center with the Batman Ninja and Ready Player One panels, remained in the Arena all day for the Lost in Space and Fear the Walking Dead panels, then finished off the day with the Agents of SHIELD panel. At past WonderCons, the Agents of SHIELD panel has been in a smaller programming room, but as Comic-Con International Director of Programming told us upon introducing the panel, they were finally able to talk the show into believing that it was worthy of the Arena.
First, Executive Producer Jeph Loeb came out on stage to warm the crowd up, as he likes to do before any Marvel TV panel that he moderates. He was promptly “interrupted” by newcomer Jeff Ward, who plays Deke, coming out on stage. However, Chloe Bennet, who plays Daisy, came chasing after him to pull him off stage.
Jeph Loeb then continued his warm up of the crowd, first getting us to vote (with applause) on which season of Agents of SHIELD was our favorite. It was a close call to determine which was the winner, but he concluded that one thing was for certain: that we want more. So he split up the crowd into three sections: “We,” “want,” and “more” and had us chant that.
Then Jeph called out the panelists: Executive Producer Jeff Bell, Co-Creators and Showrunners Maurissa Tancharoen and Jed Whedon, and cast members Jeff Ward (Deke), Natalia Cordova-Buckley (Yo-Yo), Henry Simmons (Mack), Elizabeth Henstridge (Jemma Simmons), Iain de Caestecker (Leo Fitz), Ming-Na Wen (Melinda May), and Chloe Bennet (Skye/Daisy/Quake). Elizabeth and Iain were introduced as “Mr. and Mrs. Fitz-Simmons” to loud applause.
Clark Gregg, although he has never missed an Agents of SHIELD convention appearance before, was not in attendance. But the reason was because he was in Washington, D.C. for March for Our Lives. He sent over a video of himself, and introduced a sizzle reel of highlights from the past 5 seasons of Agents of SHIELD.
The panel was then immediately opened up for audience questions, the first of which was praising the creators for having a show with two Asian-American leads, and asking about ways the fan base has impacted them. Jeph Loeb commented that from the very beginning, they wanted a cast that “looks like the world, not like what’s on television.” Maurissa told us that during the signing earlier that day, a young woman told her that because of the show, Jemma Simmons had inspired her to pursue a career in science, which means a lot to them to hear something like that. She spotted the young woman in the audience and thanked her for her story.
When asked about what it was like to get the role of Daisy Johnson/Quake, Chloe Bennet said that in Season 2 she had heard whispers that her character was going to get powers, so she looked online and found a fan site listing 5 characters she might become — and Daisy Johnson was one of them, which she thought that it was. A few days later, she was officially told about the transition and was able to guess who she would become.
It was pointed out that this was Jeff Ward’s first con, and throughout the panel, he was teased by almost everyone on stage, because apparently that’s their thing to do right now! But Chloe Bennet clarified that it was “out of love.”
Chloe talked about how much fun they have on set, and that they’re always laughing. She was reluctant to share her favorite moment on set because Clark Gregg would kill her, but she gave in and told us: “Someone farted!” However, she clarified that it wasn’t Clark.
As for Henry’s favorite moment, he said, “Any moment that I’m with the rest of the cast.” Then he added, “Except Jeff.” However, Natalia’s favorite moment was “meeting Jeff.” Jeph Loeb asked Iain what his favorite moment was, to which Elizabeth chimed in and asked, “Was it marrying me?” Then the question got changed to whether it was kissing her, to which Iain then acted like he didn’t understand the question. But he then said his favorite was when someone handed Kasius a snail, and Kasius responded, “Ponarian!”
When asked about the backstory of Deke and Zima, Jed Whedon explained that they had considered what Deke would do upon being dropped on this Earth, and figured that he would go to a bar and be disappointed in the taste of beer. So they had him drink Zima, which is “the least manly thing to drink.” However, they knew that Jeff is very funny and that letting him loose in a bar with Zima would be comedy gold.
Elizabeth had a little trouble thinking of the moment on set that made her laugh the most, but Iain came to her rescue and reminded her of a story about him that happened in the first season. There was a scene where someone had X-ray vision, so she and Iain had to wear skin tight lycra, and their clothes were made out of clear plastic. Elizabeth started cracking up as she recalled seeing Iain coming out of his trailer and having to take off his robe. “What she’s trying to say is that I have the body of a 12-year old boy,” Iain explained. Elizabeth revealed that she still has pictures.
Regarding what sort of future Chloe hopes that Daisy has, she just wants her to have a boyfriend (that’s not a Nazi, and doesn’t die). She wants her to be able to just “Netflix and chill.”
When Ming-Na was asked about her favorite part about Season 3, she said she enjoyed working with Blair Underwood, who played her husband, Dr. Andrew Garner. Additionally, that season the audience got to learn more about Agent May and why she became who she was.
Maurissa addressed why so many relationships on this show end badly, talking about how having a relationship in this line of work is complicated. She also clarified that it has nothing to do with her current relationship (with her husband Jed Whedon). Ming-Na chimed in that Maurissa and Jed are “relationship goals,” and praised how incredible it is that they work together every day and also have a child, who was at the panel. “They’re the real life FitzSimmons,” added Chloe.
As for whether any Marvel movie characters would be brought onto the show, Jeph Loeb said that it’s always a challenge to work around the schedules of movie stars, but they are lucky that got one as the lead of the show — when Coulson came back from the dead. Chloe commented that it felt weird with this being the first time they’ve done a panel with Clark Gregg, so she texted him a video of the audience saying, “We love you, Clark!”
An audience member made a request for Chloe and Jeff Ward do some Hamilton, so they obliged. Click here to see video of it, which our friend Cyberaug captured.
Another question was which character the panelists would like to have more screen time with, to which Chloe talked about how she and Henry (Mack) used to be partners, and she misses that because she really loves working with him, but then “Natalia took him away… But they’re so cute!” Chloe also said that Patton Oswalt is really fun to work with. When the question was posed to Henry, his answer was, “Natalia.” But then he said that he loved working with everyone. Natalia’s answer? Jeff.
Just then, Clark Gregg returned Chloe’s video text by FaceTiming her, and she turned her phone around so everyone could see, and held it up to the microphone. Clark said, “I love you, WonderCon.”
When asked what their favorite Marvel movie was, almost all the panelists answered Black Panther. Jeff Ward shared a funny story about how he recently told Clark Gregg that he thought Black Panther was his favorite Marvel movie, to which Clark replied, “Avengers was pretty good.” Jeff responded, “Yeah, you’re right,” and Clark said, “It’s paying your bills.”
One interesting question, to which the showrunners had to dance around an answer, was what the SHIELD team’s reaction to the events of Infinity War would be. Jed answered, “They’re probably not going to be stoked.” He went on to talk about how the Marvel movies have always “blazed the path” for the show, for example, after Doctor Strange, they could then have magic on the show, and after Guardians of the Galaxy, they could go into space. He continued, “We’re just waiting on that movie to come out so that it can open up a whole new playground for us.”
As usual, there was a plant that asked if we could see something we’ve never seen before. In the past, this has led to us getting to watch the entire next episode. However, this time around, we watched the final 10 minutes or so of the next episode, which I thought was an odd choice, but by the way it ended, I could see why they did it, as it led to big cheers from the audience. I won’t spoil anything for you though!
That wrapped up the panel, and also wrapped up programming in the Arena for the day. We grabbed some food from the food trucks (which had pretty short lines at this point), then headed out for the day. Click here for our Sunday report!
You can view more of our photos from the Agents of SHIELD panel at WonderCon 2018 below.
