Patton Oswalt Joins Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Actor/comedian Patton Oswalt will join the cast of Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. as Agent Eric Koenig in an upcoming episode. Koenig, who first appeared in Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos #27, was a part of Fury's original team of World War II soldiers in the comics. Presumably Oswalt will be carried to the present day, as has Fury and many of the rest of the S.H.I.E.L.D. cast, although if the Agent Carter series is greenlit, it's not entirely outside the realm of possibilities that the character could be set during or shortly after World War II, where he could serve as part of a backdoor pilot for the Hayley Atwell-driven drama. "I got a call from my agent saying they want you on Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., and I said 'hell, yes,'" said Oswalt. "I'm lucky that I'm visible enough that they wanted to bring me in to play this character. I'd worked with [Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Executive Producer] Joss [Whedon] before on Dollhouse, and I guess I wasn't too annoying and they decided to put me on another one of his shows. So I was very lucky." The actor seemingly hoped that he would turn out to be The Clairvoyant when cast, and has been asking whether that character might be tied to M.O.D.O.K. "When they first told me the character's name, I'll admit the first thing I did is I went on Wikipedia and looked up the M.O.D.O.K. character to see if Koenig was maybe his name before he became M.O.D.O.K., but it wasn't," laughs Oswalt. "They keep on talking about the Clairvoyant in the show and I'm like, 'is that M.O.D.O.K.? Am I M.O.D.O.K.?"