As a new day dawns for Marvel Cinematic Universe programming on Disney+, the future of these endeavors certainly doesn’t look like it’ll afford more chances for big-budget, star-driven programs like Moon Knight or Loki. Lavish budgets and lots of special effects are now out of the question. These programs will instead be modeled more after the more cost-conscious Agatha All Along and Daredevil: Born Again, while also trying to deliver yearly doses of programming to viewers. In other words, the MCU is embracing the long-standing standards of the television world.
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In this pursuit, options for new MCU Disney+ productions will inevitably be limited. After all, there are only so many times you can reboot the various Netflix Marvel shows from the 2010s. But hope could be on the horizon if they revived an abandoned Marvel show from the 2010s that, ironically, promised a lot of damage and chaos.
What Was The Damage Control TV Show?
First appearing in Marvel Age Annual #4 in June 1988, Damage Control is a company that helps clean up the messes left behind by various superhero fights. They come very close to intersecting with the main superhero sagas, but rarely directly play into the bigger Marvel Comics picture. The whole fun of these characters is that they’re on the outskirts of all the grandiose adventures and are more emblematic of the readers in their everyday demeanors.
Back in late 2015, the rich potential of these characters was vividly on ABC’s mind when it green-lit a pilot for a TV show entitled Damage Control. This was just as the third Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. season was getting underway and Agent Carter was preparing to launch its second season. The network was at the tail-end of its peak obsession with all things Marvel in the hopes that these adaptations could propel ABC to even greater ratings success. Comedy TV veteran Ben Karlin was hired to shepherd the project, which could’ve made a great companion for ABC’s hit sitcoms at that moment.
Operating as a sitcom could’ve given Damage Control some extra personality compared to its hour-long drama Marvel TV brethren on ABC. However, this show never got any further than this initial late 2015 announcement. The production died on the vine, and the Damage Control organization would later debut in the Marvel Cinematic Universe through Spider-Man: Homecoming in July 2017. A decade later, it’s time to give Damage Control another shot as a half-hour sitcom, albeit one with a new creative team.
Damage Control Is Just What Disney+ Marvel Programming Needs
If Damage Control could’ve been different from other mid-2010s ABC superhero shows like Agent Carter, then it would basically be from another planet compared to typical Disney+ Marvel productions. Keeping Damage Control within the typical budgetary and scope restrictions of a standard sitcom would provide a radical departure from every other MCU streaming program. Even She-Hulk: Attorney at Law had tons of costly CGI and fight scenes.
A Damage Control show, meanwhile, could lean on a more intimate scope to provide the kind of witty jokes and lovable characters that define the greatest sitcoms. If Marvel Television wants to shift things up for what Disney+ Marvel programs look like, Damage Control would be an ideal enterprise. Plus, recent MCU movies have become so big and bloated in scope in their multiversal adventures and emphasis on outer space baddies. Damage Control could provide something different in examining just the lives of ordinary people living against extraordinary backdrops. Great TV shows in any genre tend to offer something new, and Damage Control could live up to that legacy.
Plus, Damage Control was already getting worked on at ABC back in the mid-2010s. It’s clear that people already saw the potential for this production eons ago. It’s high time Disney+ exploited all that potential as it tries to immensely overhaul what people can expect from small-screen MCU programming. On top of all that, the recurring presence of Damage Control in 2020s MCU productions like Ms. Marvel makes it seem inevitable that this group’s MCU exploits won’t just be confined to cameos. Everything seems perfectly set up for Damage Control to finally flourish as a TV show in this new era of MCU small-screen endeavors.
All episodes of Ms. Marvel are now streaming on Disney+.
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