By reviving this forgotten storyline from Marvel Television’s Agents of SHIELD, one upcoming Marvel Cinematic Universe series can become even more important to the superhero franchise. After experiencing a gradual and continuous drop in viewership and popularity during its seven-season run, Agents of SHIELD came to an end in 2020. Five years later, however, there has been a great deal of speculation about characters and storylines from the ABC Marvel series appearing in the MCU proper, and one Phase 6 series presents the best opportunity for this to take place.
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There has been recent speculation that Marvel Studios’ upcoming Vision Quest series will “make Agents of SHIELD fans happy” (via Cosmic Marvel). While this has spurred a number of theories about how this could occur, there’s one surefire way that Agents of SHIELD could be addressed in 2026’s Vision Quest, and it involves the latter’s slew of artificially intelligent characters. Characters including Ultron, Jocasta, and EDITH will be included in Vision Quest, and they may receive human-like bodies in the form of Life Model Decoys, which made their live-action debut in Agents of SHIELD season 3.
It’s been rumored for some time that James Spader will be returning as a humanoid version of Ultron in Vision Quest, a decade after his last appearance as the tyrannical robot in 2015’s Avengers: Age of Ultron. Introducing Life Model Decoys provides the perfect opportunity for Ultron, as well as T’Nia Miller’s Jocasta, Emily Hampshire’s EDITH – the artificial intelligence inside Peter Parker’s Stark-created glasses, and more artificial intelligences, perhaps FRIDAY, Arnim Zola, Miss Minutes, NATALIE, and more, to get physical bodies. LMDs played a huge role in Agents of SHIELD, so it would be fantastic to see them return.
After debuting in season 3’s finale, Agents of SHIELD season 4 explored Life Model Decoys in huge detail by having several members of the core team replaced by the androids created by Holden Radcliffe (John Hannah) and AIDA (Mallory Jansen). The androids were seriously realistic, allowing them to infiltrate the SHIELD base and bring more individuals into the simulated reality, the Framework. LMDs continued to play a role until Agents of SHIELD’s finale, as Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg) was revived as an LMD following his human death at the end of season 5.
Introducing Life Model Decoys in Vision Quest would give new life to the MCU’s most notable artificial intelligences. This would also mark the first time since 2012’s The Avengers that LMDs have been mentioned in the MCU canon, as Tony Stark previously made a joke about being a Life Model Decoy to try and avoid speaking to Coulson. Following on from WandaVision and Agatha All Along, there is a lot of excitement for Vision Quest, and debuting Life Model Decoys in the Phase 6 series would certainly make Agents of SHIELD fans happy and make the spinoff even more exciting.
Do you want to see Life Model Decoys return in Vision Quest? Let us know in the comments!
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