If you were to pick two properties in the Marvel Cinematic Universe that would make a good pairing, chances are Agent Carter and Doctor Strange wouldn’t be your first choices. After all, one follows a spy’s adventures in the 1940s while another follows a former surgeon delving into mysticism in the present day. They couldn’t be more different, but when Agent Carter Season 2 premieres next week, there will be a key tie-in to the Sorcerer Supreme’s November movie through an extra-dimensional energy.
While Peggy is out in Los Angeles for her new adventure, she’ll come across an energy called Zero Matter, but executive producer Michele Fazekas told Comic Book Resources that Marvel fans will recognize it as the Darkforce. She explained:
You'll learn more about that in Season 2, but they stumble upon what people in the Marvel Universe will know as Darkforce, but because they've never seen it before they just name it Zero Matter. That's our tie-in to the Doctor Strange universe, and also to S.H.I.E.L.D. because you've seen it in S.H.I.E.L.D. as well.
For Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. fans who have forgotten, the Season 1 villain Blackout harnessed the Darkforce when using his abilities against the agents in “The Only Light in the Darkness.” However, as Fazekas noted, the Darkforce manifests itself in different forms, so it will operate on a different set of rules for Agent Carter. It makes sense how this ties in Doctor Strange, given that the Master of Mystic Arts will come across a lot of weird stuff while studying magic and traveling to alternate dimensions. That said, it’s worth pointing out that it hasn’t been said whether his movie will directly feature the Darkforce.
As for where the Darkforce will originate on Agent Carter, a company called Isodyne Energy is the one responsible, and Fazekas gave some background on how these folks discovered the energy. She said:
Basically, Isodyne is a company that we invented based in part on real life companies like Radiodyne or General Atomic or the beginnings of the Jet Propulsion Lab -- all of which were in L.A. in the '40s, and were developing the space program and were developing nukes. That's what Isodyne is, and what you'll learn is they were involved in the nuclear testing out in the desert when they were testing the, at the time they were calling it the atom bomb -- and one of these tests didn't go as expected.
Comic book characters really need to learn that tampering with unknown forces is never going to go the way they expect. Presumably Season 2’s main antagonist Whitney Frost will use the Zero Matter for her own nefarious plans. This also likely means that the Zero Matter is responsible for the corpse Peggy finds in the premiere, causing the body to glow and “emanate cold.” Naturally, this thing will eventually be turned into some kind of weapon of mass destruction, right? That’s what typically happens with these fictional energies.
Agent Carter Season 2 will air its two-hour premiere next Tuesday at 9 p.m. EST on ABC. Find out when everything else is returning and premiering soon with our midseason TV schedule.
