Despite previous reports, it looks like Hayley Atwell and her Peggy Carter character will be coming back to the Marvel Cinematic Universe… Sort of. According to Entertainment Weekly, Peggy Carter will make her return, but not in a way that everyone previously thought. As Captain America’s would be love interest from the first movie, most thought she should make her return in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. It was announced months ago that she would not return for that and most of us closed the book on her involvement in future Marvel ventures. Apparently, we thought wrong.

She will actually be returning in her own little Marvel One-Shot, a short film series made popular at last year’s 2012 Comic-Con in San Diego with Item 47, which starred Jesse Bradford and Lizzy Caplan. Marvel has had a succesful run of  One-Shot’s, with a couple featuring Agent Coulson and the previously mentioned Item 47, and this new short will act as the bridge to the next Captain America movie. The title is Agent Carter, and it will obviously follow the lovely Peggy Carter as she navigates a world that just survived Red Skull and Hydra and the issues that arise when you happen to be a female secret agent in a world dominated by men.

The short film is directed by Marvel’s go-to short film guy, Louis D’Esposito, who did Item 47 and produced some of the Marvel Studios films. Seeing that Disney chairman and CEO Robert Iger greenlit the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. series based off of Item 47, you know that they have a lot of faith in this type of entertainment medium. Agent Carter starts off a year after Cap decided to chill out (yep, Batman & Robin reference for Kronner) as she works for the precursor spy agency before S.H.I.E.L.D. called the SSR (Strategic Scientific Reserve) and is on the hunt for Zodiac. We don’t know what  iteration Zodiac might take in the MCU (person, weapon, item, key), but we do know he/she/it/they are the evil element in this story.

Of course, Ms. Carter must also deal with her superiors, namely one Bradley Whitford, who plays her sexist boss who obviously frowns upon having a woman attempt to rise in the ranks of his office. He does whatever he can to keep her down, because he believe that her meal ticket was Captain America and with no Cap, there’s no reason to keep her around.

Of course, she probably exercises some form of girl power to rise above the sexism and crap but that’s beside the point. It’s important that some of these characters will still have a say in the MCU and won’t go away once they’ve left the main narrative. Having these One-Shots are a great way to branch out without having to sacrifice the main story to pigeonhole someone in, while giving these ancillary characters their time to shine. Also returning is Tony Stark’s dad, Howard Stark (Dominic Cooper) to help bridge the gap from Iron Man 3 to the Winter Soldier. We`ll have to wait and see if he’ll look more gray and have a chance to hook up with Joan from Mad Men (Iron Man 2, anyone? When Howard Stark was Roger Sterling?), but it’s good to see throwbacks and the promise of other cameos will definitely make this a worthwhile venture.

For those not attending Comic-Con this year in lovely San Diego, you can still catch the One-Shot when Iron Man 3 comes out on DVD/Blu-ray on September 24th. However, those that are going to be in SoCal (ED. NOTE: Chris was just fired for using that term) next week, keep your Friday night open and check the Marvel booth to see if tickets will be available. It won’t be like the scavenger hunt that took place last year to secure a spot into Item 47, so just ask around and hopefully we’ll see you there to catch Agent Carter.