AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D. Executive Producer Jed Whedon Teases LMD's And More With A New Poster

After wrapping up the Ghost Rider story arc last night, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. teased a brand new direction in its final moments, with AIDA revealed to have created a Life Model Decoy of Agent Melinda May, which has been planted within the S.H.I.E.L.D. team. The length of time the duplicate has been with the team is currently unknown, and executive producer Jed Whedon has hinted it might be longer than we think due to the copy's ability to mimic human behavior.

“We said it at the beginning of the season that [LMDs] were mimicking human behavior. But AIDA took some sort of leap and built a brain of her own and so the real difference is that they represent people that we know and it's not a big robot baddie, and there is some of that obviously, but right now we know that there's one among us who is someone we know," Whedon explained to IGN. "And how much they know and how much their agenda is mixed with their own emotions and those sort of questions are what we're going to dive into."

With S.H.I.E.L.D. seemingly tackling this robotic-based threat when it returns, many fans immediately drew comparisons to Ultron, a correlation that Whedon was quick to discourage. LMDs are “not omniscient, they don't have access to all knowledge and all information and all other machines the way Ultron and to a lesser extent Vision did. We're much more interested in the knowledge that that person has and how does this being deals with that. They also won't build ten thousand versions of themselves, mostly because we don't have 200 million dollars, but also because of emotions and telling these emotional stories.”

As for Ghost Rider, Robbie Reyes' heroic sacrifice to pull the demon core and his uncle Eli into another dimension led several to believe it was the impetus for a Ghost Rider spin-off. However, it seems we may not have seen the last of the Spirit of Vengeance this season. "We have three different [story] pods this season, and they will all feel distinctly different. We’re moving into a new pod," said Whedon in a separate interview with Entertainment Weekly. "That doesn't mean [Robbie] is gone," fellow showrunner Melissa Tancharoen quickly added."Or that he will not be involved at some point," Whedon finished. "But it will definitely have a different feel." 

What do you make of these details? Let us know in the comments, and check ot the new poster below! Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. will return on January 10th, 2017.