Cobie Smulders has been cast in the lead role of the ABC drama pilot inspired by the graphic novel “Stumptown” by Greg Rucka, Variety has learned.

The project follows Dex Parios (Smulders), a strong, assertive, and unapologetically sharp-witted army veteran working as a P.I. in Portland, Oregon. With a complicated personal history and only herself to rely on, she solves other people’s messes with a blind eye toward her own.

Parios is further described as a whip-smart, hard-luck heroine you can’t help but get behind. Once a decorated Military Intelligence officer overseas, Dex is now back home in Portland, Oregon, unable to hold down a steady job, spinning her wheels, running up gambling debts, waiting for trouble to catch up with her.

Smulders previously appeared in multiple episodes of the ABC-Marvel series “Agents of SHIELD,” reprising her role as SHIELD agent Maria Hill from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. She is best known for her starring role in the popular CBS sitcom “How I Met Your Mother.” Should “Stumptown” get ordered to series, it would mark her first regular broadcast role since the end of “HIMYM.” Most recently, Smulders starred in the Netflix series “Friends From College.”

She is repped by UTA, Fourward, and Gang, Tyre, Ramer, Brown & Passman.

Jason Richman will serve as writer and executive producer on “Stumptown,” with Rucka, Matthew Southworth, and Justin Greenwood also executive producing along with Ruben Fleischer and Dave Bernad via The District. ABC Studios will produce.