With the apparent death of Agent Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg) in Marvel’s “The Avengers” movie, the announcement that the character would be heading up the upcoming TV series “Marvel’s S.H.I.E.L.D.” was met with confusion.

A prequel series was the most common thought, however ABC President Paul Lee has now shot that theory down. Lee says:

“There is no question that it is part of the Marvel Universe. In fact, the story takes place after the battle for New York. This is S.H.I.E.L.D. They’re following their own particular stories. There are characters in it, Coulson, who clearly come from Avengers. So it’s part of the world, but we’re going to be very, very careful that we don’t tread on the toes of the features and build a whole new world. And that’s what Joss Whedon does better than anybody else. He’s built a world for us.

The pilot begins shooting later this month. Meanwhile, Whedon himself spoke about how the writing process on “The Avengers” sequel is going.

“I’ve done the outline, I’m writing the script now and so the script should be done in a couple of months. I’m pretty excited about it, I have to say. Don’t go bigger, go deeper. The grand thing is that all of these people have met so you have that out of the way. Now you can spend your time just digging in and by digging in, I mean with a scalpel, to cause pain.”

Sources: IGN, MTV