Cobie Smulders is bringing Maria Hill back for Disney Plus' Secret Invasion show

The MCU is in something of a weird place, casting-wise, at the moment. In the aftermath of Avengers: Endgame (which we’re still somehow living in, two-plus years after the grand finale of Phase Three of the MCU came out), it’s not always clear which members of the wider Marvel family are still in play. Some are clearly gone for good (R.I.P./have fun time traveling, Cap.) Others, though, have been less clear: Mark Ruffalo, for instance, has expressed public uncertainty about whether he’d be back as Bruce Banner—before popping up very briefly as Bruce at the end of this fall’s Shang-Chi.

We can now fill in one more data point in that big ol’ graph o’ famouses, though, as Deadline reports that Cobie Smulders will be back for the upcoming Disney+ Secret Invasion show, reprising her role as Maria Hill, the franchise’s primary receiver of Samuel L. Jackson dialogue. News of Hill’s return isn’t wholly surprising; the character has been front and center in Marvel’s low-key Skrull plotline that stretches back to Captain Marvel, and since Secret Invasion takes its name from the massive 2008 comics event about Skrulls trying to take over Earth…

Smulders originally appeared as Maria Hill in The Avengers; she’s reprised the role in four other MCU movies, plus Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D., back when Marvel was still trying to pretend that show was actually in continuity. Most recently she showed up on TV screens as part of American Crime Story: Impeachment, playing the show’s version of Ann Coulter.

The Secret Invasion series is being developed by Kyle Bradstreet, who’s fresh off a long run as a writer on Mr. Robot. Ben Mendelsohn and Jackson are expected to star, both in their already established MCU roles; Kingsley Ben-Adir, Olivia Colman, and Emilia Clarke are all expected to show up as well. The series will debut some time in 2022.