Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. season 7 should end with Quake recognized as the team's Iron Man, i.e. the top superhero of the Marvel TV universe. Marvel's flagship series announced that summer 2020's season 7 would be Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s last. Launched in 2014, the Clark Gregg-fronted spinoff has gradually carved out its own niche in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and created characters beloved by their loyal fanbase. This definitely includes Daisy "Quake" Johnson (Chloe Bennet), who is Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s equivalent to one of the Avengers.
In Spider-Man: Far From Home, one of Peter Parker's (Tom Holland) dilemmas was the late Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) choosing him has his replacement. The media demanded to know if Spider-Man would replace Iron Man as the "lead Avenger" and Peter was even gifted with E.D.I.T.H., which gives him access to Stark Industries entire network of defense protocols. The relationship between Tony Stark and Peter Parker is echoed by Daisy Johnson's career in S.H.I.E.L.D. where she was mentored by the late Phil Coulson. In fact, like Coulson, Daisy Johnson is as integral to Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. as Tony Stark himself was to the MCU movies. But while Spider-Man is still stuck in Iron Man's shadow, Daisy Johnson has emerged from Phil Coulson's.
Today, it's easy to forget how Daisy Johnson was the furthest thing from a superhero when Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. began. Originally known as Skye, Daisy was an orphaned 'hacktivist' who lived in a van in Los Angeles and she didn't even know who her parents were. Coulson literally plucked her from the streets to join S.H.I.E.L.D. and in season 1, Skye was a neophyte Agent who could barely even throw a punch. In Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. season 2, Skye met her parents, learned her birth name was Daisy Johnson, and she discovered that she was an Inhuman with seismic superpowers. Throughout Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s first five seasons, Daisy evolved into an excellent Agent and a confident hero; she became a dangerous hand-to-hand combatant under the tutelage of Melinda May (Ming-Na Wen), Daisy led a team of Inhuman Secret Warriors, and she became a bonafide superhero with the codename Quake.
All the while, Coulson was admittedly grooming Daisy to take over one day as Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. Coulson saw the spark of something special in Daisy; he taught Quake everything he knew about S.H.I.E.L.D. and about life in general, earning her eternal love and loyalty. This was just like how Tony Stark took an immediate shine to Peter Parker when they met in Captain America: Civil War; from that point on, the billionaire superhero chose Peter as his protege and began laying the foundations for his future as Spider-Man. And, like Iron Man, whose fame stretched into the cosmos so that even Thanos had heard of Tony Stark, Quake is also universally famous. When Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. season 6 began, Daisy had spent a year leading a team to search for Leo Fitz (Iain De Caestacker) in outer space and most aliens they encountered had already heard of (and feared) Quake.
When Phil Coulson died at the end of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. season 5, Daisy felt she wasn't ready for command and, instead, she picked someone else better suited for the Directorship: Alphonso "Mack" Mackenzie. After years of heartbreak, emotional turmoil, and even believing she caused the end of the world when S.H.I.E.L.D. time traveled 90 years into the future, Daisy wisely took a step away from center stage. As such, Quake hasn't been a focal point of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. season 6's battle with Sarge, the fake Coulson, and Izel (Karolina Wydra), but perhaps this is all laying the groundwork for Daisy Johnson's season 7 endgame.
If Daisy Johnson isn't going to be Director of S.H.I.E.L.D., then her status as the greatest superhero in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s MCU - i.e. their Iron Man - should be officially recognized. After all, the series is operating independently from the MCU movies at this point and they don't even mention the Avengers anymore; regardless of whether or not this means Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. now exists in an alternate timeline, within the world of the series itself, Quake is without a doubt the most powerful and famous superhero. So, instead of leading S.H.I.E.L.D., the best way to conclude Daisy Johnson's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. macro story is for her to become the series' equivalent of Iron Man, which is something that would make Phil Coulson proud and justify all the faith he placed in her.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. season 6 airs Fridays @ 8pm on ABC.