Hydra has set their sights on several MCU characters in Agents of SHIELD season 7 with their Project Insight program. Project Insight was first introduced in Captain America: The Winter Soldier as an operation that would put SHIELD Helicarriers in the sky as a national security measure. What SHIELD didn’t know was that Project Insight was all part of a complex scheme orchestrated by Hydra that would have given them the power to eliminate all threats to their goals.
Captain America (Chris Evans) and his allies thwarted Hydra’s plans, but the Chronicoms have made Project Insight a threat again by traveling back in time to the past. Mack (Henry Simmons) and his team of SHIELD agents have followed the Chronicoms to the 1930s, the 1950s, and are now in the 1970s, where Hydra had evolved into a bigger threat than they were supposed to be at this time. That’s because the Chronicoms have shared information about the future with Hydra’s leader, Wilfred Malick (Neal Bledsoe). Due to their interference in the timeline, Hydra has already infiltrated SHIELD and was on its way to unleashing Project Insight on the world decades before it was meant to become a reality.
Armed with a list of targets, Project Insight would have changed the MCU forever if it had succeeded, but thankfully the SHIELD team was able to destroy the satellite. Project Insight has been aborted, but that doesn’t mean their problems are over. Hydra still has access to a long list of people whom they want dead. Some of these names are of people who will have a big impact on the MCU later in their lives, and it remains to be seen if SHIELD can stop Hydra from going after them. Here’s every character on the list of people that would have been targeted by Project Insight.
Bruce Banner
Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) is only a child in the 1970s, but he’ll grow up to be a major player in the MCU both as a scientist and a superhero. As the Hulk, he’s one of the most powerful forces on the planet. Something with that much destructive potential would naturally present a threat to Hydra’s goals. His death would also eliminate a founding member of the Avengers.
Peggy Carter
Captain America’s primary love interest and SHIELD co-founder Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell) wasn’t seen on the list of targets show on-screen, but was confirmed to be on it in a later conversation between Daniel Sousa (Enver Gjokaj) and the members of the SHIELD team. At this point in her timeline, Peggy has already helped form SHIELD, and is currently the director of the organization. Considering she was an extremely influential figure, there’s no telling what the repercussions of her death would be. Peggy isn’t supposed to die until Captain America: Civil War in 2016.
Nick Fury
In 1976, Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) was in his mid-20s and active in the military. Fury’s association with SHIELD didn’t begin until the 1980s. After Fury became the director of SHIELD, Fury led the organization through a number of major incidents, including the Chitauri invasion of 2012. He also showed up with a Helicarrier to help the Avengers save the world in Avengers: Age of Ultron. Considering everything Fury has done for SHIELD, it’s likely that under his direction, SHIELD prevented other catastrophes no one even knows about. As the man who assembled the Avengers, Fury’s death could have clearly reshaped the MCU’s future in a big way.
Victoria Hand
Victoria Hand (Saffron Burrows) was a big name at SHIELD in season 1 of Agents of SHIELD. She was high up on the chain of command and one of the first people taken out by Hydra during the big takeover in 2014. Undercover Hydra operative Grant Ward (Brett Dalton) murdered her in season 1. This was the moment where he was revealed to be traitor. Considering removing her was a top priority in 2014, it’s no surprise Hydra wanted her dead in the 1970s as well.
Jim Morita
Based on the Marvel Comics character of the same name, Jim Morita (Kenneth Choi) was a soldier who served in the Howling Commandos during World War II. He helped Steve Rogers fight Hydra in Captain America: The First Avenger and assisted Peggy Carter in an attack on a Hydra base in Agent Carter. As for what happened to him after the 1940s, that question hasn’t been answered. All that’s known about his future is that his grandson is Peter Parker’s high school principal in the MCU. The inclusion of Jim Morita’s name on the list is more surprising than the others, because his impact on the MCU is less obvious than it is for Nick Fury, Peggy Carter, and Bruce Banner. Since Hydra views him as a threat, it’s possible he accomplishes something important in his later years. It could be that he either joins SHIELD or becomes a high-ranking military official.
Roberto Gonzalez
Roberto Gonzalez (Edward James Olmos) is a name that hasn’t been brought up in the MCU in quite some time. In Agents of SHIELD season 2, it was revealed that when Hydra dismantled SHIELD, Coulson’s group weren’t the only survivors. Gonzalez and several agents who served under him (including Adrienne Palicki’s Mockingbird) tried to rebuild the organization and referred to themselves as the “real” SHIELD. Eventually, the two factions of SHIELD formed an alliance and teamed up to take down Hydra. He was murdered by Jiaying (Dichen Lachman) when she unleashed the Terrigen Mist on him.
Marvel's Other New Project Insight Targets
Isabelle Hartley (Lucy Lawless) was a member of Gonzalez’s SHIELD team. Susan Morse is the mother of Mockingbird. Niceole Amador could be related to SHIELD agent Akela Amador (Pascale Armand). A few of the names on the list are people who don’t have any clear connections to anyone in the MCU, such as Ben Harris, Betty Wright, Roger Stewart, Margaret Nelson, Leonard Torres, Robert Moore, Thomas Hall, David Robinson, Ben Taylor, Andrew Nelson, Jesse Cook, Mark Roberts, Ronald Collins, and Susan Parker. They could be SHIELD agents or people in positions of power that were shown on-screen. Also on the list are Conrad Murphy and Michael Phillips. These last two aren’t established MCU characters, but they do exist in the comics. Conrad Murphy is the father of Sandra Murphy, a member of the Secret Warriors, while Michael “Ice” Phillips was a torturer for the CIA and an associate of the Punisher.