When 2015 arrives, a different kind of secret agent will be featured on ABC Tuesday nights, and she’s being promoted as a heroine in the spirit of Sydney Bristow, Olivia Pope and Melinda May.

She is Agent Peggy Carter, played by Hayley Atwell. She was featured in both Captain America movies and was seen twice this season on Agents of SHIELD. This time, she’ll be grappling with peacetime, and losing Steve Rogers, when her accomplishments during World War II are being forgotten as she takes an administrative job for the Strategic Scientific Reserve, or SSR. “It’s a position that is one that she wants, but she’s not used in the full extent of her abilities, ” she says. “We’ve got the backdrop of gender roles and the politics involved in the environment like that in a male dominated world for her. So, she’s very frustrated. She’s not doing what she’s set out to do. She’s nowhere near fulfilling her destiny.”

A good example is this scene where her roommate comments on how her job is being eliminated, and given to a returning G.I. that she had to train.

However, Carter will get a chance thanks to industrialist Howard Stark, played by Dominic Cooper. He was involved in the Super Soldier program that created Captain America, and is also the father of Tony Stark, aka Iron Man. “A lot of his so-called machinery or scientific inventions or weapons have been taken away and displaced,” Cooper says. “He (Stark) says they’ve been stolen, but we don’t know.” Stark is accused of treason, and thinks there’s only one person who can clear his name…and it’s Peggy Carter.

She will get help from Stark’s butler, Edwin Jarvis (James D’Arcy), whose name will live on as Tony Stark’s electronic butler.

Atwell hopes the show will appeal to people who are fans of SHIELD, and those who aren’t. “She’s a very relatable character. She lives in the real world. She doesn’t have any super powers. But she does come across lots of very difficult boundaries and challenges,” she says. “She has an intelligence about her, and a capability and a skill set that’s very impressive. Yet, this season, I love it so much, is that we get to see the emotional and psychological cost of her character as someone having to live a double life.”

The show also features Enver Gjokaj, familiar to fans of Dollhouse. He’ll play agent Daniel Sousa, who was injured in the war and is now in a desk job at the SSR. He says the show will look at his attempts to readjust to peacetime, and the fact that he recognizes Peggy’s abilities more often than anyone else.

Marvel’s Agent Carter premieres with a two-hour episode on January 6th at 8 PM Eastern and Pacific.. Then, it will run through January and February at 9 PM Eastern and Pacific.