MARVEL Television: The Conundrum of the MCU
MARVEL TELEVISION: THE CONUNDRUM OF THE MCU
Sometime between the release of 2018's "THE AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR" and 2019's "THE AVENGERS: ENDGAME", Marvel Studios chief Kevin Feige made an announcement that stunned a good number of Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) fans. He claimed that the ABC series, "MARVEL'S AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D." was never part of the franchise. Not only did this news stun a good number of fans, but me as well.
Mind you, Feige not only claimed that "AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D." was never really a part of the MCU, but also other Marvel television shows that include the five Marvel Netflix shows, ABC's "THE INHUMANS" and the two shows that streamed on HULU - "CLOAK AND DAGGER" and "THE RUNAWAYS". The only Marvel TV series that escaped this situation was "MARVEL'S AGENT CARTER", which aired on ABC for two seasons, between 2015 and 2016. Feige and Marvel Studios also added that aside from "AGENT CARTER", the new television shows planned to stream on DisneyPlus would be considered canon.
It has been almost four years since Feige made this announcement and I am still . . . well, not confused. Trust me, I am not confused. But nearly four years after Feige, I still harbor both frustration and annoyance over his announcement. My feelings increased tenfold when the pop culture media and certain fans of the MCU justified Feige's claims with a series of articles and posts on the Internet that not only declared the Marvel TV series not canon, but also accused the television shows of their failure to connect with the MCU films - especially "AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D.". One article, written for the SYFY website accused "AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D." of "breaking" the franchise, because the series' sixth season had failed to do a follow-up on Thanos' Snap from "THE AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR". I find this accusation ludicrous, because I found the five-year jump between "INFINITY WAR" and "THE AVENGERS: ENDGAME" unnecessary. And a part of me suspected that Disney Studios and Feige had insisted that the show stop trying to connect to the MCU films, due to their interest in setting up the DisneyPlus shows.
I also do not believe the prevailing view that "AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D." and other Marvel television shows had failed to connect with the franchise's movies. If anything, they tried their damndest to connect with the films. I cannot speak for "THE RUNAWAYS" or "THE INHUMANS", since I have never seen them. As for the other Marvel shows, I have. In regard to those shows other than "AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D.", I have noticed the following:
*The Chitauri Invasion from "THE AVENGERS" was mentioned in Seasons Two and Three of "DAREDEVIL" and one episode of "JESSICA JONES". In fact, Jessica Jones had an encounter with a woman who lost a relative during that particular incident.
*The Raft, a prison for the super-impowered, was mentioned in several Season Two episodes and one Season Three episode of "JESSICA JONES".
*Justin Hammer, one of the villains from "IRON MAN 2" was mentioned in "LUKE CAGE", along with his former company, Hammer Industries. Some of latter's tech was used against Luke Cage by his half-brother Eric Stryker aka Diamondback, including the Judas bullet, created from Chitauri metal.
*Although the Roxxon Corporation was referenced in movies like "IRON MAN", "IRON MAN 2" and "IRON MAN 3"; it played a major role in both seasons of "AGENT CARTER", currently considered MCU canon by Marvel Films. Roxxon Corporation also played a major role in "CLOAK & DAGGER" and was referenced in "DAREDEVIL".
*The WHiH World News, a television network, served as the main source of news for several MCU movies, including the IRON MAN films, 2008's "THE INCREDIBLE HULK", "THOR", "CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER", "ANT-MAN", "THE AVENGERS", "CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR" and "BLACK PANTHER". The television network also appeared in all of the Marvel Netflix shows - "DAREDEVIL", "JESSICA JONES", "LUKE CAGE", "IRON FIST" and "THE PUNISHER" - and "THE RUNAWAYS".
*The Sokovia Accords, the United Nations document that regulated enhanced beings' activities, was introduced in "CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR" and was also used and mentioned in "SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING", "ANT-MAN & THE WASP", "INFINITY WAR" and "ENDGAME". The document was also mentioned in Season Two of "JESSICA JONES".
"AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D." either mentioned or referenced the following from the MCU films:
*The Chitauri Invasion, during which Phil Coulson was originally killed.
*The Dark Elves Invasion and the Battle of Greenwich from "THOR: THE DARK WORLD".
*Asgardians.
*The HYDRA Uprising from "CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER", which served as part of the major narrative for the series' Season One.
*S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Helicarrier 64, which was secretly repaired by Coulson and a team of technicians in late Season Two and used to save Sokovian citizens in "THE AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON".
*The Kree made its first appearance as a corpse in the show's first season, before the release of "GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY". The aliens also appeared in the show's second and fifth seasons. They later appeared in 2017's "GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY: VOL. 2" and 2019's "CAPTAIN MARVEL".
*Sokovia Accords - In "AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D.", Inhuman Agents Daisy Johnson aka Quake and Elena Rodriguez aka Yo-Yo were forced to sign the Sokovia Accords in order to continue working for the agency under Director Jeffrey Mace in Season Four.
*The series' fourth season also mentioned the fugitive status of Steve Rogers aka Captain America and those who had joined him in his refusal to sign the Sokovia Accords.
*During the S.H.I.E.L.D. team's travels through time in Season Seven, HYDRA's infiltration of S.H.I.E.L.D. ("CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER") was featured in at least three episodes. Also, two episodes focused on the Project Insight topic from the same movie. The series never mentioned Project Insight during the team's experiences in late Season One.
Season One had a strong connection to both "THE AVENGERS" and "CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER", thanks to Phil Coulson's resurrection and the Fall of S.H.I.E.L.D. Late Season Two had a slightly less strong connection to "THE AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON", due to Coulson's search for and repair of a S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier used in the 2015 movie. Seasons Three and Four had only referenced events from "CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR" - Steve Rogers' fugitive status and the Sokovia Accords. However, Season Five managed to form strong connections to at least three MCU movies.
The Kree, who have been featured in "GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY" and "CAPTAIN MARVEL", also appeared during the show's second season and played a major role in the creation of Season Three's main antagonist, Hive. But the Kree also served as the main antagonists of Season Five's first half, when Coulson and his team found themselves stuck in Earth's future. Upon their return to early 2018, the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents discovered that the Kree were members of an intergalactic political group called the Confederacy and that a top HYDRA mole in the U.S. military had formed an alliance with it. Season Five also featured the emergence of S.H.I.E.L.D. ally General Glenn Talbot, who became Graviton, thanks to an atomic element from Season One called the Gravitonium. As it turned out, the Confederacy wanted the Gravitonium. And the latter wanted it for a reason that connected the series to one of the MCU's biggest films.
The Confederacy wanted the Gravitonium and a handful of Inhumans on Earth (including Agent Daisy Johnson) to use for protection from extraterrestrial threats to their worlds and Earth (thanks to their alliance with the HYDRA mole). And according to the Confederacy, one of those threats was Thanos, who had targeted Earth in his hunt for the Infinity Stones. In this scenario, the events of "THE AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR" played a major role in late Season Five's main narrative. In the episode, (5.19) "Option Two", "Agent Alphonso "Mack" Mackenzie’s old friend and former S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, Tony Caine, had commented on an incident from the 2018 movie, in which some of Thanos’ minions appeared in Manhattan in search of the Time Stone possessed by Dr. Stephen Strange. In the following episode, (5.20) "The One Who Will Save Us All", an empowered Glenn Talbot learned from Quovas, one of the Confederacy aliens trying to get their hands on the gravitonium, of Thanos' impending arrival on Earth. Because of this news, an enhanced and mentally unstable Talbot aka Graviton decided to mine more gravitonium underneath Chicago in order to become more powerful and face Thanos. Unfortunately, in doing so, Graviton threatened to destroy most of the Earth. Needless to say, Coulson and the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents prevented Earth's destruction by defeating Graviton. They also defeated the Confederacy. And Thanos eventually used the Infinity Stones to initiate the Snap that wiped out half of the universe's population.
Sometime between the series' fifth and sixth seasons, Disney Studios, Marvel Television, Mutant Enemy, and Marvel Films proclaimed that "AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D." and other Marvel Television productions (with the exception of "AGENT CARTER") were not part of the MCU. Mutant Enemy and Marvel Television made it clear that "AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D." would not mention the Snap or explore the post-Snap world on Earth. The events of the series' sixth and seventh seasons had occurred three to four years before the events of 2019's "THE AVENGERS: ENDGAME", due to the franchise's time jump. But what made these decisions even more insidious in my eyes was Kevin Feige's accusation that "AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D." had failed to connect to the rest of the MCU since it first aired. And many media outlets and MCU fans had simply swallowed his pronunciations like candy in some idiotic effort to give Feige and the movies a pass for failing to mention the series for several years.
Not only do I find this insidious, I also find these declarations rather mind boggling. I just revealed how the series had worked harder to connect to the franchise’s films than the latter had done to connect to the series or any of the other Marvel Television productions. Film characters like Nick Fury, Maria Hill, Lady Sif, Peggy Carter, Jim Morita, Dr. List and Gideon Malick have all appeared on the series during Seasons One, Two and Three. After Season Three, I never saw one character from any of the movies during the series' remaining run. Nor do I recall any of the film characters appearing on the other Marvel Television productions, until Matt Murdock appeared on "SHE-HULK: ATTORNEY-AT-LAW". But the latter is a DisneyPlus production for Marvel and Feige. So, does that mean the three-season run of "DAREDEVIL" on Netflix is NOW considered part of the MCU? I find myself thinking about Chloe Bennet (Agent Daisy Johnson), who has angrily pointed out on numerous occasions in the past about the franchise’s tendency to ignore not only "AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D." in its movies, but in other MCU shows on the ABC network and on streaming television.
After encountering one article after another or one forum post after another that accused "AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D." of failing to connect to the MCU, I had to spill my guts. I have said it once and I will say it again - I think Kevin Feige's statement about the past Marvel Television shows is full of shit. I think all of the suits from Marvel/Disney are full of shit. To me, the movies' failure to maintain a strong connection with the television shows struck me as a sign of how their bad handling of the franchise and excuses had produced a big pile of simmering shit known as the Marvel Cinematic Universe.