What does and doesn’t count as officially part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe has become increasingly more complicated to determine as the House of Ideas has grown exponentially over the years. Sure, the movies and the Disney Plus shows are, that much is certain. But are the Marvel Television series of yesteryear, like Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.? And, OK, Charlie Cox is back as Daredevil, but is Netflix’s Defenders Saga 100% canon? Well, if you can believe it, these questions may soon be a thing of the past.
Marvel Studios has unveiled the first trailer for The Marvel Cinematic Universe: An Official Timeline, an upcoming coffee-table-busting book release that promises to do exactly what it says on the cover and provide a detailed and complete (at least, up to the point of its publication) breakdown of the entirety of the MCU. And just to really convince you that this is the real deal, Marvel president Kevin Feige himself appears in the trailer to give it that irrefutable certificate of authenticity.
It’s a comment from co-author Rebecca Theodore-Vachon that has really got the fans excited, though. “Everything is in there,” she says, which has led folks to infer that we could be about to see all of those dubious corners of the canon officially welcomed into the fold. As one Redditor put it, “Moment of truth[,] Marvel TV fans!”
You wouldn’t believe how much people care about whether the likes of Inhumans and Helstrom are canon or not.
Whatever happens, we can be sure that, as one fan sarcastically put it, “we’ll all unanimously come to accept every word and event placement in this book as entirely correct with no arguments and deviations whatsoever.” I mean, when have Marvel fans ever got overly pedantic with issues of canon, right?
The answers to all our questions are to be provided once The Marvel Cinematic Universe: An Official Timeline hits wherever books are sold this Oct. 24.