>
Marvel fans, gather! After years of confusion, a new book is finally ready to explain everything about the increasingly complex Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) timeline.
Succinctly titled – wait for it – Marvel Studios’ The Marvel Cinematic Universe: An Official Timeline, the visual guide lays down the law on where every Marvel movie and Disney Plus show falls on the MCU timeline. In fact, we won’t have to wait long to get our hands on it. The Official Timeline book will hit digital and physical store shelves in September 2023.
Per Marvel. com (opens in new tab)the book will be the number one resource for fans and filmmakers alike, with the guide helping MCU aficionados “connect the dots and really understand the web of interconnections” between Marvel’s growing catalog of movies (some of which are the greatest superhero movies ever). ). made) and TV shows.
Plus, it answers the biggest questions fans have had about the MCU since then Avengers: endgame, well, ended and the Multiverse Saga — consisting of Marvel Phase 4, Marvel Phase 5, and Marvel Phase 6 — begins. Those are: what’s happened in the MCU so far, where it happened and, most important of all, when those events happened.
Until the arrival of Endgame in April 2019, the MCU timeline was extremely easy to follow. Events in Marvel’s cinematic juggernaut, which began in 2008 Iron Manplayed in chronological order – apart from a few films, such as Captain America (instituted in 1942) and Captain Marvel (set in the 1990s). That meant fans could follow the MCU’s overarching story in real time, as each movie’s story took place in the year they were set.
Endgame turned that on its head. The last Avengers film jumped five years into the future compared to its predecessor – Avengers: Infinite War – meaning Endgame takes place in 2023. Since then, every MCU movie and TV show that has launched in theaters or on Disney Plus has had a question mark over its timeline, with fans not sure where they fit into the equation.
Thanks to comments from their showrunners, writers and directors, some projects, such as WandaVision and Spider-Man: No Way Home, are easy to place on the Marvel timeline. Others, however, are not so obvious. TV series like Loki exist in a space outside the main timeline, while productions inclusive Ms. Marvel have not been given an official place on the timeline. Even Ms. Marvel co-creator/producer Sana Amanat couldn’t tell anyone where her show falls in the proceedings.
Thankfully, Marvel’s latest tome will reveal where all of its movies and shows fit on the MCU timeline. If nothing else, it will be music to our ears and allow us to bring you the definitive overview of the timeline in our Marvel movies in order hub.
Analysis: a not so secret problem
The main problem Marvel will have after September is that no one will know where the Phase 5 and Phase 6 movies and TV series will be on the MCU timeline.
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania starts the next phase of the Multiverse Saga on February 17. Then Guardians of the Galaxy 3 and The miracles will hit theaters on May 5 and July 28, respectively.
In the meantime, Secret invasion, Loki season 2and Iron heartThe solo series will all debut on Disney Plus sometime this year. Add in the rest of Marvel’s Phase 5 slate, as well as the forthcoming Phase 6 lineup, and fans will be in the dark soon enough as to where these projects fall on the timeline. Essentially, we’re all back to square one.
Will Marvel release a second installment to explain where the Phase 5 and Phase 6 movies and shows fit in? You would hope so, but we suspect that such a book will be released one way or another.
Likewise, it’s unclear whether the upcoming visual guide will confirm or deny whether non-Marvel Studios movies and shows are actually part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Netflix’s Marvel TV series, which are fully streamable on Disney Plus, and Sony’s Spider-Man Universe are crossed with the MCU, most notably through Daredevil and Spider-Man. She-Hulk: lawyer suggested that the MCU’s Daredevil is the same version as the Netflix version, which would see Daredevil’s Netflix series included in the MCU. In the meantime, venom and Morbius could exist in the MCU in some form, especially with the former’s cameo in it No way home and the latter meets the MCU’s Vulture in his live-action solo movie.
Either way, we’ll be picking up a copy of The Marvel Cinematic Universe: An Official Timeline when it launches later this year – and we think you will too.
For more Marvel coverage, check out which MCU TV shows made it onto our best Disney Plus shows and best Disney Plus movies list. Also check out our articles on Marvel movies ranked and Marvel villains ranked.