Sometimes we’re better off not knowing. After the longest time of skirting around the issue, Kevin Feige has finally addressed whether the pre-Disney Plus Marvel TV series are canon to the MCU. And, well, you’re not going to like the answer.
Although he teases that the Multiverse Saga means “timelines may just crash or converge,” the studio president has confirmed anything made by Marvel Television instead of Marvel Studios is not “specific to the MCU’s Sacred Timeline.” So that means we have to say sayonara to the Defenders Saga, arrivederci to Runaways, and even auf wiedersehen to Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
Even more than Daredevil, which is getting its own Disney Plus reboot in time, AoS had the best shot at still remaining an official part of canon thanks to its nature as a direct spinoff of the MCU’s Phase One. Fan-favorite Agent Phil Coulson, the man who helped bring the Avengers together in the first place, is its main character. How much more canonical can you get? In all honesty, though, writing AoS out of the Sacred Timeline is probably the simplest way to sooth one of the franchise’s oldest headaches.
Ever since S.H.I.E.L.D.‘s first season resurrected Coulson following his death at Loki’s hand in The Avengers, Marvel lovers have always wondered when his superpowered pals were going to learn that he was still alive and kicking. Phase after phase went by, Clark Gregg even returned for a cameo as 1990s Phil in Captain Marvel, and yet the big revelation never came. With Feige assuring us that the spinoff series isn’t canon, then, it looks like we finally know the reason why: because, in the Sacred Timeline, Coulson remained dead.
While that means fans may cry fresh tears over the passing of Prime Coulson, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.‘s biggest hater Martin Scorsese — despite the fact it’s not cinema, the show has higher critics and audience scores on Rotten Tomatoes than Killers of the Flower Moon — might just be giggling with glee.