Why Marvel’s Disney+ Shows Are Rewriting MCU History

By now it’s becoming clear Marvel’s Disney+ TV shows are rewriting the history of the MCU – and here’s why. The Marvel Cinematic Universe is easily Hollywood’s most successful shared universe; other studios have attempted to mimic Marvel’s method, but none have met the same critical acclaim and box office success – and many shared universes have failed. The catch with a shared universe, of course, is that everything is connected to everything else; continuity is baked into the franchise.

For all that is the case, however, Marvel’s Disney+ TV shows are playing fast and loose with that continuity. WandaVision retconned the source of Scarlet Witch’s powers, revealing the Mind Stone only amplified something that was already there, rather than creating it. Equally significant, the TV series introduced a sister organization to SHIELD that had never been seen before, SWORD, which it revealed it existed since the 1990s. Meanwhile, The Falcon & The Winter Soldier has rewritten the history of the super-soldier programs, which had previously been thought to be unsuccessful after the creation of Captain America. Instead, Falcon & Winter Soldier introduced Isaiah Bradley, a forgotten super-soldier who served in the Korean War in 1951. All of these changes are pretty dramatic, suggesting Marvel does not consider continuity to be quite as limiting as it would initially appear.

In truth, Marvel Studios is simply representing the same attitude towards continuity that has traditionally been seen in the comics themselves. As superstar comic book writer Jonathan Hickman recently explained in an interview with AiPT, continuity is “like a puzzle that doesn’t have any edges. You just try and make things fit and keep putting more pieces down.” As important as continuity may be to a shared universe, the reality is that the jigsaw puzzle is in a constant state of flux. Events can be placed in a new context, or else dramatically reinterpreted; that explains the Scarlet Witch retcon, which essentially adds another jigsaw piece of continuity to subtly reshape Avengers: Age of Ultron. The introduction of larger concepts, such as SWORD, are a little more problematic; they were supposedly dedicated to protecting the world from extraterrestrial threats, which naturally raises the question of why they did not intervene in Thor, The Avengers, Thor: The Dark World, Avengers: Infinity War, and Avengers: Endgame.

But Marvel does not appear to be particularly worried about such apparent inconsistencies. They are aware they have earned significant goodwill among their fan base, and frankly they can trust the fans to figure out how all the pieces go together at their own leisure. Continuity may be important, but it is a servant to the storytellers, not a master. Captain Marvel can be written into the history of the MCU at the stroke of a script-writer’s pen, a new organization can be created as a result, and any problems are left to the viewers to figure it out. And that is just the way it should be.

This bodes well for Marvel’s future. The danger of a shared universe is that continuity could potentially become a straitjacket that restricts creators, preventing them from trying out new ideas and taking creative risks. A franchise that becomes dominated by the question of continuity is one that will ultimately become sterile and lifeless. Fortunately, Marvel seems to be confident enough to ensure this issue does not arise; they are willing to give their creative teams a remarkable degree of flexibility, trusting their viewers to be able to handle a continuity that is always changing shape. With that attitude, the MCU should be able to continue growing and changing for decades to come.