I think that the most recent Sony Spider-Man film pretty effectively rufutes that argument. It very clearly takes place in the same universe, sharing not just characters but continuity, canon, and the same actors as the characters in the Marvel-produced films. It explicitly ties in characters and actors used in the earlier Sony movies that were not co-produced with Marvel studios. And the “Into the Spider-Verse” film ties in some of those actors and links them to even older stuff. It’s ALL part of the MCU now.
The Tom Holland Spider-Man movies are Marvel Studios productions. Sony was just the distributor.
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And the last one included a bunch of actors and characters from the Toby Maguire and Andrew Garfield films, which as far as I’m concerned canonically makes them part of the same universe. Same goes with the X-men film franchise actors/characters that made an appearance in that Scarlet Witch movie. If Marvel Studios wanted to be able to claim any kind of brand distinction between the films made by Sony or Fox and the ones produced by Marvel Studios they could have chosen to keep them separate, but they very deliberately wrapped it all up together.
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Ok. Regardless, there is no reasonable definition of the MCU that would include the 1986 Howard the Duck film.
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There was a ComicCon exclusive 7ish minutes of him recapping the entire MCU that should have been included. The only version I could find are below potato quality so not bothering to link.
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The MCU is Earth-199999, with a few exceptions. The X-men films (Including Deadpool) are mostly in Earth-10005. the Spider-man films have different Earths depending on the actor.
I get the feeling that they will remain separate, with a few actors crossing over to the MCU because of multiverse stuff.
Howard the Duck is in Earth-58470, assuming the TVA haven’t dealt with that embarrassment.
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By memory, Scarlet Witch movie predates the Fox/Disney merger so they were careful to keep X-Men and Marvel separated. We don’t get established Fox X-Men, so they’re not Magneto’s kids. In MCU they’re not called Mutants.
The movie that I meant to reference was Dr Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. It is officially part of the MCU and includes X-men characters such as Patrick Stewart’s Dr. Charles Xavier. So you can’t tell me with a straight face that X-Men isn’t retroactively part of the MCU now.
I’d say more than just “a few exceptions” these days. The Loki and What If shows take place almost entirely on other earths. And Kevin Feige himself says that Deadpool is officially part of the MCU now.
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Yup, this is exactly one of the reasons I hate multiverses where there’s a universe where every possible story happens.
Multiverse of Madness was a mess, but it was my understanding that the Stewart/Xavier we saw wasn’t the same Stewart/Xavier of X-men, X2 and X3.
To add to your “few exceptions”, absolutely nobody has referenced the GIANT HEAD STICKING OUT OF THE OCEAN that Eternals established. I think they’re hoping that if they don’t reference something that we’ll forget it happened.
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Agreed; the short cameos in Guardians of the Galaxy/End Game don’t count, IMHO.
Real life can not be ‘retconned’; there was no ‘MCU’ in existence back in 1986.
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Tiamut’s hand is referenced in a She-Hulk Easter egg, and it looks possible more is coming of it based on the logo of the Global Community Summit in the new Captain America movie.
Multiverses are fine. We used to deal with them fairly easily before, although it was easier due to their being in different mediums. No one was confused by comics Batman, Michael Keaton Batman, and Batman: The Animated Series, for instance.
… if only it were that simple
https://screenrant.com/earth-616-or-19999-the-mcus-universe-number-finally-has-an-official-answer/
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What about Nick Fury David Hasslehoff, or Rubber Ear Captain America? If Howard is in continuity, then so are they!
…but they clearly aren’t. Because they had nothing to do with Marvel Studios’ grand singular vision. Really the deciding factor is the involvement of Kevin Feige.
As someone else pointed out, the Tom Holland Spider-Man movies are still produced by Marvel Studios. The Toby Maguire & Andrew Garfield Spideys who appeared in that movie are different and separate from the pre-Marvel Studios versions portrayed by the same actors. (They just happened to be from similar universes, Because Comics™️)
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I have no issue with multiverses. I have trouble with infinitely branching “everything that can happen, does” multiverses.
There are infinitely many universes Thanos did the snap.
There’s an infinite subset where Thanos decided 51% was the right number to eradicate.
There’s an infinite subset where he decided to do the snap along every potential kind of eugenicist line.
As a separate issue, the MCU is collapsing under its own canon. I forgot how much She-Hulk’s finale added to the canon of the MCU. Either season 2 episode 1 fixes that, or we never see She-Hulk again, like the Eternals’ head.
So. The Eternals’ mission, know it or not, was to elevate humanity’s population to 7 or 8 billion. We’ve not noticed them before because nothing in any of the earlier phases threatened that.
A quick scan through the titles suggests that Ultron should have been on their radar, and Thanos should have been on their overlord’s radar.
If it were a standalone story, it’d bother me less.
This thread has turned into a comic book shop nerd argument, and I don’t entirely hate that.
Meh. The MCU, even if we add in all the previous Marvel connected film and tv properties, including the 1970s Hulk and Spider-Man live action series, is still not 1/1000th the size or complexity of the Marvel comics multiverse. It’s fine. They just need to focus on telling good stories, and not worry so much about the continuity. Continuity errors can always be hand waved away with a retcon. If the story is good enough, most people won’t give a shit.
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Or with a silly joke.
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i really love that. we only think we know who those spider-men ( spiders-man? ) are, but actually they’re completely different characters played by those same actors
oh no. are we sure “toby maguire” is even just one guy?? this would really explain the third movie
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Spiders-Mens.
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You’re right. I’m dancing around the greatest sin of Phases 4 and 5 - they’re not good stories. I blame enshittification.
