Spider-Man: Homecoming
Spoilers forSpider - Man : Homecoming .
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Spider - Man : Homecomingbrings the web - fishworm formally into the MCU fold , but does it break the fabric of the shared population in the process ? After two looping live totally on his own , Peter Parker is now in a humanity of Avengers , Defenders , Gods and Sorcerers . And Jon Watts has an unspeakable mint of fun with this , land in Tony Stark as a substitute forefather figure and own Spidey ’s chief drive be to join Earth ’s Mightiest Heroes . However , while the film delights in its MCU connection , upon deeper inspection it actually destroys the timeline .
On a fundamental level , the Marvel timeline is really rather simple . Phase 1 is a second of a jumble , with movies happening concurrently ( we ’ll excuse shortly ) , but fromThe Avengers- give up and set in 2012 - onwards they impress into being dress at the sentence of release unless otherwise stated . Of course , when you add in period - set message likeCaptain America : The First AvengerandAgent Carter , flashback , several forms of television narrative ( Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.unfolds in real - clock time and reacts to in - movie events ) and even its own campaign of comics , things get a little more complicated . gratefully , Marvel has a massive timeline scrollthemselves to keep track of it , andfans have made their own versionto keep the rest of us updated .
But there ’s now a big , big problem .
Spider-Man: Homecoming’s Plot Hole
With all that aforementioned context considered , we ’d expectSpider - Man ’s solo debut to be place in Summer - Fall 2016 ; it detail Peter Parker ’s life in the month afterCaptain America : Civil Warand culminates in the sub - titulary high - school dance . But that ’s not quite right . Homecomingopens with a prologue in the aftermath ofThe Avengers , with Adrian Toomes and his clean - up crew dealing with the desolation from The Battle of New York . After they ’re push out byDamage Controland vow to change to think over the new world , we jump forward to Toomes ' amply - feather crime empire and fill out Vulture suit ahead of the movie ’s main storey . According to a championship lineup , this is"Eight Years after " .
Those of you keeping track of dates will have already noticed that this creates something of a problem;The Avengersis accepted as being coiffe in 2012 , which would putHomecomingas fall out in 2020 , three years on from release and four after the accepted canon . That , or we ’ve been misinformed and the team - up really took place in 2008 . Either way , the timeline ’s broke - and it gets more complicated the deeper you go .
Is this just a simple mistake , the sign of a larger shift in Marvel Studios , or something more narratively pertinent ? Let ’s find out .
For the sake of briefness , we ’re going to mostly try out and keep just to details in the flick , but a annotation on some of the other MCU mediums as several provide concrete date that back upHomecomingbeing a problem;Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.is explictly in existent - time and tie-up into most of the ground - mark movie post - Avengers , while fictional news internet WHIH also locks moving picture into their release windowpane . That said , for our eventual solution we ’ll need to ignore these , although will still elaborate on specifics at the desirable dot .
The Current MCU Timeline Explained
Before we go through the looking glass , permit ’s first get everyone on the same varlet in regards to the accepted timeline .
Phase 1 was passably much made up as it unfolded and the in - universe current reflect this . You haveIron Man , then a twelvemonth by and by in moving-picture show timeIron military personnel 2 , which due to various easter testicle is alsoset in the same weekasThe Incredible HulkandThor . This was all retconned to have the first cinema in 2010 and " Fury ’s Big Week " happening in 2011 , with Cap ’s defrosting in the present daylight bookends ofThe First Avengeroccurring in 2012 ahead ofThe Avengersthat same class . Complicated , but clear placing the team - up supply a neat baseline conk frontward .
Phase 2 normalized thing a little , put in the idea of events simply blossom out in material - time unless there were specific exception . And search at each movie we can find that it does equate up : Iron Man 3was mark six months afterThe Avengersto account for Christmas , back up up by Killian saying it ’s thirteen years since his offer to Tony Stark from New Year ’s Eve 1999 ( this also means we ca n’t moveThe Avengersfrom 2012);Thor : The Dark Worldwas sic in spillage month November 2013 , evidenced by a background calendar ; bothGuardians of the GalaxyandVol . 2are arrange in 2014 based on the escort subtitles ( the prologues come in 1988 and 1980 , then leap out forward 26 and 34 geezerhood respectively);The Winter Soldierdoesn’t have any accurate dating but is said to cometwo years afterThe Avengers(Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.corroborates this);Avengers : historic period of Ultronis the previous summertime toCaptain America : Civil War , which we love is two years afterThe Winter Soldieras Sam Wilson says they ’ve been hunt Bucky for that long ; andAnt - ManfollowsAvengers 2directly . There ’s alsoDoctor Strangerunning through some of this , but we ’ll get to that in a present moment .
Timeline specifics going forward are unclear , but we have been told thatInfinity Wartakes place four age afterGuardians 2 , commit it in release class 2018 . That ’s all pretty well-situated to surveil and rather smashed , although lately we ’ve begun to struggle when looking at minutia .
Phase 3’s Previous Plot Holes
After things worked pretty neatly for a few geezerhood , with the expanding of Phase 3 cracks have started to emerge . The first indication that something was n’t lining up came inCivil War . When talk about the Sokovia Accords , Vision stated : " In the eight class since Mr. Stark foretell himself as Iron Man , the number of acknowledge enhanced somebody has grown exponentially " . While it was indeed eight years in real prison term sinceIron Manwas relinquish , it was only six since the events in the pic world - a minor but pretty perplexing line drop .
Doctor Strangefurther confused things - not in any expressed way of life but by simply not existing in any coherent clock time space . It shunned the name drop fromThe Winter Soldierby clearly starting post - Age of Ultron , and had a very undecipherable passage of clock time . Ignoring all potential easter egg linking it to other films and instead using the prison term given on his watch and the post - credits scene being set duringThor : Ragnarok , we can reason it ’s typeset across 2016 and former 2017 . This works exquisitely enough , but the confusion indicated a lack of consideration .
Then cameGuardians of the Galaxy Vol . 2 , which despite mostly avoiding timeline thoughtfulness by coming so close to the original and being prepare in an otherwise uninhabited wing of the MCU still had trouble ; the lone Earth - place moment evince Ego ’s expansiondirectly clashed with everything else go away on at the time- it ’s set betweenThe Winter SoldierandAge of Ultron .
Now we haveHomecoming , which not only introduces its own plot of land kettle of fish but forthwith controvert the one fromCivil War;The Avengersis explicitly two year afterIron Man , yet both event are said to have happened eight years prior to 2016 . This one ’s peculiarly hard to rationalize as there ’s not even a real world reasoning for the confusion . It definitely seems like oversight , but if that ’s the case , what ’s befall to Marvel ?
The Dark Truth: Marvel Doesn’t Care About Micro-Continuity
Since the very early days of Phase 1 , the MCU ’s mantra has been that " everything is connect " . And it patently is , but more and more this is only true on a macro scale . If you look at the blanket orbit you have this amazing tapestry of sixteen movies , ever more telecasting shows and so much more content that all interlocks . Dig even remotely deeply and try out to have things match - up , though , and it gets messy .
This was to a degree built-in from the start , withThe Incredible Hulkteasing Tony Stark ’s involvement with S.H.I.E.L.D. despite the subsequent - but - narratively - concurrentIron gentleman’s gentleman 2showing him kick back out of the Avenger Initiative . However , when these job grow Marvel did a in force caper of addressing any major conflicts - thatIron Manflub was explicate as a trick inMarvel One - ShotThe Consultant . As we ’ve gone on , though , mistakes appear more often and are just ignored .
A bountiful part of this has to be the gauze-like size and largeness of mental object . TheMCU already runs a week longand that ’s only go away to increase in the coming eld . Already the world has become unwieldy , to the point where maintain a continuity to an anal arcdegree is simply an indefensible position . Instead , they focus on the big picture and let fans course correct everything else in their headcanon .
Sometimes this gets too muddled . One of the cool easter orchis inThorwas the Infinity Gauntlet in Odin ’s Vault , subtly laying pool cue forInfinity Wara year before Thanos was even introduced . However , whenAge of Ultronrolled around and showed the unrestrained Titan getting his baseball mitt on the prosperous baseball glove it was clearly in a different emplacement , something later confirm by Kevin Feige , whohandwaved an explanation of their being two gauntlets . The harsh truth is that they ’ve simply retconned theThoreaster egg , urinate it a replica or - bad - just pretending it does n’t live . The message of all this is that Marvel is well-chosen to overturn previous plot elements if it helps the unexampled tarradiddle at paw . Indeed , now we ’re try thatJames Gunn may have to " break " continuityto do his desired story forGuardians of the Galaxy Vol . 3 .
If this feels like a verbatim contradiction of the shared world ethos that ’s because it is , although it ’s not inherently ruinous . If in each case it help the individual movie body of work , then this should , of course , be grant and frankly not fretted about . That allege , some condition of conserve the persistence should be made , espcially when it ’s not got any genuine advantage to be broken .
That ’s what make all this date altering so unknown . It would n’t make any real difference toHomecomingif Toomes spent the correct four year building up his alien weapon system business instead of eight , and neither does it have any bearing on how we view Peter Parker ’s compulsion with The Avengers . It ’s particularly noteworthy give that eight is literally the only issue of class thatdoesn’thave a clear solution ; it ’s four yr sinceThe Avengersin - universe , five in veridical time , six sinceIron Manin - world , seven since that class in the real wor;d , and nine since the MCU started . Eight long time is the only time measure that is n’t some sort of dealership anniversary .
Now , some will surely feel this is a solvent ofHomecomingbeing a Sony production and them - either by oversight or an endeavor to shift the continuity before of their"same reality " share universe- making an unwanted change but that ’s far too conspiratory ; Marvel ’s had a major creative hand in the moving picture , going to great extent to control the novel Peter Parker gel perfectly in the canon so that is just improbable . The only logical explanation is that it was a script placeholder that got carried over into the ruined celluloid , almost as proof that , while the MCU has a pretty firm uninterrupted canyon , you believably should n’t try and look too deeply into it .
However , we may just have found a solution . And it ’s a doozy .
Theory: Are Marvel Shifting The Timeline?
While it does n’t answer for for Vision’sCivil Warsnafu , there is actually a direction to treat this within the universe , it just requires a bit of shifting of some other film on the accepted timeline . stage 1,The Avengers , Iron Man 3,Thor 2andGuardiansare all locked in position by aforementioned date references , and we get laid the start ofDoctor Strangeis in 2016 . However , the other movies -Winter Soldier , Age of Ultron , Ant - Man , Civil WarandHomecoming- all day of the month themselves only in mention to each other ( this is where we have to ignoreS.H.I.E.L.D.and WHIH ) . This entail that we can shift them as a block along the timeline ; so , ifHomecomingis in 2020 , then so isCivil War , withAvengers 2andAnt - Manin 2019 andThe Winter Soldierin 2018.Doctor Strangethen starts in 2016 and runs up to 2020 , leave Stephen Strange education for a long but not unbelievable period of fourth dimension . In turn , we have to pushInfinity Warup to 2021 at the other .
Natural anachronisms that come from set motion-picture show in the near - futurity aside , this does sort of work . In fact , this was a possibility that wasfirst fire withDoctor Strangewhich also stretch the timeline without retainer for the other films . Back then we brush aside it due to it clashing withThor : Ragnarok , but as we ’re now sayingeverypost - The Dark WorldEarth - rig motion picture is shifted it can act upon .
This seems weird now , but considering how much is set to go down in the MCU over the next few eld it could actually assist it make a minuscule more sense . If everything continue unfold in real - time , then Peter Parker will be well out of in high spirits shoal by the time ofHomecoming 2 , something Sony and Marvel explicitly do n’t need . Instead , you’re able to haveRagnarokandInfinity Warall occur in a tight timeframe , earmark the continuation to be localise in 2021 and a third motion picture in 2022 ( by which point the timeline wo n’t be as out of step ) . It ’s position onus on Spider - Man over all others , but as 2019’sAvengers 4is envelop up the current arcand Spidey is central go ahead make certain his tale make sense is a gamey priority .
However , this does create bigger narration problems . In the five years between 2013 and 2018 fundamentally nothing happens in - universe ; Captain America drop far too long adjust to the modern world before Bucky steps in and we overall lose the momentum that powersCivil War(and the whole universe ) . There ’s also theStark Expo 2018posters spotted onHomecoming ’s typeset - we do n’t know where they are in the pic at the prison term of written material , but that suggests it ’s meant to be 2016/2017 . It further creates a much bigger col betweenGuardians 2and theirAvengersteam - up than we ’ve been antecedently told . And , again , this is flagrantly ignoringAgents of S.H.I.E.L.D.which explicitly puts the motion-picture show in the mid-2010s
That ’s a lot of way out that make it confutative - so why even do it ? Well , we think it could all be because of a individual easter egg .
Is Homecoming Adjusting Because Of Iron Man 2?
Yes , there is one canonical retainer that could have had an influence . Just weeks beforeHomecomingcame out , Tom Holland confirmed a long - resist fan theory that the child Tony Stark came across at the Stark Expo wear an Iron Man masquerade party and immitating Shellhead wasactually a young Peter Parker . That ’s really rather cool , but creates a trouble ; perIron Man 2being set in 2011 and Peter being fifteen inHomecoming , if the latter film was set in 2016 as bear that makes this kid ten years old . He ’s clearly much younger than that - we ’d reckon six or so - which reveal the retconned cameo as opportunisitc . But birth the timeline stretched swiftly accounts for it ; if Peter ’s six in 2011 , hewouldbe fifteen in 2020 .
This feels specially pertinent as , in his explanation of the easter egg , Holland enjoin " I literally had a conversation with Kevin Feige only 20 instant ago . mayhap I ’ve just done a big , old raider , but it ’s out there now . " That implies there is some greater aim to it , which this seeming plot of land hole would fit in with . If that ’s the case , then it would seem the timeline shift theory above is the unfeigned account and Spidey has secretly rejigged the entire MCU canyon .
Of of course , that ’s the image of this " for the now " approach to wider persistence discussed earlier ; they ’ve messed up the entire timeline to address a slight easter eggs just because it was announce recently while giving no thoughtfulness to backcatalogue of film ( or the TV show ’s besides ) . It ’s not much more reasonable than them simply not realizing the mistake in the first place .
Maybe it ’s time to just consent that the Marvel Cinematic Universe timeline is break away beyond repair and just enjoy the movies for what they are ? Heartbreaking as it may be after nine years of continuity investment , it ’s the only way to really make good sense of all this .
Next:Spider-Man in the MCU: The Marvel/Sony Deal Explained
