The State of the MCU's Agents of SHIELD Just Got Even More Confusing

Summary

• Agents of SHIELD
  It's a series that changed the MCU forever, despite losing its canon status.
• Agents of SHIELD
  I recently received a confusing status update about whether it was canon or not, and it only added to the mystery of the show.
• Even still,
  Agents of SHIELD
  could return to the MCU despite confusing updates from the powers that be.

Marvel Television's merger with the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe has been officially unveiled with WandaVisiona series with the most direct involvement in what happened to the movies ever. Since then, the MCU's television arena has grown and works well with the movies as well. While many would consider WandaVision This being the first time the MCU has integrated television content into its core, this couldn't be further from the truth as Agents of SHIELD It has since earned the title of the first series to tie into the MCU. That said, its story has only gotten stranger as the franchise has grown and the series has continued.

Agents of SHIELD It is a series that was the first spin-off of the 2012 series Avengers. It followed the mysterious resurrection of Agent Coulson and his efforts to assemble a team to navigate and investigate new events related to the natural escalation introduced by the Avengers fighting the Chitauri in New York City. The series was an instant hit with fans, and over its seven seasons, the overall tone matured considerably and it finally began to play its own tune, introducing characters like Ghost Rider and revisiting groups like Hydra and the Kree. Due to the show's fanfare and generally interesting and entertaining characters, fans clamored for the series to be made canon, and even now, that's still up in the air. To make matters even more confusing, Marvel Studios' head of TV, streaming, and animation Brad Winderbaum addressed the idea with a cryptic response.

The multiverse may have saved the agents of SHIELD, but it's still a source of confusion

• Thanks to the Multiverse, everything that came before 2008, Marvel Iron Man exists in some reality.
• So far, the first franchise to be introduced into the MCU was Wesley Snipes' Blade. Deadpool and Wolverine.
• Agents of SHIELD landing in the MCU could bring with it many comic book characters who have found success in the series.

According to Winderbaum, he explained that in the grand scheme of things, Agents of SHIELD “it somehow fits into the Multiverse Saga.” However, if you think about it, this should be a given, since everything Marvel exists in the Multiverse. But on closer inspection, the Multiverse Saga is more of a narrative title, establishing that, somehow, the characters of Agents of SHIELD could return to aid the heroes in their battle against Doctor Doom. But until anything is confirmed, Winderbaum also said that audiences, and himself, should take a breather as to when these characters might finally be recognizable. Even so, depending on who you ask, Agents of SHIELD It's canon one day and it's not the next, making the entire series a kind of Schrödinger's Cat where it's not canon until it is and vice versa.

This is not the first time that it has been speculated that a series from the past could return to the canon, as was the case in 2015 Daredevil and the rest of Marvel's Netflix series were initially released as a way to implement street-level heroes into the MCU. Even more interestingly, the finale of Daredevil The second season has been teased in a new title in Agents of SHIELD However, unlike the latter, Daredevil the plot has since been revisited with Daredevil: Reborn marking its grand return. While there are many characters from the Netflix era who have yet to return, it is proof that cancelled shows from the past can return to their old canonical status. That said, in the case of Agents of SHIELDre-canonizing the series seems more necessary than ever, as there are so many elements of the series that already connect to the films.

Agents of SHIELD had many ties to the MCU

• Many MCU films during Phase 2 had connections to Agents of SHIELD
• Most of the series still featured references to films such as Avengers: Infinity War without including a related episode.
• The ill-fated show Inhumans was a spin-off of Agents of SHIELD, and Anson Mount's Black Bolt is back as a variant in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madnessmaking the state of Agents of SHIELD even more important.

Part of what made Agents of SHIELD such a delight to watch was that it connected to the larger MCU and had connections that could, at times, have a heavy impact on the films. The first was a Thor: The Dark World tie-in that brought back Jamie Alexander's Sif for a case involving an Asgardian artifact. However, it could be argued that the most important tie-in came with Captain America: The Winter Soldier. In the tie-in episodes, fans learned that Hydra's infiltration of SHIELD affected more than just SHIELD's STRIKE team, as fan-favorite agent Ben Ward was revealed to be a double agent alongside his mentor, John Garrett. This was a huge shock to fans and marked a shift in tone for the series, as things were less lighthearted and fun and more gritty, as the heroes were forced to go on the run and had to rely on classic espionage tactics and the strength to kill when necessary.

Aside from that, the last major connection happened when Avengers: Age of Ultron It was released as is in Agents of SHIELD that it was revealed that the helicarrier that saves the people of Sokovia in the film was provided to Fury by Coulson and his team. Since then, however, audiences haven't had much of a connection to the films, as the gap between TV and film has begun to grow more with each season. The last and biggest connection to the MCU came during the season where the Kree and Graviton try to face off and one of the Kree mentions how Thanos was attacking Earth. However, aside from this naming of what has become the biggest event in the MCU so far, there hasn't been any exploration of The Blip or even the Battle for Earth. That said, the reason was both clever and has since allowed Agents of SHIELD to exist without interfering with the MCU since the series' final season.

Agents of SHIELD's non-canon status makes sense even if they were to return to the MCU

• Although unintentional, the MCU's history is parallel Agents of SHIELD.
• The presence of Peggy Carter, Agent Sousa and the appearance of Jarvis in Avengers: Endgame proves how important it is Agents of SHIELD It's for the MCU.
• There is still time for the Agents to reappear once again.

There's no denying that most MCU fans who've watched Agents of SHIELD can recognize the value of the series and how it introduced fun characters and helped the franchise grow in unique ways. That being said, while there are countless reasons why the show should be made canon again, there is also the fact that the series was left in a place where it made sense for it not to connect to the Sacred Timeline. By season 5 and 6 of the series, time travel had become a major element. It served as a Umbrella Academy-esque of characters using time as a means of exchanging messages, whether it was Fitz trying to reach Simmons from the past or them jumping to another timeline. Ultimately, the main villains, the Chonicoms, were alien beings who also had to do with time. All of this allowed the series to stand on its own two feet, even easily bypassing the effects of The Blip.

By the end of this series, the characters were all living in a new branching timeline that allowed them to achieve normalcy and get their happy endings, both having impacted the MCU and also leaving gracefully. That being said, an event like Avengers: Secret Wars would have been the only way for them to return to canon and for characters like Quake and Ghost Rider to re-enter the MCU in a more permanent way. Considering that both Marvel Television and Marvel Studios were so divided, it's amazing how both narratives managed to work in a way that Agents of SHIELD could exist and be justified in the Multiverse thanks to what would later be Loki's intervention with the TVA. It all came together, and while the current state is still very confusing and many of these characters deserve to share a space with the other heroes of the MCU, there's no denying how connected Agents of SHIELD really is to the larger universe.