If you’ve been following Marvel Studios news over the past few years, especially during the dissolution of Marvel TV and the rise of Marvel Studios making TV series for Disney+, you know there is a distinct difference between Marvel, Marvel TV, and Marvel Studios. It’s a distinction that causes great confusion in fandom, especially on TV, but it’s an important one that is guiding the vision of Kevin Feige and the filmmakers at Marvel Studios. But again, it’s a confusing issue that caused a bit of an uproar on social media this weekend.
Before we get to how James Gunn blew the minds of fans all over the world by saying the only TV shows that are MCU canon are the Disney+ series, let’s talk about the distinction between Marvel, Marvel TV, and Marvel Studios.
Welcome to Marvel Canon 101…
If you think of the superhero company as a pie, you have the full pie, which is called Marvel. That includes everything that is released that features superheroes like Spider-Man, Captain America, Iron Man, and the various other Marvel Universe creations. Marvel is the company that releases comic books, novels, animated series, live-action shows, and, of course, films.
READ MORE: Marvel TV Is No More As The Production Company Gets Officially Absorbed By Marvel Studios
Marvel TV, on the other hand, is the former studio led by Jeph Loeb that released a series of animated and live-action TV shows from 2012 until the recently-canceled “Helstrom.” It was a smaller piece of the Marvel pie and though the studio liked to tease links between Marvel TV series such as “Daredevil,” “Agents of SHIELD,” “Agent Carter,” and “The Runaways” and the MCU, they are made by a completely different studio with completely different creative people involved.
Then you have Marvel Studios, the film studio that created the Marvel Cinematic Universe beginning with “Iron Man” in 2008 and has recently started releasing TV shows on Disney+. Though it’s a huge piece of the Marvel pie, it’s completely different than Marvel TV and is just a subsidiary of Marvel (the main corporation). Anything that is considered “canon” in the MCU is released by Marvel Studios. And since Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige didn’t have a hand in Marvel TV and doesn’t have a day-to-day role in Marvel comics, novels, or any other non-Marvel Studios business, he considers his own projects to be the only canon in the MCU.
All that to say, it’s confusing, to be certain. But for those that skipped all of that explanation, basically, if it’s not a Marvel Studios film or TV series, it’s not official canon. This is something James Gunn tried to explain on Twitter recently when he published a list of actors that have appeared in both MCU and DCEU projects. After the original tweet was released, there was a wave of fans trying to add names such as John Glover, who has appeared in “Shazam” for DCEU and “Agent Carter” for Marvel TV.
Gunn replied, “Not including pre-Wandavision shows in MCU.” (“WandaVision,” of course, is the first Marvel Studios-produced TV series to arrive on Disney+.)
When prompted by a fan who claims “Agents of SHIELD” and “Agent Carter” are in the MCU, Gunn replied, “According to Whom?” (Again, the master of all things MCU canon is Kevin Feige, and he has gone on record as disavowing the previous Marvel TV content as not being part of the MCU.)
Finally, after all of the back and forth, with fans trying to tell Gunn that he’s either right or wrong, the filmmaker bowed out of the discussion and said, “You can believe whatever you want to believe is canon. If you want to believe Daffy Duck and Fredo Corleone and Rowdy Roddy Piper are in the MCU, you are free to do that. Whatever makes you happy.”
Obviously, canon is what you make it. As Gunn said, if you want Daffy Duck in the MCU, you can imagine it as real. Same with “Agents of SHIELD” and “Agent Carter,” which both have direct ties to the MCU (primarily with cast members and continuing stories that started in films), but those are Marvel TV projects that aren’t largely thought of as MCU canon. But hey, whatever makes you happy. Just don’t argue with James Gunn about it.
Oh, and if you want a first-look at James Gunn’s upcoming DCEU TV project, “Peacemaker,” you can see the first image from Empire below:
