Marvel’s Jeph Loeb Details How Marvel TV Shows Handle Major Marvel Studios Consequences

When the Marvel Cinematic Universe was originally launched, it wasn’t a premise that had really happened in entertainment before — at least on the scale that Disney had planned. In theory, stars that fans saw on the silver screen would pop up time from time in the smaller properties from Marvel Television.

To date, Marvel Studios has released an astonishing 20 movies — all set in the same universe — with an additional three in post-production to be released in the next year. Marvel Television, on the other hand — an entity completely separate from its movie-focused sibling — has released 21 seasons of various television shows.

When all is said and done, Disney as an outfit has released over 40 separate properties all in the same universe. And while both Marvel Studios and Marvel Television are both owned by the House of Mouse, they’re still technically different entities.

So how do two companies work together and achieve that “synergy?” ComicBook.com recently had the chance to speak with Marvel TV head Jeph Loeb on how his outfit communicates with Kevin Feige and company’s Marvel Studios.

“Specifically to that [The Snap], what we’ve said is that only we don’t want to spoil what’s in Avengers 4,” Loeb said. “Our story comes out before then so in that particular case, when there’s something that cataclysmic, we’ve said that our story takes place before The Snap.”

Loeb’s right. It only takes a quick watch through any of the Marvel shows on Netflix to see that there isn’t a real strong timeline in place. In the case of a show like Daredevil, we only know that it takes place sometime after “The Incident,” also known as the Battle of New York — or the time members of the Chitauri race invaded New York in The Avengers.

While the most recent season of ABC’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. did, however, reference Thanos’ (Josh Brolin) forces invading Wakanda in Avengers: Infinity War, most of the television properties have long been careful to avoid attaching themselves to closely to a timeline.

Loeb went on to explain how he liked how Runaways showrunners Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage have crafted their Hulu show to be as free from timeline worries as possible.

“What we like what Josh [Schwartz] and Steph [Savage] is that this is a show that can stay on its own,” Loeb reflected.

“It can reference the rest of the world, but it’s true to teenagers — they’re not interested in what Tony Stark is doing this week or what Matt Murdock is doing this week but they might be interested in a couple of kids who live down in New Orleans and what’s going on there.”

Fans of the MCU — or fans of Freeform’s Cloak and Dagger, at least — should be excited for Loeb to say that last tidbit. Ty Johnson and Tandy Bowen have each been apart of the Runaways group in the Marvel comics mythos and now that Aubrey Joseph and Olivia Holt portray the characters in live-action, it’s entirely plausible for the two shows to collide at some point or another.

The entire second season of Runaways drops on December 21, 2018 exclusively on Hulu.