Did ‘Runaways’ Just Confirm a Trump Presidency in the MCU?

Marvel Studios walks a fine line between fantasy and reality with many of their Marvel Cinematic Universe projects, but the Runaways Hulu series may have just brought real-world politics into the MCU.

As Syfy Wire points out, Runaways’ fourth episode features a scene in which the free-spirited Gert Yorkes (Ariela Barer) is confronted by a group of classmates who have wholly embraced Gertty’s “Down with the patriarchy” feminist agenda, seeking to appoint her as their group leader. All three of the girls are wearing “I’m With Her” shirts from the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign, with one of the girls having altered her shirt to read: “I’m With Gert.” That same girl then explains the alteration has helped her not to “look at this shirt with unspeakable sadness.”

The implication in this humorous moment is that the 2016 election between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump played out with real-world accuracy in the MCU. While we don’t expect the matter to become a major focus of the MCU in any way, it could be an important backdrop for how things play out, going forward. The MCU hasn’t been afraid to lean into politics (if only indirectly), with films like Captain America: Winter Soldier addressing political politics like the privacy vs. security, which was highly topical at the time.

Of course the MCU has also given us alternative versions of the government and acting president that are not at all based in reality (see Iron Man 3), and the fact that this 2016 Election reference is coming in a Marvel TV show (the Hulu one, no less) gives it far less weight when it comes to influencing the larger MCU. That’s all to say: this moment will likely be written off as a joke more so than being acknowledged as a piece of canon. It’s doubtful that the other creators of the MCU (like Kevin Feige) would want to bend their depictions of government around to fit a small comedic moment in Runaways…

You can catch Marvel’s Runaways airing new episodes every Tuesday on Hulu.