One of Marvel’s Best Shows Is No Longer MCU Canon (but It Should Be)

The television side of Marvel Studios’ Marvel Cinematic Universe output has long been considered a problem by MCU fans. Disney’s attempts to prop up the fledgling Disney+ streaming service with non-stop Marvel (and Star Wars) releases are how MCU fans ended up inundated with lackluster Marvel shows that felt more like homework than entertainment. Yet, some fans forget that Marvel had some success with television stories before Disney+ entered the streaming wars, albeit in a vastly different format. It’s a shame then that one of Marvel’s best TV series has been confirmed non-canon by one of its stars.

Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD star Chloe Bennet attended Dragon Con over the weekend. During a conversation with fans, she insisted that she has no idea if Marvel ever plans on bringing her character, Daisy Johnson aka Quake, back to the MCU, and confirmed that the entire Agents of SHIELD series, which spun out of the first Avengers movie and ran for seven seasons on ABC, is no longer considered canon with the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

“I’m not playing a bit. This isn’t a joke. I don’t know anything. They haven’t asked me. If they would, you know me, I can’t keep a secret, I would tell you guys. We are not really considered canon. I think the show will make some weird, random comeback. Like if it gets put on another streamer or something.”

Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD Should Be MCU Canon, But It’s Not

Bennet’s comments seem to confirm that the first Marvel Cinematic Universe television show is no longer a part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe at all. That’s a significant excision given that Agents of SHIELD was, by far, the longest-running Marvel Cinematic Universe television series, with 136 episodes over its seven seasons, though admittedly, its place in the MCU was already in question with how later seasons seemed to operate in a different reality from the Marvel Studios films (Agents of SHIELD was developed independently by Marvel Television, before Marvel’s TV output was subsumed by Marvel Studios entirely).

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However, early seasons of the show were tied much more tightly to MCU events. The series was born out of a desire to tell more stories featuring Agent Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg) after his apparent death in Marvel’s The Avengers, with early story arcs explaining his resurrection. The revelations of Captain America: The Winter Soldier were also central to the plot of Agents of SHIELD Season 1, while other episodes referenced Avengers: Age of Ultron and Thor: The Dark World. Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) and Lady Sif (Jaimie Alexander) even appeared in episodes of the show.

The Agents of SHIELD Team Should Have Returned In Secret Invasion

Eventually, Marvel Studios no longer wanted to have to deal with coordinating with its televised siblings, and the feeling was seemingly shared by those running Agents of SHIELD, preferring the freedom to tell stories without concern for a larger shared universe’s continuity. It’s almost ironic considering how bogged down in continuity the MCU has become under the singular control of Marvel Studios, with many of the Disney+ shows feeling more like stopgaps than fully fleshed-out adventures.

The most notorious of those was Secret Invasion, which Bennet made note of on her panel. Her Agents of SHIELD character, Quake, had a big role to play in the Secret Invasion comic book event, leading the Nick Fury-trained team of young operatives called the Secret Warriors against the Skrull invasion. Many fans hoped that Bennet might reprise her role as Daisy Johnson in the Disney+ series, perhaps confirming Agents of SHIELD as still somehow MCU canon, but that didn’t happen. Bennet wonders if a return may have helped save the show, which is among Marvel’s worst-reviewed projects to date.

“I agree that I could have been in Secret Invasion, but I wasn’t,” Bennet said. “Probably would have been better.”

How do you feel about Agents of SHIELD no longer being MCU canon? Let us know in the comments.