The Chronology of The MCU [Based On Spider-Man Homecoming]

Yes, Iron Man 3 is going to be the one that takes the hit when the dust settles here and that is what Feige and the other filmakers intend to happen.

Except that 1) nothing in the films makes it so that these three had to have happened at the same time and 2) nothing in the films makes it so that TIH and Thor could not have happened before the first Iron Man. In fact, the credits scene for Iron Man implies that they do take place before it.

The only film conflicting with Homecoming is Iron Man 3.

So far no one has been able to show me anything from in the films that show why Iron Man, Iron Man 2 and The Avengers couldn't have happened all in the same year. All I've heard so far is that there is six months between the first and second confirmed by dialogue. That leaves up to six months between Iron Man 2 and The Avengers where they could still fit in the same year.

There's nothing imprecise about it, it's just informal. Wouldn't it be weird if he had stated it down to the month or day?

I think that's ridiculous. They have published timelines and there are thousands of people working on these films (including dozens to hundreds that check over the script and storyboards.) This was definitely intentional.

Hard as it may be to accept, if you look at the facts, the conflict is purely between Iron Man 3 and Homecoming. Iron Man 3 in turn causes a ripple effect across several other films that simply do not exist without it. For example, the only reason Homecoming conflicts with The Avengers is that The Avengers seems to happen soon before Iron Man 3 which we are certain occurs in 2013.
Marvel released this film knowing this conflict would exist and that Iron Man 3 would take the fall. If they could have avoided it, they would have, but it clashes with their plans to keep Peter in high school for his solo films. So they retconned knowing that Iron Man 3 would no longer fit quite right...it is the weakest link, goodbye.

This is the timeline

2009: Iron Man
2010: The Avengers
2014: The Winter Soldier
2016: Age of Ultron
2018: Civil War, Homecoming

If anyone can find me proof from the films that proves this timeline wrong (besides Iron Man 3 OR something like a blurry calendar in the background of a single shot) you win a No-Prize.

In this timeline, for example...assuming Tony goes public in late 2009 and Civil War takes place in early 2018, Vision would be correct to say it has been eight years. A few months later, Homecoming and Avengers are also separated by eight years. In Civil War, General Ross remarks that the Avengers have been working without oversight for four years, placing the collapse of Shield in 2014.

They probably did this so that Homecoming 2 would take place in 2019, the same year as it is released in theaters. There are props in the current film confirming that it is 2018. These props were custom-made so we can be certain that this was the filmmaker's absolute intention. That means we can also be certain that the "new" timeline places The Avengers between late 2009 and early 2011, about 8 years before Homecoming.

 

In Civil War, Falcon specifically says Black Widow told the government to shove it two years ago. Why would he say two years if it was four? That timeline doesn't work.

 

Just double-checked and his exact line is "Aren't you the same woman that told the government to kiss her ass a few years ago?"

 

That's a possible solution there, but it still then basically puts Avengers and Iron Man in the same year in Homecoming.

 

Code:

What do you mean?

 

Homecoming said Avengers was eight years ago. Civil War says Iron Man was eight years ago.

 

Both are informal statements, meaning they could mean anything from 7 years 6 months (rounding up) to 8 years 11 months (hard-dating like a birthday.)

Let's say three months pass between Civil War and Homecoming. That allows up to 21 months between Iron Man and The Avengers without anything stated in the films being incorrect (besides Iron Man 3, of course.) I personally can't see any reason why there needs to be more than a few months between Iron Man and The Avengers anyway...but still, there is plenty of room.

 

Putting a subtitle up that says EIGHT YEARS LATER/EIGHT YEARS AGO Neal Kenneth is not an informal statement. Sorry.

 

Yes it is. If I told you I graduated from college eight years ago...what year do I mean?

January 2009 would be 8y6m ago. January 2010 would be 7y6m ago. Both are correct.

 

I don't have time right now to tackle your whole post (which I might do later)... but this part stood out to me, particularly what I red-ed.

Where did you pull TIH and Thor even possibly taking place before the first Iron Man? You say nothing in the films? NOTHING?! Except for... you know almost everything with Coulson between Iron Man 2 and Thor what with him leaving to take care of the events of Thor as evidenced by the post credit scene of Iron Man 2 (not Iron Man 1) being a scene taken directly from Thor. With TIH the fact that the Live news being shown at the end of Iron Man 2 being reporting of the rampage Hulk did at Culver University.

You're really stretching it/grasping at straws trying to explain Homecoming's error away.

 

I distinctly remember that he said they've been searching for Bucky for two years. Which perfectly fits into 2014-2016 time span.

 

Black Panther takes place shortly after Civil War as well.

 

Seeing what I can tackle in the rest of your post before I get to work

Agents of SHIELD (which, yes IS still officially part of the MCU) tells us that SHIELD has been keeping an eye on people with extraordinary abilities for a while (known as "The Index"). (just wanted to add that in addition to my previous post pointing out the content in Iron Man 2 that has it taking place at the same time as TIH and Thor). Which, by the way, also means that there's technically that to fit into the timeline as well - again, regardless what people think of it, it IS still part of the MCU (for example, we know that Thor: The Dark World and Captain America: The Winter Soldier don't happen terribly far apart from each other because within the first half of season 1 there's an episode where they're cleaning up in London after the events of TDW and by the end of the season they're bumping into what's going on in The Winter Soldier. So there's a few months or so, but nothing like an entire year or more.... the next season, a year later, Coulson is the one that's refurbished helicarrier #64 for Fury, etc...)

I've told you multiple things in the films that have told why they can't all have happened in the same year. You just insist on ignoring what's present in those films (I mean seriously, how do you ignore Coulson telling Tony that he's going to New Mexico, the post credit scene of Iron Man 2 being Coulson arriving in New Mexico and finding Thor's hammer, and then try to put Thor as happening BEFORE the first Iron Man film?! - as I said, you're grasping at straws)

If it had been any character other than Vision, yes... it would have been odd. But this is Vision we're talking about. A being born from the combination of an AI/Computer program and an Infinity Stone. Again, him (out of all the characters) being more precise would not surprise me at all. And again (as TVO said), there is no reason why the bigass "8 Years Later" shown on screen would be something stated 'informally'.

Yes, they do have published timelines. In fact, they published one of those timelines FOR US (the timeline included in the Art of Avengers book)... if you want to bring up them having published timelines, then that HAS to be included. And that timeline shows (in addition to what's said and shown in Iron Man 2 itself) that those three movies take place during the same time frame (AND take place 6 months after the events of Iron Man). And, again, dialogue within Avengers itself states that there's at least a year (possibly a bit more, given Widow's "it's been more than a year" since Banner's last incident) between TIH/Thor and Avengers. So, again, there's at least a year and a half between the first Iron Man and Avengers. So if one of the 8 year statements is right (and both of them aren't a writer's mistake) then someone is still wrong and it's either Civil War or Homecoming.

No... IM3 is not the only conflict, as stated.

2012, not 2013 (December 1999+13 years=December 2012)

How do you know they realized this conflict would exist? Continuity errors happen in film franchises ALL THE TIME (the MCU is not immune). Has there been a quote yet by a PTB that they're intentionally shifting the pre-existing timeline/what had already been established? Show me that... otherwise, you're simply stating what you *think* they know, you don't know that for a fact - you are not involved in their meetings, you don't know what specific details have or haven't been discussed

Maybe they did... or maybe it was a mistake. As far as I can tell, there's been no indication either way yet and so (again) for me/for now, I'm taking the more simple route of going with writer's having made mistakes in 2 films (Homecoming and Civil War) rather than try to completely readjust more than 2 films in the rest of the previous MCU (because, again, IM3 is not the only conflicting problem).

Oh I love it when someone cites props (btw, just out of curiosity, what props? Were there close ups of these props that weren't... how did you put it "something like a blurry calendar in the background"? because I honestly don't remember seeing anything like that).

Ultimately though Props are not always perfect. Seriously... go to Captain America: The Winter Soldier and, based on Bucky's Smithsonian exhibit, tell me what year James Buchanan Barnes was born.

Better yet, I will even provide you with a link to a screenshot of the full text of his exhibit: here

Props aren't perfect/are not always right. The prop makers are not always given exact teenie tiny little details like dates unless that date is of a significant event where it's the date that they're focusing on (i.e. a newspaper in a movie covering that 9/11 happened just days before should probably have a date on it that corrisponds/makes sense with 9/11 having just happened and not have a year that's 4 years later).


(apologies if anything I said was confusing, it's been one of those mornings already... and I still have 7 hours of work to go)

 

The proposed conflict was between Homecoming and TIH, because TIH necessitates a one year gap between itself and The Avengers.

So what if Thor happens right after Iron Man 2? Both films could easily have happened a few months before the Avengers and cause no conflicts with the new timeline.

First of all, this is the "blurry calendar" sort of thing I was talking about earlier...but it doesn't take much to debunk this reasoning anyway.

Fury and Stark are meeting to discuss The Avengers Initiative. This is not live footage, this is archive footage Fury is using to explain the idea to Stark. All it proves is that TIH happened before Iron Man 2 and there is no time frame beyond that. It could be a week before or ten years before, who knows?

If I'm grasping at straws, then why has no one been able to give me anything from any film besides Iron Man 3 to debunk it?

Face it folks...there was a meeting where they decided the placement of Homecoming and they had to order props that said 2018 (it was filmed in 2016 so they had to be custom-made) when someone mentioned that it would conflict with Iron Man 3. Fiege took one last look at the steaming turd that Shane took on their franchise and said "Go ahead."

 

LMAO get out of here with this nonsense

 

So now you're backtracking and insisting it's just TIH? Allow me to quote you from earlier:

I was responding to this, that's why I brought up Coulson with the tie-in to Thor.

If it had been just a few months before than Fury would have said that Thor destroyed a small town a few months ago, not last year.

So you get to use "blurry calendar" when it suits your purposes for Homecoming, but won't accept it anywhere else?

Why would Fury need to explain the idea when the reason Tony is there is for Fury to tell him that he's not there to join the Avengers but to just be a consultant? And how does the attack on Culver University 'explain the idea' to Stark anyway?

 

Okay, let's take a look at the evidence we have:

December 31st 1999/January 1st 2000 - fixed date, Tony at the conference in Bern, meets Yinsen, Killian et al. (IM3)
February 14th 2008 - fixed date, Killian find candidates for the Extremis program (date shown in IM3)
2010 - IM (6 months before IM2 as stated by Senator Stern in IM2)
2011 - Fury's big week (Fury mentions in TA that the events of Thor happend 'last year')
2012 - the Battle of New York/ the Incident (year given in AoS S2E06 A Fractured House)
December 2012 - IM3
September 9th 2013 - set date, Grant Ward is promoted to Level 7 and gets a new ID batch with it's date clearly visible in AoS S1Eo1 Pilot
November 2013 - Thor The Dark World (Darcy states that Thor was gone for over 2 years since the events of the first Thor, set in 2011, A calender can be seen in the movie saying November)
First Half of 2014 - Winter Soldier (Falcon states they're looking for the Winter Soldier for two years in Civil War, given that Rogers says he's 95 in TWS it has to happen before July 4th)
2014 - GotG, Got2 v2 ('34 years later' than the '1980' opening scene of the first movie)
January 6th 2015 - This google+ post
May(?) 2015 - AoU (in CW it is mentioned by Tony that 'Spencer decided to spend his summer in Sokovia' which is when the battle of Sokovia happend. Zemo says he spent over a year planning his revenge. So early summer, really, May probably
July 17th 2015, set date, Scott Lang is released from prison (WHiH)
December 2015, Peter Parker was bitten by a spider (He had this power for 'six months' in CW)
May 3rd, 2016 - set date, WHiH coverage of Lagos Incident
June 2016 - Vienna International Center bombing, stated as 'one month after Lagos' (or Lagos was stated as 'last month' something along that line)
August or September 2016 - Start of Homecoming, judging by the 'two months later'. Assuming CW happend late in June, September is more likely, given that August is an akward time to go to High School (as is June for having homework, frankly, but I have no idea when summer holidays in the US usually end)



that's the bits that are working, now for the onscreen bits that didn't work:

2020 - the events of Homecoming (8 years after the Battle of New York)




edit: rereading this, I noticed I forgot Visions line in CW about the '8 years since Tony Stark announced himself as Iron Man' which, going by all other evidence surprisingly doesn't work neither with earlier given dates. So either IM is set in 2008 instead of 2010 which doesn't work with the dates given in TA and IM2 or CW is set in 2018, which means, since Cap is still 95 in TWS, Falcon and Cap started looking for Bucky in 2016, two years after the events of TWS and after AoU. This would also mean that the date of the WHiH footage for CW is wrong by 2 years.
It still doesn't make any sense in relation to the 2020 date of Homecoming, though. There's still a gap


2016 seems to be the year Dr. Strange started his training under the Ancient One, I can't remember any exact dates given in canon. IF Strange started experimenting with the Eye of Agamoto around May/June 2016 however, there might be an in universe reason for both Vision's 'eight years' and Toomes' 'eight years', as in Strange broke time completely in early summer 2016

 

Again, I ask what the alternative is in dialogue. Saying the amount of days or months? Or weeks?

For example, Vision could say "in the eight years since" Iron Man referring to a time period of 8 years and 11 months, for example (because it hasn't been nine years yet by that point.) Then, three months later, Homecoming starts "8 years" after The Avengers, this time referring to a period of 7 years and 7 months and simply rounding up. Assume a three month gap between Homecoming and Civil War and....let me do the math quick...that would make Iron Man and The Avengers take place 19 months apart without any errors in the films (besides IM 3).

Yes, in any retcon, older ancillary materials are going to be incorrect. AoS has always been secondary to the films and published materials are certainly secondary to even AoS. Luckily, these materials are easy to update.

Addressing your other points: We know from dialogue that The Avengers and TIH are at least a year apart, but I've yet to see anything from the films necessitating TIH taking place at the same time as Thor and Iron Man 2 (which we can confirm take place very close to each other.) But, even if you can prove that, I've also shown how you can easily fit 18 months into the gap between Iron Man and The Avengers. There's no conflict here.

Prove it.

This I cannot prove beyond the props they bought that say 2018 and the two instances in the film where they say "8 years" which solidly places The Avengers between late 2009 and early 2011.

You are right, it's possible all of these things were a mistake...but I'm using Occam's Razer. The simplest explanation is that they realized a problem was going to occur between Iron Man 3 and Homecoming and they just decided IM3's factual accuracy wasn't worth saving compared to their new plans for the franchise. Yes, retcon's are messy and painful if you are a fan of the older material. But this is a retcon. I've seen a thousand retcons and this is a retcon.

Accidents are, like you said earlier with Bucky's birth year, small details in a quick shots. Not two-foot tall letters on the screen and lines of dialogue in the film reinforcing it.

 

Let's say, for example, that Thor happened in November of 2009 and The Avengers happened in April of 2010. Would Fury be incorrect to say that Thor destroyed a small town "last year"?

Yes, I do, because Homecoming is their latest film. When you want to understand the studio's intentions, you need to look at their newest stuff, not their outdated stuff.

Fury goes to Tony and tells him that he's looking for him to consult for his super-human team and you think he wouldn't show Tony who he's talking about?

 

You're delusional...they did not erase IM3 from the MCU. You're just like the people that claim that TIH was erased as well. Just because they don't reference the movie doesn't mean it didn't happen.

 

Here are placements so far going just off what we have in the movies.

Iron Man

The Incredible Hulk - unknown, but definitely before Iron Man 2

Iron Man 2 - 6 months after Iron Man

Thor - A few days after Iron Man 2

The Avengers - Anywhere from a few months after Iron Man 2 and Thor to a year and a half. As explained earlier, Fury's "last year" comment could be as little as a few months if The Avengers happens in spring and Thor happened in fall.

Civil War - a "few years" after The Winter Soldier, at least "2 years" (both quotes according to Falcon.) "Four years" after the collapse of SHIELD (TWS) according to General Ross. "Eight years" after Iron Man according to Vision.

Homecoming - two months after Civil War and eight years after The Avengers according to words on screen. Eight year figure is reinforced by Vulture's dialogue. Between Vision's dialogue in CW and the events in Homecoming, we know that Iron Man and The Avengers are separated by a year and a half at most.

Iron Man 3 anchors Avengers to 2012 while Homecoming anchors it to 2010. They are, however, factually incompatible. Many are viewing this as a mistake, but it's clear to me that this is a retcon. When their latest efforts like CW and Homecoming are in agreement, that indicates that forethought and planning was put into this change by the studio. The result will be that Homecoming 2 will come out the same year it takes place in-universe (2019.)

 

Iron Man 3 isn't even that much of a problem if one assumes that Tony's symptoms didn't start until much later the battle of NY. There's still Rhodey saying stuff about how the government wants to deal with Mandarin with no superheroes to rebuild trust but that doesn't instantly break the theorized Homecoming timeline.

With current evidence, I do think it is possible to create a timeline that fits with Homecoming. But it requires ignoring props, tv-shows, tie-in comics and the original intention.

 

"Four years" after the Incident, more likely.

the Avengers started operating at the Battle of New York

 

If it were 8 years and 11 months, most would say something along the lines of "in the nearly 9 years" (something I could see Vision saying). They usually don't round 8 years and 11 months all the way down to 8 years. Even most little kids (in my experience) would say something along the lines of "I'm almost 9 years old". Or at the very least a "half" might be thrown in (i.e. in the 8 1/2 years since....). But no, Vision said simply 8. no "8 1/2", no "nearly 9". 8.

Okay, how about this. The end of the Incredible Hulk (Ross at the bar which is before the credits and so is actually part of the movie proper where he's drowning in his sorrows after the battle between Hulk and Abomination - meaning it's not that long after the battle happened) can't happen before the events of Iron Man because Tony doesn't become the consultant until Iron Man 2.

You still haven't stated what these props are that said 2018 and where in the film they're located

You see them as outright deciding to alter the previous timeline (ignoring the fact that one of the films outright states a date) as the simplest possibility where as I see the simplest possibility being that the writer's made a mistake.

Look, maybe they are trying to shift the timeline... I'm not saying it's not completely impossible... but for now, when I look at the options available in front of me - whether it's them saying "screw Iron Man 3, let's adjust the timeline on a chunk of the previous films" or going with the more simpler option that a mistake was made in Homecoming, I'm going with what I see as the more simple option. That's my opinion on the matter at this time (it might change with future films, I don't know... I can't see into the future) and I just don't agree with your reasoning/the gymnastics you're having to do in how the previous films can work with the new timeline (especially with having both Civil War and Homecoming being right with both stating an 8 year time frame).

 

I already tried explaining to him man, don't bother.