Marvel’s Small-Screen Legacy: ABC Shows and MCU Canon

Before Disney+ launched in November 2019, Marvel fans had two small-screen destinations: Netflix, home to popular shows like Daredevil, Luke Cage, Jessica Jones, Iron Fist, The Punisher, and crossover The Defenders; and ABC, which aired Agents of SHIELD (a seven-season juggernaut), Agent Carter, and Inhumans. These shows ran concurrently with Marvel’s Phase 2 and Phase 3 films, but there wasn’t much overlap between the big and small-screen projects aside from a few key characters—including SHIELD‘s Agent Coulson and Agent Carter‘s Peggy Carter.

The Question of Canon

As time has passed, fans have often wondered: is the stuff that happened on those ABC shows part of MCU canon, or not? With Disney+’s Daredevil: Born Again bringing back Charlie Cox and his Netflix co-stars for a new series—following Cox’s Matt Murdock reprise on She-Hulk: Attorney at Law—the question’s come back around again. In an interview with ScreenRant, Marvel Television’s Brad Winderbaum was asked about the canon status of two of the ABC series: SHIELD and Agent Carter.

Marvel’s Approach to Canon

“It’s exciting for me to think about how to square those ABC shows with the canon,” he said. “That, to me, if you know me and the way my brain works, that is fun territory to imagine.” The MCU canon is, admittedly, a sprawling collection of superheroes, supervillains, spin-offs, and sequels; it already has 30 movies and a dozen TV series, plus specials, and many more are on the way. With that in mind, would it really be too much effort to add in the events that transpired on a couple more TV shows, especially such fan-beloved ones? Or is it better to just compartmentalize the adventures of Coulson and Carter, enjoy them for what they were, and not try to tie them into the ever-growing bigger picture?

Marvel’s Decision

Whatever may end up happening, at least Marvel is holding onto its history in an easily accessible way: all of the Netflix and ABC shows (yes, even Inhumans) are streaming on Disney+.