Marvel mocks its own MCU timeline errors
From its humble beginnings in 2008 with Iron Man, the MCU has grown into a behemoth that now includes 32 movies and nine TV shows (not including the seven seasons of Agents of SHIELD, six Netflix shows and more).
It's no surprise that over that time, there have been a few errors in the timeline as events are retconned, new characters are introduced and storylines cross over multiple movies and shows.
They're not even really big mistakes and more the kind of errors that dedicated fans will spot on a rewatch of the entire MCU. Well, apart from that time Spider-Man: Homecoming pretended that the Battle of New York took place eight years before Homecoming.
But fear not, Marvel has now addressed those errors, including that infamous Spidey error, in the new book The Marvel Cinematic Universe: An Official Timeline, which has now been released in the UK and US.
The new book extensively details all of the events on the Sacred Timeline from Phases 1 through to 4, ending with The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special.
Any TV show before Phase 4, such as Agents of SHIELD, is not included although Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige notes in the foreword that they are "canonical to Marvel". (Essentially, they're part of the MCU, but consider them in a separate timeline or universe, for now.)
Even without those shows, there are plenty of times where Marvel has forgotten what it's already established. For those moments, Miss Minutes pops up with a "red line alert" that's a light-hearted explanation of the error.
"Adrian Toomes says the Battle of New York was 8 years ago, but that event was only 4 years prior. This one's a real head scratcher for us – I reckon an Analyst misplaced the case file," says Miss Minutes of the Homecoming error, as an example.
There are various "red line alerts" throughout the timeline although, unsurprisingly, they become a bit more common in Phase 4, such as when exactly Wanda and Pietro Maximoff were born.
Was Jimmy Woo's briefing in WandaVision right that it was 1989 or was the SWORD file we see in the same show right that it was 1988? Not all Marvel fans will care, of course, but even Miss Minutes can't help as "so many records were destroyed during Sokovia's conflicts".
The earlier Phases of the MCU don't get away without some mockery though, including Miss Minutes saying that "analysts must be gettin' their britches in a stir" over whether Bucky Barnes fell from the train in 1944 (as the exhibit says) or in 1945 when Artim Zola claims he was captured.
We won't spoil all the gags throughout the book, but if there's ever been a continuity error that's irritated you, we're pretty sure that it's covered. You might not get an exact answer, yet you can have a chuckle at least.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe: An Official Timeline is available to buy now on Amazon, Waterstones, Foyles and other retailers.
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