Creating a near-comprehensive timeline for the Marvel Cinematic Universe is no small feat. It isn’t perfect but it’s good reference material and a fun read for anyone interested in the MCU timeline. The authors (Anthony Breznican, Amy Ratcliffe, and Rebecca Theodore–Vachon) even place events in the book that are referenced on props or in backgrounds but never seen on-screen. The book also features a foreword by Kevin Feige himself, which teases timelines crashing and converging in the future.
Fixing the Future
Marvel isn’t immune from continuity mistakes, and most are addressed in The Marvel Cinematic Universe: An Official Timeline including the infamous ‘8 Years Later’ hiccup from Spider-Man: Homecoming. However, Marvel doesn’t admit fault or explain its mistakes in a behind-the-scenes type of way. Instead, they use Miss Minutes to comment on such MCU timeline mistakes by explaining them away in-universe or acknowledging them. For example, Thor claims to be 1500 years old but he was only a baby around 695 CE. Miss Minutes says in the book, “I’d have an answer for y’all now, but Casey just spilled coffee all over the mainframe. Bless his heart.” I think it’s a clever way of pointing out their mistakes, especially ones that can’t be corrected.
Many continuity mistakes have happened over the years, but with a cinematic universe as large as the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it’s bound to happen. Although it would be nice if they could go back in time to fix these mistakes, that’s not how time travel works, remember? I think it’s a fair compromise to acknowledge them and move on.
An Essential Reference
For anyone interested in the MCU timeline, there are a vast number of resources and videos that fans have put together over the years. For me, this book is a priceless reference and personally, one of my favorites so far.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe: An Official Timeline manages to break down events and place them in the appropriate time period. You may be reading an event from Captain America: The Winter Soldier, only for the next event to be from Iron Man but it’s done in a way that makes sense. They’ve also broken things down by major characters. If you want to only read through events involving Black Widow, she has her own special symbol you can look for next to timeline events. Do you want to follow Bucky Barnes’s life from Brooklyn boy to Winter Soldier? Just look for his special symbol.
The book doesn’t include any ABC or Netflix Marvel series, such as Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D or Daredevil, which will be disappointing to some fans. It does include Marvel One-Shots, such as Agent Carter and All Hail The King. This is more proof that Marvel will never tie itself down when it comes to shows created outside of their full control.
WHAT NEXT?
The challenging problem with publishing a timeline book in an ongoing universe is that it will be outdated immediately. The Marvel Cinematic Universe: An Official Timeline only deals with events from Phases 1-4. While I think that a hard copy is beneficial, something like an interactive website would have been great as well. A website would have to be updated often but I can’t help but think how interesting an up-to-date timeline would be. There are fans out there who are keeping track of the timeline but it’s always nice to have something official.
I’ll be interested to see how events from future phases are addressed. Will they republish the book with new events added? Or will they create a brand new book with only Phase 5 events and beyond included? Only time will tell but for now, I know I’ll be using a lot of sticky notes to keep track of things.
Final Thoughts
The Marvel Cinematic Universe: An Official Timeline is not flawless by any means, but it is interesting to read. I think that sometimes they jump the gun in some paragraphs by mentioning things that will happen later in time. It makes it slightly annoying when the information is then repeated in the appropriate spot. Also, I wish that more events had more specific months or dates. Some do, but most are only signified by seasons. Overall, the book is put together well and other than those few nit-picks above, I’m satisfied with it. The book had a lot of work put into it. I was not expecting it to be as thorough as it is so I was happily surprised. If you have any interest in the MCU timeline or if you ever need to win an argument about when something takes place, I’d recommend picking this up.
Check out the trailer (yes, trailer) for The Marvel Cinematic Universe: An Official Timeline below:
