Agents of SHIELD Proves That It Is A Part of MCU’s Multiverse & Not The Same Timeline
Agents of SHIELD Is A Part of MCU’s Multiverse:
Agents of SHIELD just continues to surprise us on a regular basis. But it also keeps us a bit confused, especially when we talk about its connections with the MCU. It showed major connections with the MCU movies in Season 1 & season 2. But after that, the connections sort of dropped off. And now in Season 7, we got quite a lot of link ups with the MCU once again, with the show talking about several events of the MCU, and even giving us a history upon the creation of the Super Soldier serum. But still, that doesn’t prove that Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. takes place in the same Universe as the MCU.
In the recent times, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has been strictly following a time travel plot. There have been instances where it seemed that the show was just explaining MCU’s rules of time travel even further, and then there were other instances where it seemed like Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. was following different rules of time travel. Well now, things have sort of been made clear by episode 6, “Adapt or Die.”
In the previous episode, the Chronicoms enabled Hydra to launch Project Insight upon Earth about 40 years earlier. They actually changed the timeline. And that’s where the rules of time travel firmly deviated from the ones that were established in Endgame. But as we saw at the end of the previous episode, S.H.I.E.L.D. agents prevented project insight from being fully completed. Even though the timeline was changed already, a devastating future was prevented.
Now, episode 6 confirms that Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is tentatively following the same rules of time travel as the Chronicom predictor states that by ruining project insight, the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents only killed one branch timeline, while there is a possibility of others to still be created. But even after this, we still don’t have a proper explanation as to why the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. are chasing the Chronicoms if all they wish to do is create a branch timeline where they could survive? Perhaps, there must be some consequence to creating branches in time, which we will find out in the Loki series.
In Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Back in Season 5, the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents managed to change their destructive future where Quake destroyed Earth. And as a result of their actions, a new timeline was formed, and Agent Deke Shaw turned out to be a remnant of the old timeline. Now as we’ve seen, an entire season happened after Season 5. And there were no real consequences of changing the timeline. So, we’d again like to argue that if the rules of time travel are supposed to be similar Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Avengers: Endgame, then the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents shouldn’t stop the Chronicoms from doing what they want to. This might be sort of an inconsistent plot hole, but we’ll wait and see if Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. does actually give us some sort of an answer for it.
What we certainly have a confirmation of is that the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. are indeed a part of the MCU’s Multiverse. In their timeline, everything was the same until Phil Coulson is killed by Loki. But beyond that, their timeline deviates from the original one where Coulson survives, and all the events of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. take place. In season 5, even this timeline is left behind as the Agents broke the timeline and created a new one that we followed in season 6. And now, in season 7, they seem to be creating even more branches. But let’s see how that turns out.
This multiverse model allows the MCU to move forward without addressing the fact that Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is canon to the MCU, and it also allows Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. to pretend that the events of the MCU also happen in their own timeline. Now that Marvel is moving into the direction of the multiverse, this explanation to keep Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. somehow canon truly satisfies people like me who always wanted the show to connect with the films.
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