Thread:Marvelus/@comment-27496405-20190519011243/@comment-26838855-20190729183043

Ant-Man and the Wasp Timings (Lebnyx)
Lebnyx wrote: In case Ant-Man and the Wasp is placed in late April-early May 2018 and concurrently with any Netflix seasons, I want to mention (if it wasn't already) that this deleted scene shows that the first lab-shrinking scene in the movie happens at 6:33 a.m. (so 9:33 Eastern Time), which might help to place it alongside the Netflix MCU events taking place on that same date. Thank you. I have put Ant-Man and the Wasp there now on the 2018 page, so when The Punisher: Season 2 events get written up as well, that will be helpful.

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (Edward Zachary Sunrose, Marvelus, RPGRPG, ProBot1227)
Edward Zachary Sunrose wrote: Not really timeline related, but the Agents of SHIELD fanbase is getting extremely frustrated.

It all started when Forbes Mexico credited Salma Hayek as the first Mexican woman to play a superhero in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Natalia Cordova-Buckley replied and clarified that she was the first Mexican actress to play a supehero in the MCU, and people added that Yo-Yo herself was the first Latina superhero on a TV series (I'd have to double check that, but it wouldn't surprise me with how racist Hollywood is). Forbes Mexico subsequently replied a retraction and gave Natalia her proper credit.

Then Maurissa Tancharoen posted an instagram photo of May, Yo-Yo, Daisy and Mack with the caption "first", referring to the fact that Agents of SHIELD had the first Asian leads, the first female leads, the first black lead and the first Latina hero. Henry Simmons (Mack) replied with emojis in solidarity.

And now, there's a viral Tweet going around talking about how Phase 4 is going to introduce the first LGBT hero, the first Latina superhero and the first Asian superhero, and the SHIELD subreddit is just replying with an image of the Secret Warriors (sans Lincoln).

This is something I've been noticing for years. People love to point out that the MCU has issues with villains and diversity, when it's really only Marvel STUDIOS. Marvel TELEVISION has been diversifying the MCU for six years now, and making excellent villains for just as long.

It's just a symptom of a greater problem; Marvel Studios constantly ignoring Marvel Television and refusing to stand by them as products of the MCU. I've seen this sort of thing a lot. It's never bothered me too much, because I just accepted a long time ago that most articles when they say MCU mean just the films and I should just let it go and not consider it a mistake. Obviously it happened recently with Joe Russo's gay character in Endgame. I still appreciate it though when articles take the time to add a comment about referring to just the films. I did unfortunately encounter discussion with the Joe Russo stuff of, "The MCU ' s first openly gay character," "Well, technically they've done LGBT characters on the TV shows," "Yeah OK, we're talking about something people actually watch." *Sigh, again.*

I'm glad Natalia stood up for herself though. She has every right to, they were technically wrong, and I'm glad they owned up to it. This sort of thing definitely is another symptom of the ignoring.

Marvelus wrote: I hope this does not make things harder between Marvel Studios and Television but I agree, Feige seems to believe only what he does is gold, when that is not truth. It won't make things worse. And I don't think Feige's egotistical like that, I'm sure he accepts not everything he makes is gold and that Marvel Television has some good stuff. I think part of it is a feeling of wanting compelte control - if you're in a position like his, you kind of have to be a bit of a control freak. I think the rest is the 2015 Marvel split with Ike Perlmutter and him and Loeb seemingly not getting along too well.

RPGRPG wrote: I don't know Agents of SHIELD is very boring and bland in my opinion, Jessica Jones is MUCH better for me, since Gotham is my favorite TV Show, something like that but for Marvel is even better. I can see that argument for Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: Season 1, but not Seasons 2-6 at all.

Marvelus wrote: The fact that AoS seems boring and bland to you does not change the recognition it deserves as a part of the MCU and what it means in general, and we are not talking about the shows you like. ProBot1227 wrote: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is not at all bland. It explores every corner of the Marvel universe. Science, magic, dimensions, alternative universes, crime and even the racism of superpowered people. Agreed.

Edward Zachary Sunrose wrote: Gotham was so... BAD, though. I'm glad we don't have anything like that. I watched the first season and a few episodes of Season 2 and then I gave up (I watched the finale as well out of curiosity). I very rarely give up on shows even if they get bad, and it was improving, but there were so many shows to watch and it had never connected with me, I wasn't liking it. I had to just give it up. I won't judge the show as a whole based on the small early fraction I've watched - I wouldn't want someone doing that to Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. since the early stuff is easily the weakest part before it gets much better, so I won't do that here either, since I've heard Gotham gets better. What I saw didn't work for me, but hey...

ProBot1227 wrote: Gothams not bad either, but to each their own. Exactly.

SDCC "Time Travel in the Quantum Realm" Panel (additional)
There was an SDCC panel called Time Travel in the Quantum Realm that I'd been hoping would get uploaded, and it eventually did. It's Christopher Markus, science adviser Clifford V. Johnson, and some other scientists. Here's some notes:
 * 7:15 - Markus talks about not following Back to the Future rules.
 * 8:00 - Markus says, "We, as the Ancient One said, made it that you only create these branch realities when you remove an Infinity Stone from that time.
 * 8:35 - Markus talks about not wanting a multiverse left around.
 * 15:14 - Markus jokes about Captain America being a thorn in the rules' side. Clifford V. Johnson says he thinks there's a way it works.
 * 16:50 - Markus lays out the rules, again saying it's only Infinity Stones that cause splits and specifically not decisions, and says that he wants to believe there are two Captain Americas coexisting, in a time loop.
 * 23:30 - They talk a little bit about the Deutsch proposition Tony mentions in the film being to do with the "many worlds" theory.
 * 30:17 - Clifford V. Johnson talks about the idea that you can go back and fix things back to normal without a multiverse being left behind.
 * 31:39 - Markus talks about the disagreement with the Russos, and how he and McFeely feel it's a time loop. He also says that he has no problem with Steve not interfering because that's not what they wrote it to be, it was supposed to be about him resting.
 * 33:38 - Kim Griest seems to agree with McFeely but then also seems to have maybe misunderstood him, describing, from earlier in the panel, I believe the idea of a Cap showing up in another universe and there being two Caps there.
 * 35:29 - Clifford V. Johnson says that it would work for Steve to go back in a time loop, and that's the way the Cap thing can work. He then says what I've been saying (very proud of myself😂), that the timeline would essentially protect itself from Steve potentially altering it if he is in a time loop, and would always in some way prevent him interfering because he never interefered.
 * 46:50 - Clifford V. Johnson says that a time loop idea works for him, and Kim Griest then says something implying that maybe he did in fact, at 33:38, mean he was agreeing with a time loop. I don't quite understand Griest.

Why Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: Season 6 Cannot Be in an Alternate Timeline (additional)
Thought I'd write this up so I could a) make sure I had in fact checked all the options to be sure I know what I'm talking about, and b) have something to present as an explanation whenever this comes up.

The argument that Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: Season 6 is in an alternate timeline and that's why the Snap has not been addressed does not work. It might still be in an alternate timeline, but that would only be possible through either a retcon (please no) or new information. Currently, there is no way for it to work. Here's why.


 * The argument does not in any way imply that Seasons 1-4 are not in the main MCU alongside the films. This includes all the film tie-ins through to Doctor Strange in Season 4.
 * December 4, 2017 - Season 5 tie-in to Thor: Ragnarok. No timeline splitting has occurred yet so they're still in the MCU timeline.
 * Wednesday, May 16/30, 2018 13:25 - Attack on Greenwich Village.
 * Wednesday, May 16/30, 2018 19:40 - Tony Caine mentions the attack on Greenwich village. No timeline splitting has occurred yet so they're still in the MCU timeline.
 * Wednesday, May 16/30, 2018 21:35 - Taryan explains to Talbot that Thanos has begun his attack on Earth.
 * Wednesday, May 16/30, 2018 21:45 - Talbot passes on the information about Thanos.
 * Wednesday, May 16/30, 2018 22:30 - Mack watches the news about the attack on Greenwich village.
 * Thursday, May 17/31, 2018 06:56 - George Talbot watches the news about the attack on Greenwich village.
 * Thursday, May 17/31, 2018 07:46 - The timeline splits when...


 * ... Coulson doesn't put the Centipede Serum in Daisy's gauntlet.
 * Earth is destroyed.


 * ... Coulson puts the Centipede Serum in Daisy's gauntlet.
 * Earth is saved.

This being the only timeline-meddling going on at the time, just the one split, and Avengers: Infinity War (and all the films) being in the stem with Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: Season 5, then Avengers: Infinity War ' s events, partway through the film, must have followed into one of these two timelines. One of the timelines has Earth destroyed, the other has it saved. Clearly, Avengers: Infinity War ' s events flow into the right-hand, new timeline, as Earth is still around for the end of Avengers: Infinity War, then into the Captain Marvel mid-credits scene and Avengers: Endgame. So, the end of Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: Season 5, and all of Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: Season 6 so far, are still in the same timeline as the films.

Quickly, mentioning the Doctor Strange 14,000,605 futures:
 * Currently, Doctor Strange looking at 14,000,605 futures has been calculated to be at about 10:10 on the Thursday, so after the split in the timeline. Therefore the timeline where Earth is destroyed would not fall under a possible future for Strange as he looks at them at 10:10AM in the right-hand, new timeline. So you don't have the problem of whether Thanos snapped or not.
 * If Doctor Strange's vision of potential futures were to actually occur before 07:46AM, the timeline where Earth is destroyed would fall under Strange's purview as a potential future, so it's possible that Thanos also snapped in that timeline. However, even if he didn't, Strange could consider that a timeline where they still didn't "win", just for a different reason, considering Earth was destroyed. Or it just wasn't one of the 14,000,605 timelines, because he didn't see infinite timelines. But this isn't a problem anyway, because naturally calculating the timelines, it should be about 10:10AM.

The next argument could be made that the timeline in fact split on December 4, 2017, when they returned from the future, so had split away earlier and Avengers: Infinity War is in fact in a different timeline altogether, with just similar events happening that for whatever reason didn't culminate in the Snap in this universe. It would be 5 months before Strange looks at the different futures so wouldn't fall under a potential future for him, making it not a problem that it's a universe where Thanos wins. But no:
 * This is negligibly different from the timeline splitting at 07:46 and Doctor Strange being at 10:10. It's the same effect, where the timeline splits early, before the Strange moment.
 * This would simply mean that the agents split into a timeline where Earth is saved on December 4, 2017. They would still be leaving behind the timeline where Earth is destroyed, which would be the timeline of the films, and it can't be. We know the timeline plays out identically until May 2018 and we know from The Last Day that the destruction of Earth was 2018, Earth would be destroyed during the events of Avengers: Infinity War.
 * The films would have to play out very similarly in this timeline as in the actual film timeline. And that's fine, there's no particular reason the agents' actions would have a knock-on effect on the films. But then, that accepted, there's the problem of the fact that despite this, for some reason there would have to be no Snap in this version of events despite the agents' actions having no particular reason to have an affect.
 * The agents were trapped in a time loop before. This means that when they travel back to December 2017, this does not itself create a new timeline, because the other one time/infinite times (depending on how you look at it) they went back in time to December 2017, they were in a predestination paradox. Clearly the White Monolith merely shifts you in time, not splitting time in any way. And this makes sense, it is the Time Monolith, time is the element it deals with, not parallel universes. No, the White Monolith shifts them back to 2017 and it's as simple as that. It'd their decisions after that, in May 2018, that manage to break them free. As Simmons admits in The Other Thing, "We don't actually know how we did it," it wasn't a science reason that did it. The only way that the White Monolith could have sent them to a new timeline would be if something was different in the future this time - that the machine was built slightly differently for some reason, and that that somehow managed to change it from a time machine to a time and multiverse machine. And if that were the case, then that proves anyway that decisions changed time, creating some sort of split in 2091 as well as 2017/18 to allow them to go to a different universe. There is no implication of that happening, while there is very much implication, through the things mentioned above and things like Robin only seeing the future (not the multiverse) and still seeing it the same way right up to the Thursday in May 2018 when she feels the timeline diverge through Coulson's actions. And since you'd be accepting that actions make a split anyway, and since their decisions in 2018 splitting the timeline is the much stronger implication, and there is no advantage to trying to claim the split was December 2017 rather than May 2018, no. It was their decisions in 2018.

A final argument, one I haven't seen (people haven't really thought this through enough) but the only last one I could possibly think of from someone trying to make this an alternate timeline, is a combination of the above: The agents split the timeline when they travel back to December 2017, and that timeline is the one where Earth is destroyed, while they leave behind the film timeline (from the film timeline's perspective, the agents would have disappeared in May 2017 and never returned, while Fitz went to sleep in November and woke up to find nothing in 2091). They then, in the time loop, fail, leading to the bad 2091. Then one time, in May 2018 of this new timeline, their decisions managed to split the branch timeline they're in further, with one nice timeline coming off of this branch, where the end of Season 5 and all of Season 6 so far take place. But no:
 * Enoch sends the agents to the future because Robin has seen that they are needed in the future. She just sees the future of the timeline they're currently in. At that point, in May 2017, there would be no reason Robin would see the branch off of the main timeline and not the main timeline. While from a fourth-dimensional perspective, there is no point when the branch timelines get "created", the narrative is working from the perspective of timelines only shifting at a certain point and at that point, "the timeline" (the natural flow) would flow into the main future, not the other one which, from a narrative perspective, "has not been created yet" (in fact is always there because it gets created in the future, but from the characters' perspective moving along the timeline it isn't yet a possibility).
 * The agents are sent to the future. There is no reason they would be sent directly to an alternate timeline's future. Even if you were to take it that the White Monolith's time travel can create splits in the timeline (which it can't), it would be another assumption on top of that for it to also be able to just send you directly to an alternate future, not even sending you to the future and that causing an alternate future branch.
 * As explained above, the White Monolith should not be able to split the timeline anyway.
 * Fitz goes to sleep for 74 years. Yes, if he fell asleep in November 2017 then when this supposed split would happen in December 2017, he would still arrive in the bad 2091 (while also, in the supposed film timeline, arriving in 2091 and not finding his friends). But the strong implication of this, with Fitz sleeping through, and the rest of the season's events is that this is just the future. Fitz is just living (albeit frozen) through into the future, which is this.
 * Enoch would not have to do anything about the extinction level event, because there would be no destined extinction level event. In trying to prevent it, he would be the one who creates it in the first place, it would've been fine if he just didn't do anything. And yes, you can claim a loop-like thing here where Enoch has to stop the problem he caused because he tried to stop it because he caused it because he tried to stop it etc.. But he acts because of Robin's warnings, and Robin would not have had to warn of anything, plus it undercuts the point of the season.
 * The agents don't know if it's possible to change time, and when they changed time they didn't know how, they somewhat got lucky. But now you'd be saying there are two ways they can change time in the season, including a scientific way, yet Fitz cannot see it despite his scientific knowledge.

The only way this works is either you severely fudge several of the points above, or it is revealed that there was some sort of further time travel causing a split that happened before the Snap, ideally after they changed time because otherwise it gets very messy with the films potentially still being in a destroyed Earth timeline, so just in those few hours on the Thursday.