User blog:BEJT/Why The Avengers Has to Be in 2012, Civil War (and Thus Homecoming) Has to Be in 2016, and "8 Years Later" Cannot Work

Introduction
Until Spider-Man: Homecoming, the timeline generally worked out, and so it was not urgent to compile all the hundreds of notes on the timeline explaining everything, because things could individually be explained in small bursts when questions were asked. The only major difficulty with the timeline that could not work out with a nice outcome was Phase One, but there was still a reasonable solution: the full, extensive breakdown can be seen in my blog, here.

However, The Avengers was/is very firmly set in 2012, and Captain America: Civil War was/is very firmly set in June 2016. So, when Spider-Man: Homecoming opened with the aftermath of the Battle of New York, then cut to "8 years later", to Vulture telling his business partners that "business is good", followed by Peter's adventures during Captain America: Civil War - supposedly putting a scene before Captain America: Civil War "8 years" after The Avengers, it was upsetting and frustrating for me, and many others. This supposed timespan does not fit on any level, not with a shred of the many, many pieces of evidence so far in the Marvel Cinematic Universe for them only being 4 years apart. It does not even fit with the already-too-long timespan between Iron Man and Captain America: Civil War that Vision gives when he says in the latter, "In the 8 years since Mr. Stark announced himself as Iron Man..."

With this new reference, there has been a lot of people online saying things such as, "Wait, is Spider-Man: Homecoming set in 2020? Or is The Avengers set in 2009?" And with these questions, people have latched onto the one piece of evidence within the film itself for which year it is set in - that when Peter has Karen call up Aaron Davis/Prowler's profile, it says that his date of birth is April 1984, and then Karen says that he is "33 years old". With Spider-Man: Homecoming clearly set in September of whichever year, people have latched onto that one piece of evidence, which would place Spider-Man: Homecoming in September 2017, to hinge the whole MCU timeline around. Many outlets have reported on how the timeline supposedly "works", with a solution along the lines of:
 * Iron Man - 2008
 * Iron Man 2/Thor/The Incredible Hulk - 2009
 * The Avengers - 2010
 * Iron Man 3/Thor: The Dark World - 2012
 * Captain America: The Winter Soldier - 2013
 * Guardians of the Galaxy/Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 - 2014
 * Avengers: Age of Ultron/Ant-Man - 2015
 * Doctor Strange - 2016-17
 * Captain America: Civil War/Spider-Man: Homecoming - 2017

While well-intentioned, this is incredibly ignorant of the TV shows also set in the MCU, and tonnes and tonnes of evidence to the contrary, as well as disregarding years and years of work on the parts of timeline fans. It is understandable that outlets would make these assumptions, as Spider-Man: Homecoming does present this, and the large majority of fans do not have the time to have watched every installment in the MCU while making detailed notes on every part of the timeline. It is the unfortunate fault of the people behind the mishaps. However, hinging the whole timeline around one piece of evidence, contradicting 9 years of opposing evidence, does not make sense. For a start, on-screen small dates like the 1984 date are very, very commonly mistakes in the MCU. For example, the premiere of Agent Carter has a newspaper saying it is late April 1946, then another one saying it is June 1946, and that a character was born on May 23, 1922 and died aged 24, but then in Episode 5, The Iron Ceiling, it is said that "April 27th" is "less than two days from now" and then the finale, Valediction, is said to be "May 8th", the first anniversary of V-E Day. This clearly puts the premiere in mid-April 1946, overruling the props. Another example is that a newspaper in Iron Man 3 puts it in December 2013, when the film clearly, repeatedly says it is "13 years" since December 1999, and thus December 2012 - which is corroborated by the fact that is roughly 6 months after The Avengers and is a while before Pilot, set in September 2013. These are a few of many, many examples of this sort of mistake - it should not overrule the evidence putting Captain America: Civil War in late June 2016.

So here I am, defending the timeline, and explaining - as best as I can without a full timeline explanation that could take months to write - why The Avengers is definitively in 2012, why Captain America: Civil War is definitively in 2016 (and therefore also Spider-Man: Homecoming), and why the "8 years later" cannot work at all - why it just has to be ignored when the evidence so overwhelmingly overrules the "8 years later" and the "33 years old"/born in April '84, to keep the timeline as it was.

As such, without the time to explain the 9 years of timeline evidence which the MCU has accumulated yet, this blog is very difficult to write. The Avengers and Captain America: Civil War were two of the most securely placed films, and The Avengers was, and is, a very pivotal point in the MCU timeline, which a lot of other placements revolve around. Because of this, in explaining its placement, to do so fully would involve a lot of saying, "Well, in Film A, which is set on Date X, it is said that this happened Z years before Event K. And Film A is definitely set in Date Y, because Film B says this, and Film C says this, and then in TV Show D (which is set at Date K because of evidence from this and this and this and others), this is said, referring to Film E, which says this is this long since Film A" and so on, endlessly... It would be a mess. This is why it would be much better to be able to simply present every single piece of MCU timeline evidence and reasoning, for the whole timeline - but there is literally hundreds of things that would need to be written - think about it, 16 films, 170+ episodes of TV, many comics, web series, tie-in material, etc., about 7 full days of duration in content, brimming with timeline evidence. I will do it, I will compile all my notes into one document, but it will take months. In the meantime, many people want an explanation now. What I am saying is, I've tried my best to make this as cohesive and not-sprawling as possible, but bear with me, because this is only a temporary and messy way of explaining, and is very tedious to have to explain. Please see my Phase One blog to see the amount of effort, time, research, and writing I put into the MCU timeline. This is the amount of effort, time, and research I, and other fans, have put into every installment of the MCU.

I would also firstly like to address two other pieces of slightly problematic evidence in Spider-Man: Homecoming. Firstly, that Toomes says, "8 years. Not a word from the feds, nothing from those Hallowe'en costume-wearing bozos up there over at Stark Tower. And then all of a sudden, this little bastard in red tights shows up, and he thinks he can tear down everything I've built. Really? I'm gonna kill him." This is almost certainly supposed to be in line with the "8 years later" card, unless that card came from a mistaken interpretation of this dialogue from the film. However, it can be passed over, just about. If Toomes' words were to be taken to mean, "Our company has been in business for 8 years, 8 years in which superheroes have arisen, Tony Stark/Iron Man up in Stark Tower and all the Avengers since, but not once in those 8 years has any of them interfered with our business, until now, with this little bastard in red tights." Granted, they had the difficulty in 2012, but that was not Tony Stark interfering directly, especially not as Iron Man, just the Department of Damage Control. This would fit, with the age of superheroes beginning in early 2009 with the beginning of Iron Man (see this blog for the reason this is so firmly placed as such), just after their business began, and growing over those years. The other evidence which can be explained is that Ned Leeds looks at a computer with the "2017" edition of the software. With it being September 23, 2016 when he uses it, it is perfectly plausible that the software company would have released their "2017" software by autumn/fall 2016, in time for the new year, which is a common occurrence with software developers.

Now here is, minus the full explanations, a breakdown of many of the individual reasons that "8 years later" cannot work. They are ordered from least important evidence to most, but can be clicked on the header to reorder from most to least:

Why Captain America: Civil War (and Spider-Man: Homecoming) Has to be 2016
It should be noted that Captain America: Civil War begins in May of the year it is said (which should definitely be 2016) with the Lagos scenes. It then goes to the following month, as when Steve and Wanda watch the news before General Ross arrives, the news refers to the Lagos incident as "last month". Ross then says the signing of the Accords is in Vienna "in 3 days", putting the Bombing of the Vienna International Centre 3 days later. In the Spider-Man: Homecoming Prelude comic, it shows the bombing is "one month later" after Lagos, which lines up. The next day Steve, Bucky, and Sam are caught and taken to Berlin, where Bucky escapes. Tony is given 36 hours and picks up Peter. 24 hours after he was given the deadline, the airport battle occurs, and 48 hours later, Peter is dropped home, having been away for "the weekend" (from Friday afternoon to the early hours of Monday). Spider-Man: Homecoming then cuts to "Two months later", to the beginning of the rest of the film, the day before Liz's party, which is the "Friday" before the decathlon on "September 14th" (and 2 weeks before the homecoming dance on September 23rd). These are all 2016 - Lagos is May 3, 2016, as given by WHiH World News, lining up with the films' evidence perfectly. Ross visiting is Monday, June 20, 2016 (which works as Lagos being "last month"), the Bombing of the Vienna International Centre is then Thursday, June 23, 2016, which just about fits as "one month" after Lagos (1½ months, but 1 month by the general math of "May + 1 month = June"). Peter is picked up on Friday, June 24, 2016, and returned on Monday, June 27, 2016 (only a few days before the end of term), before cutting to 2 months later (2.387 months) to Thursday, September 8, 2016. Even ignoring the fact that this lines up with WHiH World News, it is still undeniable that whatever year it is, Lagos is May, the main events are late June, and Spider-Man: Homecoming picks up in early September. Captain America: Civil War cannot be in July, as Peter is still in school - he gets home from school and talks about how he has homework to do, which is why he says he feels he cannot go to Germany. It has to be late June to still be school time and a rounded 2 months before early September, at the beginning of the new school year.

In Summary
I apologise for the very messy writing style in this blog, it is very hard to write without all the timeline notes explained, which would take far too long. I hope, though, that this blog has still proven the need for the "8 years later" to be ignored for the timeline to still make any sense. The timeline might have had many smaller contradictions, especially in Phase One, before now, but now it is completely broken. That is very sad to see happen, in a franchise where the timeline matters a great deal, due to the amount of content that needs chronological placement. It is upsetting for myself and other fans who have put years of effort into constructing the timeline, spending hours and hours on every single piece of content - 16 films and counting, 170+ episodes and counting, web series, comics, tie-in material, crew statements, etc. - and putting so much passion and thought into it, only to have it thrown out of the window and broken. As well as this, it is sad to see articles and videos reporting incorrectly on the "New MCU timeline" with ill-informed sources and research, and gaining much wider influence than the people who have put in the years and years of research into the whole MCU. If only at least one article had pointed out these many issues, and it had gone more viral, because it is so gutting to watch these articles gain traction.

If a reader remains unconvinced or confused, I would advise them to not only ask questions in the comments - because I understand that this is not clearly written - that I can answer and add to the blog, but also to do their own research. I am happy to be a source myself, knowing the evidence all so well in my head, and hoping to type it all up in the style of this blog, but I would advise looking further than just the basic articles with minimal research, but reading into full, lengthy forums and discussions, or rewatching things and making thorough notes yourself, as well as trusting the fans with the years of research.

I desperately hope that the MCU does not proceed to try to back up this mistake in future films. Not only would it further break the timeline, but if it got to the point that it had to be used rather than ignored, it would distort the entire MCU timeline to the point of being a huge mess. Better one mistake ignored than a whole timeline riddled with mistakes and contradictions. While I really enjoyed Spider-Man: Homecoming and do not let the mistakes affect my personal review of the film, the "8 years later" hindered my experience of it, worrying about it throughout and predicting the many incorrect articles, worrying about those throughout as well. And then, inevitably,d the many, many articles and videos incorrectly trying to "fix" the timeline have frustrated and upset me since. I pray that the films do not continue to give me, and others, this experience, and pay more attention to their full timeline.