Black Panther: Wakanda Forever has finally arrived on Disney Plus and, with it, a new amendment to the official Disney Plus Marvel Cinematic Universe timeline.
Marvel’s most ambitious franchise had always stood out among its competitors for producer Kevin Feige’s ability to connect multiple films across sometimes widely different release dates in one concise timeline. Loopholes and inconsistencies showed up in small numbers here and there, but nothing as upsetting as the extremely confusing order of the X-Men films or DC’s multiple Batmans and Jokers.
Ever since the completion of the first big chapter in the MCU, known as the Infinity Saga, however, the relation between events has gotten increasingly murkier, to the point where not even Disney Plus’ official timeline actually matches up with the information we are given during each film and television show.
Marvel found a way to gloss over these discrepancies by decreasing the connections both between each project and between them and a larger overarching storyline, the way the Infinity Stones connected almost everything during Phase One, Two, and Three.
Although Kang will be the equivalent of Thanos in this new Multiverse Saga, the build up to his takeover hasn’t been nearly as consistent. Yes, he has had bigger roles in Loki and Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania than Thanos ever did, but the Mad Titan’s looming threat was sprinkled across almost every single movie in Marvel’s earlier phases, through the inclusion of either mentions of him, Infinity Stones, or short scenes teasing his imminent arrival.
All of this to say that Marvel’s Phase Four has managed to fumble the bag regarding both the franchise’s previous impressive connectivity and its mostly solid continuity. Now films are dispersed, unconnected, and the timeline post-Endgame is messier than ever.
Not to worry, though, we have tried to put the pieces together and organize the different shows and films to the best of our abilities.
What changes from Disney Plus’ official MCU timeline?
Essentially, we’ve only changed the way Disney Plus organized films and shows after the events of Endgame. Everything happening prior to the big climax of the Infinity Saga has basically been discussed to the point of exhaustion, and a consensus has mostly been reached among all.
Although most of the movies and television shows released after Endgame have blurry timestamps, with only brief allusions made to the time and place where situations unfold, there is almost always at least one giveaway that sheds some light on their placement in relation to both the Blip and the rest of the films released since.
Disney Plus’s run of Loki, followed by What If…?, WandaVision, and Falcon and the Winter Soldier, in that order, is pretty much uncontroversial. It’s what comes next that gets confusing.
Disney Plus’ official timeline post-Falcon and the Winter Soldier is as follows:
- Spider-Man: Far From Home
- Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
- Eternals
- Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
- Hawkeye
- Moon Knight
- Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
- She-Hulk
- Ms. Marvel
- Thor: Love and Thunder
- Werewolf by Night
- The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special
Obviously, it’s missing Spider-Man: No Way Home, which is not currently available to stream on the platform. That should be placed right after Far From Home. The movie, which finally gave us the much-anticipated Spider-Men crossover, takes place during the start of the school year in 2024 and after Halloween, since M.J.’s boss tells her to take the Halloween decorations down earlier on in the film.
In Eternals, the scene where Ikaris and Sersi visit Phastos and his family features what looks like a Halloween pumpkin in the background, and a lot of golden leaves on the ground, which basically tells us this film happens at the same time as No Way Home.
Since it’s set during Christmas, Hawkeye should fit directly after that. Thor: Love and Thunder, Moon Knight, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness all happen around the same time in early 2025.
The Black Panther sequel is set a little over six years since the Blip. T’Challa has been dead for a year, and he needed some time to become sick, since we see Shuri trying to save him. That places the film firmly around the beginning of 2025.
Love and Thunder has to have a much bigger gap from the Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special than what Disney is going with, given Groot’s size in each outing. It could be argued that Groot grows faster than other beings, but since he showed barely no growth between Infinity War and Love and Thunder — regardless of being turned to dust — it would be strange if he suddenly turned into a buff young adult from Thor 4 to the Guardians Television Special.
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness definitely happens after Christmas since No Way Home runs until November or even December judging by the Christmas tree featured at the end. Additionally, the way Strange mentions the events of that film makes it sound like some time has passed since he helped Peter with his fame-related issues, and there are no Christmas decorations on the street anymore. When Wanda hides her barren plantation with an illusion to trick Strange, she makes it look like it’s spring, with flowers blooming in the trees. Our best bet is that the film takes place in early 2025.
In Moon Knight, Steven Grant is gearing up for a museum exhibition happening between April and July as can be seen in the banners at the entrance, which means the show happens around April. Some people have argued it could also take place in 2024, around the same time as Falcon and the Winter Soldier. At one point in the second episode we see a giant bus with an advertisement for the Global Repatriation Council, which is a major plot point in the previously mentioned series.
Like Moon Knight, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings also happens around April, since Wenwu mentions the Dark Gate opens “once a year, on Qīngmíng jié,” which happens in the early days of that month. Also like Moon Knight, a case could be made for April 2024, but considering Disney Plus would probably not mess the order up by a full year, we’re assuming both happen in 2025.
She-Hulk: Attorney At Law takes place during summer 2025, and mentions the Abomination’s fight which took place months earlier in Shang-Chi, while Ms. Marvel is definitely set in the fall, with Kamala just starting her junior year of high school. Werewolf by Night doesn’t have any time clues we can grab onto, but we’ll place it during Halloween since it was released as a television special around that time. Same goes for The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special which is definitely set in Christmas 2025, a year after Hawkeye, and over two years after Endgame.
TL;DR? Here’s the correct MCU Timeline
- Captain America: The First Avenger
- Captain Marvel
- Iron Man
- Iron Man 2
- The Incredible Hulk
- Thor
- The Avengers
- Thor: The Dark World
- Iron Man 3
- Captain America: The Winter Soldier
- Guardians of the Galaxy
- Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
- Avengers: Age of Ultron
- Ant-Man
- Captain America: Civil War
- Black Widow
- Black Panther
- Spider-Man: Homecoming
- Doctor Strange
- Thor: Ragnarok
- Ant-Man and the Wasp
- Avengers: Infinity War
- Avengers: Endgame
- Loki
- What If…?
- WandaVision
- The Falcon and the Winter Soldier
- Spider-Man: Far From Home
- Spider-Man: No Way Home
- Eternals
- Hawkeye
- Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
- Thor: Love and Thunder
- Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
- Moon Knight
- Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
- She-Hulk
- Ms. Marvel
- Werewolf by Night
- The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special