Of all the wild events that’ve happened in the Marvel Cinematic Universe to date – from aliens invading NYC, to the Norse Gods turning out to be real or a technologically advanced African country appearing out of nowhere – the Snap at the end of Avengers: Infinity War has to be the biggest and most impactful, with Thanos doing good on his promise to wipe out half of all life in the universe.
Exploring the psychological consequences of this sounds like incredibly fertile dramatic territory, right? I mean, how will the population at large cope with something as monumental as this? It’s truly the kind of event that would shake society to its core. There must be thousands of potentially amazing stories to be told in this new MCU, which makes it all the more frustrating and disappointing that Marvel Studios seems determined to ignore them.
You’d think, that at the very least, the more down to earth focus of the Netflix series would be a perfect vehicle to explore how cosmic superhero drama affects normal (well, normal-ish) people on the street. Apparently, though, that’s just not going to happen.
Speaking in a Reddit AMA earlier today, producer Jeph Loeb fielded some fan questions, one of which was about the Snap. When someone asked him if it’d have any impact on any of the upcoming seasons of their various shows, here’s what he said:
“For the most part our stories will take place BEFORE Thanos clicked his fingers. A lot of that has to do with production and when we are telling our stories vs. when the movies come out. So hang in there. I remember in the comics, one of my favorite stories was the KREE-SKRULL war… which was universal, but in X-Men, no mention. Huh. And it all worked out in the end!”
Though that does make sense, it doesn’t make it any less frustrating to hear. I mean, we’ve been told so many times that when it comes to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, “it’s all connected.” Yet here we have perhaps the franchise’s most significant event to date and it won’t have any sort of impact at all on the small screen heroes.
And despite what Loeb says, there are certainly ways they could’ve tied things together. True, something like Luke Cage season 2, or Cloak & Dagger were probably already shot and in the can by the time Infinity War rolled around, but there’s still stuff like Daredevil season 3, Iron Fist season 2 and more that could’ve dealt with the fallout of Thanos’ snap and it would’ve been fascinating to see. Frankly, the fact that all these shows are just going to sidestep the finale of Avengers: Infinity War just feels like a huge missed opportunity.
