The Avengers movies were always supposed to be where the big universe changing events in the MCU happened, and Infinity War certainly follows that tradition.
It seems the film is destined to become known for the ‘Snappening,’ or the moment when Thanos completed the Infinity Gauntlet and, as promised, snapped his fingers and wiped out half of all life in the universe. In immensely sad sequences, we got to watch many of our favorite heroes – most of the Guardians of the Galaxy, Doctor Strange, Black Panther and Spider-Man to name just a few – collapse into billowing piles of ash. And, as the post-credits scene proved, this effect was felt throughout the world, complete with cars crashing and helicopters falling from the air.
Up until now, the Marvel Netflix shows have always held the events of the movies at arm’s length. Sure, they exist in the same universe, but the most we’ve gotten is characters mentioning the Battle of New York from The Avengers, or the Sokovian incident. But surely there’s no way that they can ignore Infinity War, with the law of averages demanding that at least some of the Marvel TV characters get dusted, right?
Even if none of them disappeared, you’d have to assume that the Snappening would be the only topic of conversation on people’s lips for years. It’s an insanely huge event that’d touch everyone in the world, and presumably the sudden loss of so many individuals would have immediate consequences for life on Earth in general.
On the other hand, Marvel (and Kevin Feige in particular) have been weirdly strict about ensuring that the TV shows and films will never properly crossover. This even seems to extend to the Avengers Tower not appearing in the Netflix New York skyline – which seems like a bizarre admission.
Anyways, given that Disney are about to launch their own streaming service to compete with Netflix, perhaps they’ll just wrap up all the dangling plotlines in Jessica Jones, Iron Fist, Luke Cage, Daredevil and The Punisher before we get to the ‘Snap’ in the Netflix timeline. We’ll have to wait and see how it all ties together, but at this stage, we can’t see them completely ignoring the events of Avengers: Infinity War. If they do, well, then I think people will just stop taking these shows seriously.
