While a huge number of fans consider Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. to be part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe canon, the official party line isn’t quite so clear. Kevin Feige said no previous TV shows were viewed as such, with the franchise’s small screen expansion beginning in earnest with WandaVision, while the seven-season favorite was recently moved to the Marvel Legacy Collection on Disney Plus alongside Fox’s X-Men and Fantastic Four movies.
That’s pretty damning evidence that the series isn’t an active part of the mythology, even though earlier seasons operated on the fringes of the big screen blockbusters and roped in more than a handful of MCU alumni for cameo appearances. It’s all pretty confusing, but now that the multiverse is in play, it can all be explained away by offering that Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. takes place in a pocket reality outside the Infinity Saga.
One person who remains adamant that the show is part of the MCU at large is Clark Gregg, who knows a thing or two about the Marvel machine, having been a key supporting player in Phase One before being killed off, resurrected, killed off, resurrected and so on between The Avengers and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.‘s finale.
“I’ve seen places where people felt like S.H.I.E.L.D. or something had been de-canonized by stuff that happened in WandaVision in ways I couldn’t even quite follow, and I’m pretty adept at this stuff. I read this comment the other day where someone said that, did this diminish Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.? And Feige said, ‘You know, I think you’re really underestimating how powerful and passionate the fans of that show and the Netflix shows are and were’. And I would never underestimate that or them.”
The multiverse has also opened the door for Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. characters to return to the mainline MCU in the future, with Gregg’s Agent Coulson and Chloe Bennet’s Quake two candidates that come up more often than any others. We’ll just have to wait and see how it all pans out in the end, but the canonical status of the show seems to vary depending on whom you ask.