Agatha All Along is kicking off a new era for Marvel’s TV shows with witchy vengeance, but it’s waking people up to a curse that appears to have been placed on another MCU series, one that’s been quietly running longer than any other. The funny thing is it looks like the show in question was cancelled months ago, but we’re only just realizing now.
What did every Marvel movie and TV release from 2021 to 2023 have in common? It came accompanied by new tie-in episodes of Marvel Studios Legends. This short-form clip-based series provided a handy high-speed guide to a certain character, team, or concept before they returned in whatever film or show was just about to come out. The opening episodes, dedicated to Wanda and Vision, dropped in the days before WandaVision, so technically Legends is the very first MCU Disney Plus series.
Did an MCU Disney Plus get cancelled in 2023 and we only just realized?
With Agatha spelling its way onto streaming, however, fans noticed that there was no Agatha Harkness Legends episode released to tie into its premiere. We knew that there were no Legends tie-ins for both Echo and Deadpool & Wolverine either, but those could’ve been special cases — Deadpool 3 was heavily drawing from the Fox movies, not Marvel Studios productions, and Echo‘s first episode was essentially a recap clip show in and of itself. However, three projects in a row going by without any more Legends heavily suggests Marvel has quietly cancelled the show.
The news is drawing a mixed reception from Marvelites on Reddit. Some completists are up in arms that Marvel kept it going for so long only to shrug and give up now. “Yeah I just find it annoying,” one Redditor griped. “These recaps were a great way for me personally to get hyped. And my perfectionist if self just can’t handle that they randomly quit with it.”
Other, though, couldn’t care less and didn’t see the purpose of Legends in the first place. “How many people actually watched these?” asked one contrarian commenter. “It’s like watching someone read an encyclopedia — if you want to know who a character is, you can just go online.”
Sadly, it seems many share this riled-up Redditor’s views. In 2023, Legends shifted from a Disney Plus exclusive to a YouTube hybrid release, which allows us a taste of how many people actually watched each episode. The most popular is, perhaps unsurprisingly, the Scarlet Witch’s recap, which hexed up 1.5 million views. Many other episodes were nowhere near as successful, however — Drax’s recap, for example, only brought in 42,000 views.
With 34 movies and 11 shows out there, and more following all the time, it’s hard for even devoted fans to remember all the things they need to know before going into a new MCU project, so Legends definitely provided a much-needed service. It looks like we’ll have to go back to watching all the relevant films and series in full before catching the new thing — which, thinking about it, is probably exactly what Disney wants.
