The Marvel Cinematic Universe keeps having growth spurts. At this point, what started off from 2008’s initial Iron Man film has grown to include:
- two Iron Man sequels;
- three Captain America films;
- two Thor films, with a third hitting in November;
- Ant-Man, with Ant-Man and the Wasp premiering in 2018;
- Doctor Strange;
- Spider-Man: Homecoming;
- Guardians of the Galaxy and GOTG Vol. 2;
- February 2018’s Black Panther;
- two Avengers movies, with Infinity War hitting in May;
- the Agents of SHIELD TV series;
- the now-cancelled Agent Carter;
- the Marvel Netflix series, including Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, and the upcoming Defenders miniseries;
- Freeform’s forthcoming Cloak and Dagger TV show
…with more to come scheduled in 2019 and beyond. That’s why, considering the sheer number of characters milling about the MCU at this point, it’s a fair question to ask whether the teens from Hulu’s upcoming Runaways series–based on the Marvel comic book created by writer Brian K. Vaughan and artist Adrian Alphona–would interact with any heroes from the film side of the Marvel universe.
However, Jeph Loeb, head of Marvel Television, seemed to curb that issue when speaking to the Television Critics Association. Addressing those questions, Loeb stated:
It all exists in the same world. How it’s connected remains to be seen. I think it much more lives in a world of if you’re a teenager, since it’s all connected through social media and connected in it’s own way, would you be following Iron Man or would you be following somebody more your age?
Which is keeping with the trend we’ve seen from the Netflix Marvel series, which make make references to “the green guy” or “the incident in Manhattan,” while never explicitly saying “The Avengers.” And, really, while the Runaways in the comic source material did meet up with characters such as Spider-Man or Cloak and Dagger at times, the main focus was their story as teens on the run after finding out that their parents are supervillains. The crux of the Hulu series will most likely be that central theme, and rightly so.
Runaways premieres on November 21st on Hulu.