She-Hulk Writer Reveals Marvel Employs One Person to Keep the MCU Timeline Straight

There are times when a franchise can get a little out of control and need someone to keep things in order – to the best of their abilities. It seems that Marvel Studios are no exception, and with a host of directors, writers and now universes to contend with, it is not surprising that the company employ someone solely to keep track of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s ever-expanding timeline. According to She-Hulk: Attorney at Law writer Jessica Gao, this person was their go-to reference to check that everything stacked up in the larger Marvel narrative.

With every new series and movie released by Marvel Studios, there are fans who are quick to jump on the smallest retcon or discrepancy in the timeline of the MCU. Some of these have recently been focused on She-Hulk’s debut thanks to its inclusion of Bruce Banner in human form and with a healed arm. Of course, as you would expect, while some of the details have retconned Avengers: Endgame in a way, Gao explained that everything still fits into the MCU timeline correctly thanks to their MCU guru. She told The Direct:

“It’s definitely after– post-Endgame. There actually is a Marvel person whose job it is to trace the timeline of everything. And we checked with him a lot about where the timing is. And so it’s like… the show is a few years after Endgame.”

Related: How She-Hulk: Attorney at Law May Have Setup World War Hulk

The Marvel Timeline Is Becoming Harder to Pin Down

As the Multiverse Saga develops, so does the universe, or universes, it is happening in. Where Phases 1-3 were somewhat linear in their storytelling, with the odd exception of the likes of Captain Marvel, which delivered a mostly “prequel” story that then leaned into the current timeline, Phase 4 has been hard to exactly pin down due to many new characters being introduced independent of the overarching storyline, and many of the movies and TV shows all taking place in the same rough time period.

Avengers: Endgame featured a five-year time jump from its opening scenes to the rest of the movie. Now the MCU timeline is mostly happening around 2024 or after, and that works in the sense that Phase 4 was all about dealing with how the characters involved in Endgame have coped in the aftermath.

With so many stories to tell, the Endgame jump prevented the timeline falling behind with the real world, so by the time Phase 5 and 6 play out, everything will be synced to real time again, as it is very likely that the events that take a few years to come to screens will actually all happen within a shorter time frame in the MCU’s timeline, this is the only way it could really be done. However, with so much to be considered about where post-credits scenes and characters fit together in the intricate tapestry, the one person who is keeping all of this in line may have a job that some hardcore Marvel fans would love to do, it is also a job that many will not be envious of.