With Marvel Studios' "Phase II" officially concluded with this summer's Ant-Man, the hype centered around Phase III is palpable. The 2015 New York Comic Con gave us a presentation from Marvel Studios producer, creative director, and overall purveyor of wonder, Kevin Feige, in regards to the next five years of projects on the docket. The next Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) Phase officially kicks off next summer with the highly anticipated, Captain America: Civil War, which boasts not only the thrilling final chapter to the Captain America trilogy, but also one of the biggest ensemble casts to date, including newcomers, Spider-Man and Black Panther. While the film series in question is by far the most successful shared universe franchise ever produced, most mainstream audiences usually focus on just the movies. The MCU is expanding in such a way, its impossible to truly appreciate the grand scope of this massive achievement without having seen the television projects available.
The idea for a television series sharing the same universe as the Marvel Studios films began in 2013 with ABC's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. The series garnered some mainstream skepticism that the program could live up to the already high standards for Marvel, but it still managed to find a pretty loyal audience. With the return of Clark Gregg as Agent Phil Coulson, AoS was billed as the supplement to the films series. It ran alongside two movies released that year, Thor: The Dark World and Captain America: The Winter Soldier, with the show not only referencing the events that occurred, but actually letting them influence the plot, a concept still continuing with current seasons. The success of S.H.I.E.L.D. opened the doors for the rest of the MCU to be filled with all the stories we might otherwise be without.
In the search for more mediums and networks with which to expand upon, the streaming service conglomerate, Netflix, threw their hat into the ring. Starting off strong with the release of the Daredevil series, they were able to reinvent the superhero formula, proving that not every major comic title needs to be represented with a big budget summer movie. Daredevil was a brilliantly written interpretation of the blind vigilante, with all the dark, gritty aspects that would have been neglected had it been shown in theaters.
The backdrop for the show focuses heavily on the aftermath of the Chitauri invasion from the first Avengers movie and how the destruction affected the already rundown section of New York known as Hell's Kitchen, a concept expected to carry over into the upcoming Netflix Marvel series'. Among these forthcoming titles are Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Iron Fist, all of which will culminate with Daredevil into the massive team-up series, The Defenders.
Amazing as these Marvel shows are, there's always the question, "Why are they important?" The popular theory is that they're not. Most assume these shows are just cash grabs; Disney doubling down on the films' success and protecting their investment by keeping our appetites moistened until they're ready to give us the next movie. There's no reason to assume this isn't true. The film industry is still a business at the end of the day and its wise to ensure the money machine is well maintained. The one thing everyone fails to realize is that there's absolutely nothing wrong with that! Of course the studio makes money, but they're doing so by providing quality content and constructing something beloved by so many for all the right reasons.
The point of the Marvel TV line-up is to contextualize the events of the movies, giving us insight as to how they've affected the rest of this world, without having to shoehorn some reference or subplot in a future movie, which might otherwise diminish from an already complex plot. This universe is being constructed exactly the same as an actual comic book universe; the missing ingredient, without which this crazy, fan-boy fantasy could never be a reality.
