The Marvel Cinematic Universe timeline can be a little complicated. Remember Thanos’s Snap in Infinity War? That took a lot of our favorite characters out of the game for five years—an event called “the blip” in-universe—until they were brought back in Endgame. And Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury, the lead character of Secret Invasion, was one of the blipped. So now that he’s returned, what year is he in exactly?
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When did we last see Nick Fury?
Nick Fury’s journey post-Endgame has appropriately been a secretive one. He popped up at Tony Stark’s funeral and then left Earth altogether. (The consequences of this are hashed out in Secret Invasion.) But when does Endgame itself take place? Well, according to Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige, Infinity War happens in 2018, four years after the events of the 2014-set Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, and Endgame’s main storyline picks up five years after that, in 2023.
We go straight from Endgame to Spider-Man: Far From Home, which also takes place in 2023. However, the Nick Fury seen in Spider-Man: Far From Home wasn’t Fury at all, but the Skrull Talos impersonating him with the blessing of the real Fury, who is briefly seen on a space station at the end.
At least a few years must have passed since then, given that everyone is so mad at Fury for going off-world, right? Well…
The Marvel Cinematic Universe is ahead of ours
Jonathan Schwartz, VP of Production & Development at Marvel Studios, was asked by Elle magazine when exactly Secret Invasion took place and he answered:
“It’s present-day MCU, is what we’re calling it. So it exists basically along the timeline that the shows come out in. So post-She-Hulk, post-blip right at this exact, present day in the MCU. I think that’s all I can say.”
That’s a bit of a vague answer (Marvel executives really aren’t allowed to say a lot, are they?) but it means we can place the show right after She-Hulk, which, according to the book Marvel Studios’ The Marvel Cinematic Universe: An Official Timeline, is set during 2024-2025. That means Secret Invasion is likewise set in 2025!
It seems that 2025 is a busy year for the denizens of the MCU, as Moon Knight, Ms. Marvel, Thor: Love and Thunder, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantamania, and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 apparently all took place in 2025. Hopefully our real-life 2025, when it rolls around, will be less chaotic.
(featured image: Disney+)
