Summary

• The Defenders Saga has officially been placed in the MCU Phase 3 timeline, enhancing an already highly acclaimed era.
• By adding the Netflix franchise into Phase 3, the MCU timeline avoids potential plot holes and maintains coherence in storytelling.
• The placement of the Defenders Saga sets up an exciting future, allowing for potential exploration of characters and their backstories within the MCU.

Netflix's Defenders Saga and its incorporation into the Marvel Cinematic Universe enhances what is realistically already the franchise's best Phase thus far. The topic of how canon series like Daredevil and Luke Cage could be considered in the MCU has been a subject of some considerable and long debate among audiences, especially due to the popularity of the vast majority of the Defenders Saga releases themselves.

While this seemed ever less likely as more time passed, the return of Charlie Cox's Daredevil via a cameo in Spider-Man: No Way Home raised hopes that things could be changing, which would swiftly be proved correct as Kingpin also returned in releases like Hawkeye and Echo. With Daredevil: Born Again set to bring back even more characters, it's been made increasingly clear that the Netflix series is once again to be considered MCU canon, as seemingly confirmed by Head of Streaming Brad Winderbaum - making the Defenders Saga's official place in the MCU timeline all the more promising.

All Of The Defenders Saga Is In MCU Phase 3 (& That's Great)

The Defenders Saga's Official MCU Timeline Placement Is A Perfect Choice

After continued debate about how canon the Defenders Saga could be considered for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, one especially noteworthy Disney+ MCU timeline update placed the entire Netflix franchise into Marvel's movie and show Phases, allowing audiences who wanted to watch the combined franchise together a better idea of how to approach things. The entire Defenders timeline takes places in relatively quick succession even when placed into the MCU, as the Netflix shows all take place between Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2/I Am Groot and Ant-Man & The Wasp.

Importantly, this means the entire Defenders Saga can technically be counted as part of Phase 3, which is useful in terms of understanding what a full combined timeline would look like, but also places the specific Phase in even higher regard due to the critical acclaim the Netflix series still enjoys even now. Given this era was already held in high regard - to the degree that Phase 3 holds a Rotten Tomatoes MCU record in terms of its placement in their Best 300 Movies of All Time rankings - the Defenders being added into the mix only sweetens things further.

Putting Netflix's Marvel Shows In Phase 3 Avoids An MCU Timeline Problem

The Defenders Saga's MCU Timeline Placement Avoids Plot Holes

While placing the Defenders Saga in Phase 3 is an exciting decision in terms of enhancing arguably the best era of the MCU, it also serves some more practical purposes. Though the MCU isn't rife with time skips, Phase 3 closes with a five-year jump between the ending of Avengers: Infinity War and the main events of Avengers: Endgame, which certainly adds an extra complication to incorporating a whole other Marvel series into the franchise's timeline.

The choice to add the five-year gap amped up the stakes of the Avengers movies by showing that the surviving heroes had been forced to deal with their losses for almost half a decade of their lives - making it a clever and poignant timeline move - but one that also meant putting the Defenders Saga in Phase 3 was a pragmatic call. To place shows before and after Endgame would be to have a five year timeskip that wasn't addressed in the shows themselves, as well as raising issues regarding why these shows didn't note the fact that half of Earth's entire population had disappeared overnight.

As it stands, putting these series not too far away from the MCU timeskip but not in its path allows for series like Daredevil: Born Again to still be closely tied to its Netflix history without creating too much in the way of complications. This has already been shown to be helpful when it comes to approaching the stories of figures like Daredevil and Kingpin, as the MCU is able to draw on their Defenders Saga history without it creating plot holes or seeming like it is bringing up events from the ancient past.

Defenders Saga's MCU Timeline Placement Sets Up Its Most Exciting Future

The Defenders Saga's Place In The MCU Timeline Leaves The Right Amount Of Space

As the Defenders Saga is set before the MCU Endgame timeskip, there's a five-year stretch of time for the franchise to fill in when it comes to characters from the Netflix shows. Five currently blank years set up a perfect opportunity in terms of incorporating the previously at most quasi-canon heroes and villains found within the series, as it allows the MCU to add in backstories that tie these figures closer to existing or currently ongoing storylines, making sure everyone feels a natural addition to the MCU and not transplanted in artificially.

The mystery of what happened during this time is also a great way for audiences to immediately be invested in these characters again despite them having been off screens for years, as the possibilities are almost endless, and almost all exciting at the same time. Daredevil: Born Again appears set to begin exploring the potential this timeline setup offers for Defenders characters, and hopefully it will not be the first and last time the MCU incorporates the Marvel series and its cast into its history, as the opportunity opens up a lot of interesting doors for the future.