Moon Knight stands on its own far more than most films and TV series in the MCU, but when exactly does the 2022 Disney+ series fall in the franchise’s official timeline? After spending a decade building up to the conclusion of the Infinity Saga, Avengers: Endgame serves as the major event that most of Phase 4 is building off of. The Avengers reversing Thanos’ snap from Avengers: Infinity War changed the world and the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s future, as major characters left the story, paving the way for new ones—like Oscar Isaac’s Moon Knight—to step up in their absences.
Moon Knight follows Oscar Isaac as a man who has dissociative identity disorder that manifests itself as two distinct personalities: Steven Grant and Marc Spector. Grant is a lowly British gift shop employee, while Spector is a former mercenary embued with power from the Egyptian moon god named Khonshu, and delivers justice in his name as Moon Knight. Although Steven believes all of this is taking place within his own dreams, he soon learns that the globe-trotting and violent adventures are not in his head. Maybe.
With Moon Knight, Marvel Studios has elected to let the Disney+ show operate mostly independently of the larger MCU. This means fewer Easter eggs and MCU connections than other Disney+ shows like Hawkeye or WandaVision, which also raises questions about when the series takes place. It is confirmed, though, that Moon Knight takes place after the events of Avengers: Endgame. The trailers revealed this by showing a bus in London with an ad for the GRC (Global Repatriation Council), an international council formed to help those who vanished from Thanos’ snap and returned five years later. As a result, Moon Knight‘s place on the MCU timeline sometime after 2023, and is more than likely set in 2024.
Thanks to Avengers: Endgame‘s five-year time jump, the MCU timeline moved its “present day” up from 2018 to 2023. Spider-Man: Far From Home then jumped forward to the next summer, placing the film in 2024. This is the year that most of Phase 4’s content has taken place, so it seems that Moon Knight is following suit. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier took place in the spring of 2024, while Eternals takes place in the summer. The MCU timeline has moved up to the end of 2024 thanks to Spider-Man: No Way Home and Hawkeye, so there is a slight chance that Moon Knight is the first MCU project to take place in 2025.
Although Marvel hasn’t officially confirmed when Moon Knight takes place in the MCU Phase 4 timeline, it does seem to be a show set during the spring or summer. It is for that reason that a setting in the first half of 2024 makes the most sense for Moon Knight. This would mean it takes place at roughly the same time as Shang-Chi and Falcon & Winter Soldier. In any case, the self-contained nature of Moon Knight‘s story could give Marvel flexibility in determining when exactly it takes place.
Go to Source
Author: Cooper Hood
