Thunderbolts’ Big MCU Continuity Conflict With Daredevil Finally Gets Addressed

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“We were definitely aware of it. But we felt like the one thing that…obviously, these questions always come up in these movies of, ‘Why wasn’t this person there?’” said Schreier in an interview with ComicBookMovie. “There are a lot of things in the world, and we always felt like our movie is so contained. The whole thing takes place within a matter of a couple of days, and so there’s an immediacy to the threat [of The Void] and to the problem. So not only did we try to build a story where this particular antagonist, [the Thunderbolts] are the perfect people for it, because it’s about common cause or an understanding of what that person’s going through.”

He continued, “I mean, no one else could even possibly get there like that. It’s such a particular moment in time, and it happens so fast that those questions of martial law or this or that, I mean, it’s all within an afternoon, and so we we could kind of not take that on and feel like it was still believable within that world, so that each story could kind of go on its own path, and wouldn’t feel like they were stepping on each other.”

Shortly after Thunderbolts* debuted in theaters, screenwriter Eric Pearson offered his thoughts on why New York-based heroes such as Spider-Man, Daredevil, and Doctor Strange didn’t come to the aid of the Thunderbolts during the Void’s takeover of New York City. He chalked it up to the concept of time working differently inside the Void, saying, “I also think that the time of it is happening so much faster than you expect.” The implication is that the matter was resolved before Spider-Man or someone else had a chance to arrive on the scene.

Of course, at the end of Thunderbolts*, the titular team is no longer a group of vigilantes. They’re the government-sanctioned New Avengers and have been fully operational for months before they cross paths with the Fantastic Four (as seen in the Thunderbolts* post-credits scene). The movie’s stinger likewise makes no reference to Fisk or what he thinks about Valentina Allegra de Fontaine’s collection of heroes.

All projects in a shared cinematic universe need to strike a right balance between making connections to other titles and standing on its own merits. In the case of Thunderbolts*, it still needs to work as a movie, and pacing is a very important aspect in that medium. It might have been jarring if, in the midst of an emotional climax where Yelena Belova and the others help Bob overcome his dark side, the film paused to take a moment to explain what Fisk and his task force was up to and why they didn’t arrive to deal with the Thunderbolts. As Schreier says, the Thunderbolts* finale unfolds over a relatively quick period of time, and it was better for the purposes of the movie that the focus stayed exclusively on Bob’s plight, ensuring the film built to a poignant conclusion.

Marvel has also realized that it’s become too much like homework for viewers to follow the ever-expanding MCU storyline, with movies picking up threads from TV shows. Perhaps in an effort to simplify things, the decision was made to not reference Born Again in Thunderbolts*. That way, people who haven’t watched Daredevil wouldn’t be lost and could just enjoy Thunderbolts* as a movie. It’ll be interesting to see how Marvel handles Mayor Fisk moving forward, but it was the right call for Thunderbolts* to ignore him.