Marvel has kept the plot of Avengers: Endgame under impressively tight wraps in the run-up to its release later this month, but fans have still built up a pretty thorough picture of what to expect. A very common belief is that the movie will jump forward in time to five years after the events of Avengers: Infinity War. With just a few weeks to go until we find out the old-fashioned way though, some new Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. info seemingly disproves this widespread theory.
At Wonder-Con, the AoS season 6 panel revealed that the next run of ABC’s long-running Marvel series will be set a single year after the events of season 5. What’s more, Marvel Television confirmed that season 6 would take place after the outcome of Endgame. Assuming Jeph Loeb and his team have got their MCU continuity straight, there’s surely no way to square this news with the five year time-jump theory.
The latter episodes of S.H.I.E.L.D.‘s fifth season were explicitly depicted as happening concurrently with Infinity War. Thanos’ incoming threat was discussed in one outing, in a later one a TV news report spoke of an alien invasion in New York, etc. There was no major crossover between the two, but it’s clear the show wanted to allude to what was going on in the movies. So, it stands to reason that they’ve been careful to match up season 6 with Endgame in a similar way.
Therefore, there won’t be any flash-forward to the future in Endgame, otherwise season 6 would have to be set then as well. Unless, that is, there’s some sort of erasure of the timeline that happens. This is another common notion, that the surviving heroes are able to turn the clock back to before the Snap. This would make it possible for a time-jump to occur, so long as it’s wiped from continuity by the end of the movie. That way, season 6 could take place just one year later and still be technically set after Endgame.
If this post has given you a headache, don’t worry, as it’s not too much longer until we find out the true link between Avengers: Endgame – arriving on April 26th – and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. season 6 – premiering May 10th.