While the official line is that “it’s all connected”, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has become increasingly fractured as its spreads out across the small screen with Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Netflix shows joined by the likes of Runaways and Cloak & Dagger.
It seems pretty clear by now that the movie side of the MCU pays little attention to what’s going on at Marvel Television, although the TV shows do continue to feature a number of mentions and Easter eggs, with Cloak & Dagger including references to Tony Stark, Danny Rand and Misty Knight in its first season.
Speaking to Vulture, Cloak & Dagger showrunner Joe Pokaski has been chatting about his crossover ambitions, as well as discussing how complicated the process is behind-the-scenes:
“The thing I love about Tandy and Tyrone is, in the comic-book world, they show up everywhere,” said Pokaski. “Someone smarter than me once called them the Rosencrantz and Guildenstern of the Marvel universe. They just drop in. They can show up in an X-Men book. They can show up in the big crossover event. They show up on the Runaways. They show up in the Ultimate universe. And you’re always happy to see them. That’s how I feel. I’d like to see them in the cinematic universe being the same way.”
“I think some of the challenge is how fractured the ownership is, still,” he continued. “I would love for Peter Parker to walk by, but Sony owns them. You’d like someone from the films to be there, but everything is a little bit segmented. Marvel, to their credit, has let us make some vague references to other television shows and there’s hopefully some crossover potential. But the issue is being like, ‘Can we use this character?’ and for some reason 20 years ago in the negotiations of the Spider-Man, X-Men; that character belongs over there. So I think the segmentation is a problem. Hopefully, that will get better. I mean, the fact that Spider-Man was in the last Avengers movie still doesn’t feel real, but it seems like it’s a glimmer of hope that particularly Tandy and Tyrone can play with all the superheroes at some point.”
Given that we’re yet to see any of Marvel’s TV heroes making the jump to the big screen, it would be a surprise at this point if we did get to see Cloak and Dagger crossing paths with Spider-Man or any of the Avengers. Still, let us know in the comments below if that’s something you’d like to see…
