The past three years were extraordinarily dense with new content from the MCU, but there were few meaningful connections between the various stories. With no essential plot threads, audiences stopped feeling any obligation to actually watch all this stuff, and the result was Disney’s worst box office year in a long time.
Now, with the release of Echo, the MCU is on semi-hiatus, with only Deadpool 3 currently scheduled for 2024. Marvel is taking a pause to figure out what to do with the franchise’s story direction–including how to deal with Jonathan Majors and Kang the Conqueror. They’ve got their work cut out for them, because the MCU is a huge mess these days–there are many dangling story threads, and very little movement has happened with any of them. In other words, there have been lots of Chapter 1s since 2021, and not a lot of Chapter 2s.
Because of that, there are probably at least a few threads you’ve completely forgotten about. Like Moon Knight, which made no references to other Marvel things, and which has never been referenced elsewhere in the MCU at all. With so few connections between the stories, it becomes easy to forget the many loose threads that remain.
With so few connections between the stories, it becomes easy to forget the neglected threads
But we can help with that. What you’re about to read isn’t a full recap of the MCU’s story so far or anything like that–I have a life beyond writing nerd blogs. Instead, this is just a quick trip around the MCU to give a refresher about where each outstanding plot thread currently stands and what all the major characters were last up to as far as we know. That’s up to and including Echo, so be warned that there will be spoilers here.