Here Is The Only Time Marvel Movies Have Referenced Marvel TV

As the years go on, the nature of how connected the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies are to the Marvel TV shows becomes more and more tenuous. Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., the first television show to ambitiously put itself in Marvel’s shared film universe, was once ripe with tie ins to the movies and name-drops of the A-list heroes. Additionally, the plot of Captain America: Winter Soldier was so intimately connected to the sh

ow that it derailed the conceit of it from a family friendly superhero adventure series to an intriguing sci-fi spy thriller with surprising twists and turns. Then, as Marvel’s TV arm exploded with more shows set in the same universe, the references continued.

In Netflix’s Daredevil, Matt Murdock’s Hell’s Kitchen is in a state of poverty and high crime only because it is still struggling to recover after Loki’s invasion from The Avengers. In Agent Carter we meet Edwin Jarvis, the meek butler who, it turns out, was the inspiration for Tony Stark’s AI assistant J.A.R.V.I.S. in Iron Man. And when Captain America: Civil War revealed the existence of an underwater, high security prison for those with enhanced abilities, Jessica Jones’ supervillain mother had to come to terms with the fact that she’d be sent there if she were ever caught. Over the years viewers have come to love these various connections and subtle moments of world development, and fans subsequently dissect each new live action Marvel entry to find all the hidden references. From a business standpoint, this is a great example of corporate synergy. By alleging that all these titles operate in the same universe, Marvel is incentivizing viewers to watch every single title so that they may be rewarded with deeper and deeper story nuance.


However, the problem is that the nature of the combined TV and film universe is largely an illusion. Ever since S.H.I.E.L.D.’s first season, the references have become fewer and further between. In fact, the show’s latest season wished so much to avoid the Marvel film stories that it went off to the year 2091 to avoid The Avengers completely. Marvel’s Runaways almost entirely ignores the wider universe it is supposedly set in (if Wizard is such a big brand why haven’t we seen its logo anywhere in the movies?). And, in perhaps the most egregious example, though Netflix’s six shows constantly show us the New York skyline, the famous Avengers tower is nowhere in sight.

However the most frustrating part of this is that, although the shows have repeatedly referenced the events of the movies, the movies have never once referenced anything from the shows. Except, that is, for a lonely exception. Because, where we would least expect, it turns out there is exactly one, and only one, instance of something introduced in a TV show later appearing in the films. What is this all important reference? Oddly, it's New York's Metro General Hospital.

In Daredevil, we meet and come to love nurse Claire Temple, a gifted medic who eventually allies with countless heroes and constantly proves herself more competent than all of them. When we first meet her, she is working in the crowded and underfunded emergency room of New York’s Metropolitan General hospital, known to all as Metro General. This is the first time we are introduced to this unique setting in the Marvel universe.

Now, fast forward one year and hop into the films, and we visit a very familiar location. In 2016, Marvel’s ambitious Benedict Cumberbatch-led film Doctor Strange hit theaters. And, as it turns out, Cumberbatch’s successful New York neurosurgeon works at none other than our Metro General Hospital. Lo and behold, the only time a Marvel movie has referenced a TV show.

Now the two incarnations of the hospital are noticeably different. While Metro General is referred to as a “rat hole” in Daredevil and is clearly struggling to fight disrepair (and ninjas), Strange’s Metro General is one of pristine halls and well to do medical staff. One way to reconcile this is to assume that Metro General is actually the name of the hospital franchise, of which there are at least three separate branches, accounting for the two different versions of the hospital. However, in all likelihood, this discrepancy is because the cross reference was most likely not intentional. Metro General is actually the name of a popular New York hospital in the Marvel comics. So, the two screenwriters of these projects may have both referenced the comics for this name without realizing that this ties them together in Marvel's Cinematic Universe. Nevertheless, this connection is now canon in the MCU.

The idea of the combined film and TV universe comes packaged with many frustrating plot questions. Fans are baffled as to why Tony Stark would recruit Spider-Man when Daredevil, Luke Cage, and Jessica Jones are much more capable. How can the federal government launch a department to hunt the Inhumans with The Avengers not even hearing about them? How can The Hand nearly destroy all of New York without intelligence expert Natasha Romanov noticing something is wrong? All of this is hard to reconcile. Logistically, Marvel executives have given us many reasons for these failure in connectivity, citing vastly different production schedules and different story goals. However, narratively, fans yearn for canon explanations that can make this supposedly connected universe feel less like a marketing ploy and more like a living and breathing world.

But for now, all fans can do is wait. And in the meantime, the solitary example of Metro General will just have to be enough to tide us over.
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