James Gunn explains how Marvel and DC deal with canon

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This article contains spoilers for Peacemaker‘s final episode

The MCU and DCEU are vastly complicated cinematic universes encompassing many movies and TV shows, all theoretically contributing to a wider story. As such, I always imagined keeping all their proverbial ducks in a row must be a headache. Every story has to fit with what’s going on around it, and world-changing events cause headaches, as seen when the Marvel TV shows struggled to cram Thanos’ snap into their narratives.

James Gunn is one of the rare individuals who’s worked both sides of the Marvel/DC fence, and a curious fan asked him how he can get story approval and whether he can use certain characters. His response wasn’t what you’d expect:

Spoilers for Peacemaker‘s final episode follow

One caveat here might be that Gunn’s stories are often separated from other movies in the same universe. For example, Guardians of the Galaxy takes place in the far-flung reaches of space and anything happening on the MCU Earth can’t interfere with the story. Even so, Gunn will have had to take the events of Avengers: Infinity War, Endgame, and Thor: Love and Thunder into account for the upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.

But it’s worth noting that Gunn’s reference to a “legal situation” is something he has first-hand experience of. It was only once he’d finished writing the script for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 that he was told that Marvel Studios didn’t have the rights to use his villain, Ego the Living Planet (they were owned by Fox as part of The Fantastic Four rights).

This almost derailed the project as there’s no equivalent character, though his bacon was saved when Disney and Fox agreed to trade Ego for Deadpool‘s Negasonic Teenage Warhead.

Whatever the case, it’s nice to see that both studios leave Gunn alone to tell the stories he wants, and leaving the door open for killer surprises like the Peacemaker Justice League cameos.