Is Hawkeye Set After Spider-Man: No Way Home? MCU Timeline Explained

Hawkeye is set during Christmas but in what year, exactly? And is it after Spider-Man: No Way Home’s events, which Hawkeye doesn’t make mention of.

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Warning: SPOILERS for Hawkeye episodes 1 & 2

According to Marvel Studios, Hawkeye happens after Spider-Man: No Way Home in the Marvel Cinematic Universe timeline but is that really the case? Hawkeye brings back Clint Barton (Jeremy Renner) and introduces Kate Bishop (Hailee Steinfeld) to the MCU. The two best archers in the world have an adventure set during the Christmas season in New York City, but that location and time immediately call the events of Spider-Man: No Way Home into question.

Hawkeye episode 1 opens with a prologue set in 2012 during The Avengers’ Battle of New York and this is relatively straightforward. A young Kate Bishop (Clara Stack) witnesses the Chitari invasion from her home, which is damaged during the battle. But Kate’s life is saved by Clint Barton, who she watches fight off alien invaders from a rooftop. Naturally, Hawkeye becomes Kate’s hero and from then on, the wealthy Manhattan girl masters archery, gymnastics, martial arts, and even fencing in order to turn herself into a superhero like Clint Barton. About a dozen years later, Clint saves Kate again in Hawkeye episode 1 when Bishop is attacked by the Tracksuit Mafia while Kate is wearing Barton’s stolen Ronin suit. Hawkeye firmly establishes that episode 1 takes place on December 19 and episode 2 is the next day.

As a standalone MCU series on Disney+, Hawkeye’s timeline is clear enough. However, Hawkeye is part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and Phase 4 in particular. This is where things can get confusing as the MCU fills in the aftermath and events after Avengers: Endgame, which was primarily set in 2023. The MCU’s Phase 4 rollout hasn’t been chronological, with Black Widow jumping back to Phase 3 and Loki gallivanting across multiple timelines. Spider-Man: No Way Home creates new issues since it’s set not long after Spider-Man: Far From Home but opens up the Multiverse, which is a game-changing event for the MCU. Hawkeye is definitely set during Christmas, but what year, exactly, and how does Spider-Man: No Way Home’s Phase 4 timeline factor into Hawkeye?

Marvel Says Hawkeye Is Set 2 Years After Endgame

According to Hawkeye director Rhys Thomas, the Jeremy Renner-led series is set “two years after the events of Endgame.” While the exact dates within Avengers: Endgame weren’t given in the film, the final battle with Thanos (Josh Brolin) apparently happened at some point well into 2023. So, if Hawkeye is set two years later, it would be Christmas 2025 in the Disney+ series. That would mean Spider-Man: No Way Home happened about a year prior and it would make sense that Hawkeye’s New York City appears to be relatively settled after No Way Home’s Multiversal breaches and the chaos of multiple Spider-Man villains from other universes fighting Peter Parker (Tom Holland).

Going by clues within Hawkeye, Clint Barton’s children appear to be aged appropriately if this is the case (though the returning actors look perhaps a little older than expected). All of the Bartons except Clint were killed by Thanos’ Snap and resurrected by Smart Hulk’s (Mark Ruffalo) Infinity Gauntlet in Avengers: Endgame. Hawkeye’s kids look the right ages after missing five years and coming back to life in 2023, then it being a full two years later. Clint is also still mourning the death of Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson), and it’s understandable that his best friend who traded her life for his on Vormir isn’t far from Barton’s thoughts. In Hawkeye episode 2, Kate Bishop tells Clint that she’s 22, and this also tracks if Kate was 10 years old in 2012 during Hawkeye’s prologue and if Bishop wasn’t snapped out of existence by Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War.

Hawkeye’s Set Photos Confirm It’s Christmas 2024, Not 2025

Hawkeye being set two years after Avengers: Endgame in 2025 also seems to be in conflict with the date spotted in a Hawkeye set photo. Hailee Steinfeld’s Kate Bishop and Pizza Dog were snapped in a photo next to a poster that says “Happy New Year 2025: Year Of The Snake.” This would indicate that Hawkeye is actually set during Christmas 2024, not 2025. This is because it’s a Chinese New Year poster and that holiday happens in February. The next Year of the Snake in the Chinese calendar is 2025 so the poster looks to be advertising Chinese New Year being two months away. While it’s also possible the poster is advertising Chinese New Year 2025 that already happened 10 months before the events of Hawkeye, judging from the condition of the poster, it’s more likely that it’s new and Hawkeye is, indeed, happening during Christmas 2024.

Hawkeye’s 2024 Setting Creates A Spider-Man Multiverse Issue

If Hawkeye is happening during Christmas 2024, then it brushes up against the events of Spider-Man: No Way Home. Spider-Man is arguably the most famous superhero who lives in New York City, and Peter Parker’s secret identity being publicly revealed by J. Jonah Jameson (J.K. Simmons) during Spider-Man: Far From Home happened in early summer 2024. Far From Home’s Midtown High tribute video to the Avengers also established that the film is set eight months after Avengers: Endgame. Spider-Man: No Way Home, where Peter goes to Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) for help to make the world forget he’s Spider-Man, appears to pick up not long after Far From Home, so it would still be late summer or fall 2024 when Peter battled Multiversal foes like Doctor Octopus (Alfred Molina), the Green Goblin (Willem Dafoe), and Electro (Jamie Foxx).

However, there is no visible fallout from Spider-Man facing enemies from across the Multiverse in Hawkeye’s first two episodes, which happen just a couple of months after No Way Home. The MCU references in Hawkeye don’t tie back to Spider-Man, who isn’t a topic of conversation despite being the center of No Way Home, which is the biggest NYC-set incident since The Avengers, Infinity War, and The Falcon and The Winter Soldier’s finale. Hawkeye primarily references The Avengers and Avengers: Endgame, which is understandable considering Clint Barton and Kate Bishop’s personal histories are at the forefront. The Avengers-themed musical Rogers! also leaves out Spider-Man entirely, yet inexplicably includes Ant-Man (Paul Rudd), who also wasn’t in the Battle of New York. So, did all of Spider-Man: No Way Home’s Multiversal hijinks get resolved by Christmas and New York City just moved on business as usual?

Is Hawkeye Really Set After Spider-Man: No Way Home?

Hopefully, Hawkeye will resolve whether it’s Christmas 2024 or 2025 on-screen during the course of the show’s 6-episode run on Disney+. Either way, Hawkeye is almost certainly set after the events of Spider-Man: No Way Home, unless Tom Holland’s sequel includes time jumps or its story somehow stretches months. Hawkeye not referencing Spider-Man at all is strange considering the wall-crawler’s fame and how much time is devoted to Avengers callbacks and Easter eggs like who now owns Avengers Tower. But New York City and its residents are resilient and used to getting things back to normal as quickly as possible after catastrophes like the Battle of New York. What actually happens to Peter Parker and whether the world does somehow forget he’s Spider-Man will be resolved in Spider-Man: No Way Home but the fate of the webhead isn’t an immediate concern of Hawkeye’s characters during the holidays.

Link Source : https://screenrant.com/hawkeye-timeline-spiderman-no-way-home-2024/