With Jeph Loeb’s Exit, Marvel TV Reaches the End of an Era

It’s the end of another marvelous era. Following the announcement that Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige has been promoted to Chief Creative Officer, a title that comes with larger creative control over Marvel’s films, television series, and comics, it’s being reported that Marvel Television head Jeph Loeb will announce his exit from the company sometime before Thanksgiving.

Sources say that Loeb’s been working on an exit plan since before Feige’s promotion was announced and, to be honest, the development isn’t much of a surprise. Loeb’s visible influence has shrunk drastically in the past year, with the end of Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. in sight, the cancellation of the last of Marvel’s Netflix shows, and the scrapping of a live-action Ghost Rider series for Hulu. Loeb’s expected departure comes over a year after it was announced that Feige’s film division, Marvel Studios, would create TV shows for Disney+. So far, all of Disney+’s upcoming Marvel shows (and there are many of them) are coming from Marvel Studios and not Loeb’s Marvel TV. Now it’s no longer Loeb’s Marvel TV, but rather Feige’s Marvel TV thanks to his promotion to CCO.

This is the end of an era–an era that a lot of die-hard Marvel fans have a lot of affection for. Loeb’s reign included shows produced for ABC (Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., the glass-ceiling-shattering Agent Carter), FX (the X-Men inspired Legion), Hulu (Marvel’s Runaways, coming back for Season 3 in December), Freeform (the still in limbo Cloak & Dagger), and–most notably–Netflix.

As part of a then unheard-of deal with the streaming giant, Loeb’s Marvel TV produced an entire interconnected slate of superhero shows including Marvel’s Daredevil, Marvel’s Jessica Jones, Marvel’s Luke Cage, Marvel’s Iron Fist, and Marvel’s The Defenders. A Daredevil spinoff, Marvel’s The Punisher, came later. Among Loeb’s output as head of Marvel TV, the Netflix universe stands as his biggest contribution to the Marvel mythos (although keeping Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. alive for seven seasons on network TV is also commendable). But unlike S.H.I.E.L.D., which has an extremely passionate but small fanbase, the Netflix shows came closest to achieving the kind of mainstream cultural relevance enjoyed by all of Feige’s Marvel movies. Daredevil and Jessica Jones were some of the most buzzed about Netflix originals ever, as was Luke Cage. But interest and acclaim for the shows waned over time, and Disney’s announcement that they were producing their own shows for their Netflix competitor sealed their fate. Every single Marvel/Netflix TV show was canceled within a few months of each other.

You also can’t look at this era without noting all the shortcomings, shortcomings that are only so short because they stood next to giants like Black Panther and Avengers: Endgame in the MCU. Loeb was always proud to tout his live-action shows as being connected to the movies, a connection that only amounted to a handful of guest appearances, some plot ripples from the films, and minimal crossover. A handful of movie actors (Cobie Smulders, Jaimie Alexander, Samuel L. Jackson) appeared on S.H.I.E.L.D. early on, but none ever appeared on the Netflix shows or the cable TV shows. And no TV actors ever appeared in a feature film (save one). And while the Netflix shows crossed over plenty, they never met the agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. or the Runaways (it should be noted that Runaways and Cloak & Dagger are finally meeting up this December). Loeb’s TV shows were all connected, but connected via red tape.

And it has to be pointed out that some of the biggest missteps in the MCU–which Marvel TV’s output was mostly only connected to because Loeb said so–were all under Loeb’s watch. Marvel’s Inhumans was a spectacular failure on ABC in every way imaginable (ratings, audience reaction, critical reception) and a number of projects–the S.H.I.E.L.D. spinoff Marvel’s Most Wanted, a New Warriors comedy, a Deadpool animated series from Donald Glover, Hulu’s Ghost Rider–were all dropped. On top of that Agent Carter was canceled after two seasons and S.H.I.E.L.D., despite having a dedicated fanbase, has never done well in the ratings (it hasn’t been in even the top 100 most-watched shows since the 2015-2016 season). If Feige’s output was dominating the mainstream, Loeb was getting by with passionate, niche audiences.

Under Feige’s control, though, Marvel’s TV output will finally make good on Loeb’s old promise of connectivity. We already know that’s the case just by looking at Disney+’s slate of Marvel shows starring big deal Marvel characters played by A-list actors. With no separation between Marvel Studios and Marvel Television, it’s entirely possible that the prohibitive red tape that Loeb tangled with for 6 years has been chucked in the trash. Feige even made it a point to say that Disney+ additions like Ms. Marvel will appear on TV and in film–something that eluded characters like Daredevil and Agent May during their entire run.

With most of Loeb’s projects scrapped, canceled, or wrapping up, there are only a few loose ends left from his era. What’s going to happen to Marvel TV’s slate of Hulu animated series? And does Loeb’s departure mean it’s less likely we’ll get a Cloak & Dagger Season 3? Does the unification of Marvel TV and Marvel Studios mean that future seasons of Marvel’s Runaways could tie into Disney+ shows–if Runaways gets another season, that is? It’s also possible that C&D could be canceled, Runaways could wrap up with Season 3, and the animated slate could be forgotten about entirely (there have been no updates about the animated shows since they were announced back in February). That would give Marvel TV’s new Feige era a clean slate. But there’s one thing that has to be said about the new era that’s about to begin: whenever you see characters crossing with each other, jumping from small screen to big screen, know that Loeb spent six years laying the groundwork.

Stream Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. on Netflix