One of the more annoying aspects of Netflix’s Marvel shows—beyond the overly long seasons—is the weird insistence on maintaining a noticeable distance between themselves and the big-screen Marvel movies that they ostensibly share a universe with. Characters rarely mention Captain America by name, despite the fact that he should be one of the most famous people in the world, and few people living in Netflix’s New York seem particularly freaked out that a bunch of aliens invaded Manhattan a few years ago. So far, Hulu’s Runaways adaptation has followed the early issues of the comic it’s based on by keeping any connections to the larger Marvel universe at a bare minimum, a decision that’s less jarring there than in the Netflix shows because Runaways takes place in Los Angeles and centers on some teens who are too cool to care about Cap and Thor.
However, Runaways co-showrunner Josh Schwartz is now teasing that the show’s MCU agnosticism might be changing by the end of its second season. As reported by TVLine, Schwartz says the end of season two will have the “first real breadcrumb” that connects the show to the Marvel Cinematic Universe “in some way.” That’s super vague, but the fact that he’s downplaying the tease even as he says it makes this sound more like it will be a “Roxxon exists on Runaways” thing and not a “James Spader cameos as Ultron to talk to his robot son” thing.
Anyway, we also now know that Marvel’s Runaways will be returning to Hulu for its second season on December 21. TVLine says all 13 episodes will drop at once, Netflix-style, so at least we’ll be able to skip right to the last episode and hear this awesome Roxxon reference.