Iron Man: A newscast mentions rumors that Tony is suffering from PTSD following his return from Afghanistan and has been bedridden. Come the third film he is suffering from PTSD-like symptoms following The Avengers, and he hasn't been able to sleep due to nightmares.
Captain America: The First Avenger: The beginning of the film has the Red Skull's forces attacking Tonsberg, Norway, and he's implied to have ordered the town decimated after acquiring the Tesseract. This movie was released the same day as the Oslo bombings in Norway.
A major part of the film's plot is a series of explosions, orchestrated as terrorist attacks by the Mandarin. One of the locations of the explosion being a theater falls into this in light of the November 2015 attacks of Paris.
Tony says at one point, "We make our own demons," which references the way he spurned Aldrich Killian, the film's Big Bad, into villainy. Tony also is looking forward to a new project at the end. Both of these are made harsh in light of Avengers: Age of Ultron, in which Tony's aforementioned project becomes that film's titular villain.
Tony and Rhodey at one point speculate that Killian's plan for President Ellis is to burn him and give him a Viking funeral. Thor: The Dark World, the next film in the franchise, actually features one for Odin's wife Frigga.
Guardians of the Galaxy (2014): Yondu and Kraglin mention that it ended up being for the best that they adopted Quill and didn’t deliver him to his father, claiming he was a jackass. At the time it was a funny moment. But then in the sequel we meet said father and… well let’s just say “jackass” is way too nice of a word.
Avengers: Age of Ultron: Bruce said he can't have a relationship with Natasha because he can't have kids, and she says she can't either because she was sterilized during her spy training to make it easier to kill, to focus on the mission, to make her a "monster"note A running theme in the movie. Steve also described himself as a monster, sarcastically, while feeling empathy for the Twins. Not to mention the running parenthood theme.. Many thought she saw herself that way solely because of the inability to have kids, and criticized the line as sexist. In 2017, it got out that Whedon's divorce was a nasty one and his ex-wife revealed that Whedon himself didn't practice the feminist ideals he preached.
May 6-7, 2016 were not good days for War Machine in any medium. The former saw the release of Civil War, in which he's crippled by a stray blast from The Vision. The latter saw the release of the Free Comic Book Day special that kick starts Civil War II in which he's killed by Thanos.
A major scene of the film is Peggy Carter's funeral. In the week following the film's theatrical release, Agent Carter was cancelled.
Avengers: Endgame: The iconic shots of a completely empty New York City that represented just how badly Earth was affected by Thanos's Snap were already shocking and depressing when this film came out, but they now feel downright eerie after the sudden spread of the novel coronavirus a year later caused several cities across the globe, including New York to become quieter and emptier than normal due to citizens being advised to self-quarantine themselves to remain safe from the virus. Even the comment that the ecology is recovering after the Snap was true as the pandemic led to less pollution and such.
2021 had the MCU continuously delving into the bad impact of Infinity War and Endgame. Wanda talking to Clint after Tony's funeral becomes even worse as WandaVision shows how much grief she was bottling up after losing Vision. The Falcon and the Winter Soldier has both Sam and Bucky at a loss with Captain America retiring and they take a while to accept following his legacy, while also showing Sharon Carter's absence from Endgame is exactly why she didn't get a pardon like the heroes who fought Thanos, leading her to become an international criminal. Black Widow makes Natasha's sacrifice sadder by revealing that her once-family does love her enough that "sister" Yelena is willing to go after Hawkeye after believing him responsible for her death (and Hawkeye adds another wrinkle: Yelena was snapped, giving an extra reason as for why Natasha was so depressed and willing to sacrifice herself). And the concept of "temporal branches" is dissected in Loki featuring a Time Police that goes on snipping divergences, which speaks bad things for Cap going back in time to finally get Peggy - he couldn't have changed history, and possibly never interacted with anyone other than Peggy for 70 years.
Shows
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: At the beginning of the second season, a brain-damaged Agent Fitz (who is Scottish) is left unable to properly function without his best friend Simmons (who is English). The episode aired shortly after Scotland voted against independence from England.
The season 1 episode "Into the Ring" has Wilson Fisk attempt to have Karen Page killed by having a corrupt guard hang her in her cell in a way that looks like a suicide. A few months later, in July 2015, when a Texas woman named Sandra Bland committed suicide in custody, there were allegations of foul play.
Also from "Into the Ring", Foggy chides Matt for taking up Karen's case, saying "You don't necessarily show the best judgment when beautiful women are involved, Matt." In season 2, we learn the specific details of Matt's relationship with Elektra and see what a bad influence she was on him, both when they dated in college and in the present day when she returns seeking Matt's assistance in the fight against the Hand. Suddenly, Foggy's line sounds less like a joke and more like concern that Karen might be cut from the same cloth as Elektra.
In "Condemned", a corrupt ESU sniper on Wilson Fisk's orders guns down a couple of cops, including Detective Blake, who'd become a liability. It can be hard to watch after the 2016 assassination of five Dallas police officers during a protest.
Any scene where Claire worries about the legal ramifications of treating Matt in her apartment after Jessica Jones (2015) reveals that she was eventually evicted for it.
Iron Fist (2017) gives a further explanation of the Hand's resurrection technique, revealing that it gradually chips further and further away at a person's humanity and identity each time. With Nobu already completely unaffected by cold at the start of the show, how far gone was he? On the plus side, the later show also confirms that he's dead for good, as cutting off their head makes it permanent.
At one point in "Nelson v. Murdock", while processing the revelation that his best friend is secretly a masked vigilante, Foggy says to Matt, "You're going to get yourself killed if you keep this up. You know that, right?" The Defenders (2017) ends with Matt being presumed killed under Midland Circle, and the way Foggy tears up when Matt doesn't come back through the precinct door is that of his worst fears being confirmed, ones he's had to face many times in the interim such as when he had to drag a concussed Matt home from getting shot by Frank Castle.
We learn that Reva Connors was the love of Luke Cage's life and he was devastated by her death at the hands of a Kilgrave-controlled Jessica Jones. Every scene with Reva in Jessica Jones becomes much harder to watch after Luke Cage (2016) reveals she was complicit in the experiments that went on at Seagate Prison, including the ones that gave Luke his powers.
Jeri Hogarth's subplot in season 2 involves her trying to find a cure for her recently-diagnosed Lou Gehrig's disease, and getting conned by a former nurse who passes her boyfriend off as someone who can heal by touch to trick Jeri into getting him out of prison. Season 2 came out a week before the death of Stephen Hawking, who was known for having lived over 50 years with Lou Gehrig's disease against all odds.
Pop mentions in "Code of the Streets" that he had a son he lost connection with, and how over the years, he could have sat down in his chair and he never would have known. It's one of the reasons he tries to play surrogate father to young men like Chico. It's sad enough that Pop is killed at the end of the episode, but his memorial service three episodes later makes it so much worse. His son is the first person to give a eulogy, mentioning how he knew where his father was, and he wanted to reach out to him, even tell him about his grandchild, but he never did.
Misty Knight gets shot in the right arm by Diamondback during the hostage situation at Harlem's Paradise and almost has to have her arm amputated before medical attention from Claire saves it. Come The Defenders (2017), Misty loses the arm for real while rushing to save Claire from being decapitated by Bakuto.
to become quieter and emptier than normal due to citizens being advised to self-quarantine themselves to remain safe from the virus. Even the comment that the ecology is recovering after the Snap was true as the pandemic led to less pollution and such
