Marvel's Phase Three Quietly Started In The 'Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D' Winter Finale

Marvel Studios' massive Phase Three announcement earlier this year laid out an incredibly ambitious and huge multi-year story that will cross numerous films, through franchises new and old, all culminating in the two-part film Avengers: Infinity War. Well, on Tuesday's Winter finale of Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D, that story quietly began. How and why? We'll save those spoilers for after the jump.

In addition, it was confirmed the ABC show will tie-in with May's Avengers: Age of Ultron. Below, read the Marvel Phase Three Agents of SHIELD connection below.

Spoilers for Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D below.

First up some quick context. On the Tuesday's winter finale, several storylines wrapped up as Skye (Chloe Bennet) was revealed to actually be Daisy Johnson, also known as a character named Quake from Marvel comics. Her father (Kyle MacLachlan) was then revealed to be Calvin Zabo, the true identity of Mister Hyde.

Okay, but so what? What does that have to do with Phase Three? In an interview with Marvel.com, this exchanged happened with S.H.I.E.L.D. executive producers Jed Whedon and Maurissa Tancharoen.

Jed Whedon: There are parts of [The Origin of Quake and Hyde] that move away from the story in the comics, but partially that's because we'd invented our own way [of getting there]. We also wanted it to be a surprise to the people who are familiar with the comics, but [it's] also because we're tying it to a larger world. [It's] not just her origin story, it's the origin story of a bigger, other world.

Marvel.com: And that is a somewhat "inhuman" world, you could say?

Whedon: It's safe to say that.

Marvel.com: When did you hit upon the idea of introducing that Inhuman element into the Marvel Cinematic Universe for the first time?

Maurissa Tancharoen: It's been a property in the Marvel Universe that we've been interested in since the beginning. Our tagline when we began the show was "not all heroes are super," and we wanted to focus on that and highlight that for the first season. Now as we move forward we're diving deeper into the Marvel Universe, and it's our way of exploring a whole new world that may be comprised of people who have special abilities. We think that's going to open everything up for us.

So, basically, Skye is the first Inhuman. Will she actually be in the Inhumans movie come November 2, 2018? Probably not. There's way too much that can happen between now and then. But the Marvel Universe now has humans with genetically modified abilities. Read more about the connection at Marvel.com.

Two other characters who can also be described like that are Avengers: Age of Ultron stars Quicksilver (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen). Talking to Entertainment Weekly, Whedon and Tancharoen confirmed that Avengers: Age of Ultron (but not necessarily those characters) will in fact have an impact on Agents of SHIELD:

Whedon: You should expect something. The Avengers is the big tent that all the franchises play under. Obviously, we're included in that.

Tancharoen: I don't think any movie has the potential to impact us in the way that Captain America 2 did, but there will be connections.

Will that have anything to do with Skye/Daisy now being an Inhuman? Probably not but, the seeds have been planted.

Sure it's a minor thing, but you've got to love seeing these connections happening years out. What do you think about the Marvel Phase three Agents of SHIELD information?