Timeline of the Marvel Universe

This is a description of the Marvel Universe's major events in Chronological order.

(See also The Trope History of the Universe.)

Billions of Years Ago:

 * Creation Of The Universe — A previous universe collapses into a “cosmic egg” that later explodes, creating the current universe. This is apparently a cyclic event, overseen by Cosmic Beings.
 * The last living man of the previous universe is absorbed by the egg, and becomes Galactus billions of years later.
 * Life begins on Earth.
 * The first gods appear, but eventually turn into demonic creatures after they begin eating each other for power. To stop them, Gaea the Earth Goddess gives birth to Atun the Sun-god who, in his own demonic form as Demogorge the God-Eater, destroys most of them. Some of them escape but become trapped.
 * One of them, Cthon, leaves behind The Darkhold, a set of parchments of evil magic that will cause many terrible events.

Millions of Years Ago:

 * The Nuwali, an alien race, begins preserving dinosaurs and other prehistoric species in what will becomeThe Savage Land (in Antarctica.)
 * Set the Snake God, one of the Elder Gods, returns to Earth but is defeated and banished again by the Demogorge. Their battle kills most of the dinosaurs.
 * Cosmic Beings called The Celestials interfere with the evolution of many species across the universe. Most notably they created The Kree and The Skrulls.
 * The Celestials eventually arrive on Earth, where they interfere in human evolution, creating mutants as well as two hidden races, The Eternals and The Deviants.

Pre-Historical times:

 * Atlantis, humanity’s first great civilization, arose. One of its most notable rulers was Conan the Barbarian’s ancestor, King Kull. (Yes, this is still canon despite Marvel no longer having the right to use the Conan characters. They just never use the exact names anymore.)
 * Humanity spreads over Earth and develops several cultures (many of these become the ancestors of later civilizations eg. The Egyptians).
 * The Darkhold -now bound into a book- was used in Atlantis to create Vecna, the first vampire.
 * Eventually, Atlantis developed technology even more advanced than present-day Earth’s. Unfortunately, its use in a war with The Deviants’ empire (on Lemuria, a similar island in the Pacific) led to their mutual destruction (when The Celestials got dragged into it.)
 * The Sorcerer Dakimh The Enchanter managed to escape Atlantis’ destruction with his teacher’s book of magic spells. He’s still alive in Florida.
 * The sunken cities were eventually repopulated by Apparently Human Merfolk.
 * A major space warp within our solar system brings many alien races to Earth. One of them was The Kree, who experiment on some primitive humans, creating what would (eventually) become The Inhuman race.

The Time of Myths:

 * Beings of great power are worshiped as gods. Most were immortal, super strong Human Aliens from other dimensions (this applies to most current Earth Pantheons eg. The Mighty Thor’s.)
 * Many Eternals were mistaken for gods and other mythological figures. The Olympian Gods even explicitly arranged for some Eternals to represent them among humans in exchange for permitting them to keep their invisible city hidden in Mount Olympus.)
 * Ancient Egypt is temporarily ruled by Pharaoh Rama-Tut, actually a time traveler from the future. He will later assume several identities, including Kang The Conqueror. (Note: none of the futures Kang comes from are part of the main Marvel Universe's timeline.)
 * 2000 years ago, The Celestials returned to Earth and forced Earth's gods to stop interfering with humanity, which led to most people thinking they were only myths. (Note that most gods weren't aware of the reason for this, only the rulers of each pantheon knew.)

The Dark Ages:

 * The Wizard Merlin helps King Arthur found the Kingdom of Camelot in Britian. Unfortunately it is eventually brought down by the sorceress Morgan Le Fay and her allies. Both Merlin and Le Fey survive until the Present. Note that there’s more than one person going around claiming to be Merlin.
 * People eventually stop believing that magic or supernatural creatures are real. They still don’t, despite many supernatural heroes and villains acting openly.

19th Century:

 * The first costumed heroes (and villains) appear in America's Wild West.

The 20th Century

 * 1910: Kang The Conqueror establishes the small town of Timely, from which he shares his superscientific knowledge with certain individuals (such as the creator of the Human Torch android) for his own purposes.
 * The first hero team, The Freedom's Brigade, forms to fight the Germans in World War I. Its most notable member is Britain's Union Jack.
 * Kang The Conqueror (see
 * The Existence of superhumans has been known openly since the 1940’s, since Namor the Sub-Mariner’s first attack on New York city.
 * Unfortunately this led to hate mongers spreading fear about Mutants that is still strong to this day.
 * The android Human Torch is the first superpowered hero.
 * Namor, The Torch, Captain America (comics), Union Jack and other heroes join forces to battle Nazis as "The Invaders". They become the All-Winners Squad after the war, but break up soon after.
 * From the fifties and on, the American government tried to either take control of the costumed heroes or shut them down, for example the Agents of Atlas.
 * A secret team of heroes, The First Line, operates outside of public knowledge. They all die preventing a Skrull invasion of Earth during the 1980's. The public at large never finds out.
 * Aliens are also known to exist since The Fifties when many alien criminals tried (and failed) to invade Earth. Curiously the knowledge of the existence of alien life doesn’t seem to matter to most people. Though there IS one agency (SWORD, a division of SHIELD) devoted to dealing with extraterrestrials.

The Present:

 * About 13 years ago, the Fantastic Four make their debut, heralding a new age of superheroes.
 * The Avengers form soon after.
 * As do the X-Men.
 * And The Defenders.
 * As does Spider-Man.

The Future
(note: The Marvel Universe has multiple possible futures; these are just the most likely to happen)
 * About two decades into the future: The sons and daughters of many heroes -most notably Spider-Man's daughter- carry on with their parent's legacy as heroes.
 * At some point in the 21st century: the space portal in Earth's solar system is closed, isolating it from the rest of the universe.
 * 2099: Earth falls under the control of tyrannical corporations.
 * A resurrected Doctor Doom conquers the world, to save it from the megacorps.
 * By the end of the year, the space portal has been reopened.
 * Centuries into the future: the solar system is colonized, by humans who have been genetically engineered to survive the harsh environments of the planets Mercury, Jupiter and Pluto (rather than Terraforming those worlds.)
 * 31st Century: An attack by the alien race called The Badoon destroys Earth's colonies and conquers the planet. The (single) survivors of the colonies join together to fight the invaders, as the Guardians of the Galaxy.
 * The Badoon are eventually defeated... by the females of their species, who demand that they return to their homeworld. The Guardians then expand their activities to the whole galaxy.
 * The End of the Universe: The last leader of the Time Variance Authority (an organization that monitors time) creates The Time Keepers, the TVA's ultimate members. In turn they manipulate Kang's future self, Immortus, for the purpose of eliminating alternate timelines that could prevent their existence. They are eventually killed by Kang.
 * The universe dies (and most likely will be reborn; Galactus, The Phoenix, and/or other Cosmic Entities will likely be involved.)