Marvel Cinematic Universe

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
Like the sun we will live to rise

"You think you're the only superhero in the world? Mr. Stark, you've become part of a bigger universe. You just don't know it yet."

—Nick Fury, in The Stinger to Iron Man

A combined setting occupied by most of the movies produced by Marvel Entertainment (and distributed initially by Paramount Pictures, but now Disney is in charge of that), starting with Iron Man in 2008. Unlike in previous Marvel licensed movies, there exists continuity between different movies. Most prominently, the organization SHIELD ties together the different films as a common element.

It should also be noted that Samuel L. Jackson (who plays Nick Fury) has signed an unprecedented movie deal with Marvel Studios, and has so far appeared in every MCU film made.

Initially, the X-Men and Deadpool were not part of this canon, but with Disney's acquisition of Fox they have been brought back into the fold, with MCU appearances by the X-Men hinted for Phase 5 or 6, and Deadpool possibly earlier. For many years neither was Spider-Man, but in 2015 Sony cut a deal to share him with Marvel, and he made his first MCU appearance in Captain America: Civil War. That deal was renewed in late 2020, and for the foreseeable future Spider-Man will remain in the MCU, with the third MCU Spider-Man film releasing in December 2021. At the end of 2020 the only Marvel characters which remain outside the MCU due to licensing deals are Namor (rights still held by Universal) and Man-Thing (rights held by Lionsgate Entertainment).

For years rumors abound about the repatriation of the Fantastic Four to the MCU, especially after the failure of the 2015 reboot film. Nothing was confirmed for so long that many thought it would never happen, but in December 2020, Kevin Feige formally announced an MCU Fantastic Four film. It took until July 2022 for it to formally appear on the schedule as the first film of Phase 6.

The MCU has been divided by Marvel Studios into several distinct phases. The exact final number of phases is currently unknown, although as of late July 2022, films all the way through the end of Phase 6 have been announced, with the strong implication of further films and TV series past that. Also as of July 2022, the six known phases have been divided into two larger story arcs with their own titles.

The Infinity Saga

Phase 1

Phase 2

Phase 3

The Multiverse Saga

Phase 4

Per the official Phase 4 trailer

Phase 4 also includes several TV series on the Disney+ streaming service:

In addition to these shows, there is also Assembled!, a series focused on behind-the-scenes/making-of mini-documentaries for each of the other series, also on Disney+.

Phase 5

Phase 5 Disney+ shows:

Phase 6

As of the end of July 2022, it is known that the films and series announced so far for Phases 5 and 6 are not the complete slate. Rumors have been circulating about an MCU X-Men film entitled The Mutants, but as of this writing this has been neither confirmed nor denied. What is known is that due to restrictions on recasting written into the various actors' contracts, the earliest it could appear as part of the MCU is 2025. Deadpool 3 is also not yet explicitly scheduled, but there are hints that it will reach theaters as part of The Multiverse Saga, possibly between Fantastic Four and Avengers: The Kang Dynasty. Other titles believed to be part of one or the other of the phases include Wonderman, Armor Wars, Werewolf by Night, World War Hulk, Young Avengers, Eternals 2 and Shang-Chi 2, as well as Wakanda and Shang-Chi Disney+ series.

YouTube

  • WHIH Newsfront: A faux American current affairs digital series serving as the center of several viral marketing campaigns for Marvel Studios. Featuring Leslie Bibb reprising her role as Christine Everhart, it was composed of ten episodes over two "seasons" released in 2015 and 2016. Although the channel has since been deleted, compilation videos can be found easily enough.

Marvel One-Shots

There are also seven shorts originally released as extras on Blu-Ray, primarily during Phase I, and now available on Disney+:

  • Agent Carter
  • The Consultant
  • A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Thor's Hammer
  • Item 47
  • All Hail the King
  • Team Thor Part 1
  • Team Thor Part 2
  • Team Darryl

Broadcast Television

Netflix

With the start of the Disney+ series in 2021 these have have been officially decanonized, and are no longer officially considered part of the MCU. Or are they?

Hulu

Freeform

Comic Book Tie-Ins to the MCU

  • Captain America: First Vengeance - a mid-quel of sorts for the Captain America movie, detailing some backstory for each of the main characters via flashbacks
  • Fury's Big Week - chronicling the events of Iron Man 2, The Incredible Hulk and Thor (as well as the Marvel One-Shots) from SHIELD's perspective and leading directly into The Avengers
  • Iron Mad 3 Prelude - is a mid-quel which is set before, during, and after the events of the Avengers movie and leads up to Iron Man 3.
  • Thor: The Dark World Prelude - is also a mid-quel that's set before, during, and after the Avengers movie's events and also leads up to Thor Dark World.
Tropes present across the MCU regardless of media:

Captain America: When I went under, the world was at war. When I woke, they said we won. They didn't say what we lost.

  • Batman Gambit: The short film The Consultant included on the Thor DVD features Agents Coulson and Sitwell discussing how to get out of the WSC's request that the Abomination be placed on the Avengers instead of the Hulk by having General Ross refuse the request. They send Tony Stark, in the hopes he'll piss Ross off and get him to refuse to release Blonsky. It works.
  • Big Bad: Most of the films and all the TV and Netflix show seasons have their own, but Thanos was slowly built up as this for the first three phases of the movies as a whole, culminating in Infinity War and Endgame. Hydra is also this for multiple films.
  • Bittersweet Ending: So far, four movies have this...
    • The Incredible Hulk: Bruce defeats the Abomination and saves both Betty and General Ross. But in the process, he becomes a fugitive living somewhere in British Columbia, away from his loved one. And Dr. Sterns is on his way to become Leader soon.
    • Thor: Thor stops his adopted brother Loki from destroying Jotunheim and makes amends with his father, but Loki falls off the bridge, and with the Bifröst gone, he remains separated from Jane until she can find a way to be reunited with him. Also, Loki is alive and well on Earth, about to grab a hold of the Cosmic Cube and become one of the major antagonists in The Avengers.
    • Captain America: The First Avenger: Steve stops the Red Skull from obliterating the U.S. using the Cosmic Cube's power but he goes missing for 70 years. When he wakes up, he finds himself in modern times, with Peggy and everyone else presumably long gone or at least very old. His first reaction upon realizing that? "I had a date."
    • The Avengers has a more mild version of this: The day is saved and the world is celebrating the victory, but the fact remains that many people died during the fight in Manhattan, and the team is at least temporarily disbanding, partially so that they and SHIELD won't have to deal with all of the political and legal questions surrounding the incident. All of this is small potatoes, though, to the big thing that makes this bittersweet, although they don't know it yet: Thanos has become interested in Earth.
  • The Cameo: Often, and it helps to establish a connected universe (such as Tony Stark appearing in Incredible Hulk and Nick Fury's brief scenes in Thor and Captain America.
    • Early-Bird Cameo: Often done to hype the next movie in the queue or at least a future one: Nick Fury in Iron Man, Thor's hammer in Iron Man 2, Hawkeye and the Tesseract in Thor, Thanos in The Avengers, the Collector in Thor: The Dark World; Howard the Duck in Guardians of the Galaxy.
    • Creator Cameo: Plus, as is standard procedure for Marvel productions, the late Stan Lee made cameos up until his death. J. Michael Straczynski also appears in Thor as he served as a script consultant.
    • Lou Ferrigno makes another Hulk-related cameo, and in the same film, the late Bill Bixby makes a pseudo-cameo when Bruce is watching "The Courtship of Eddie's Father."
  • Canon Foreigner: SHIELD Agent Phillip Coulson. Became a Canon Immigrant as of the Battle Scars miniseries, which came right before the Avengers movie.
  • Cash Cow Franchise
  • Clarke's Third Law: The films seem to be heading in a generally Sci-Fi direction, though Clarke's Third Law is quoted and specifically referenced in Thor, with Thor saying that in Asgard science and magic are the same thing, rather than sufficiently advanced science passing as magic or magic taking the form of a complex science. Furthermore, the semi-magical Bifröst of Asgard is an Einstein-Rosen Bridge that Jane and her team are studying at the beginning of the film. Loki on the other hand is referred to as "a master of magic" by an Asgardian, so the whole matter is rather unclear. The addition of Dr. Strange and the mystic tradition in which he trained just complicates things. And then there are witches like Agatha Harkness and Wanda Maximoff.
  • Collectible Cloney Babies:
    • Captain America trading cards and comics were issued during World War II. In 2012's The Avengers, it's revealed that SHIELD Agent Phil Coulson had spent several years (and presumably a substantial amount of money) assembling a complete set, which he asked Captain America to autograph.
    • Peter Parker and Ned Leeds spend their downtime building LEGO models. Ned actually broke a thousand-piece model of the Death Star that he had just finished assembling after learning that his best friend is Spider-Man.
  • Comic Book Movies Don't Use Codenames: Most characters don't have them. Iron Monger, Abomination, Black Widow, War Machine, Whiplash, Hawkeye, Red Skull... all of their codenames have been referenced only a few times or not at all.
    • Averted in WandaVision with "The Scarlet Witch", a title and a figure of myth, both of which devolve upon Wanda Maximoff.
  • Continuity Overlap: See below.
  • Crapsack World: Earth, "post-Snap".
  • Eagle Land: Both varieties, in regard to the US military and its affiliates. In Captain America: The First Avenger, most of the army and SSR characters are undoubtedly good at heart, though Philips is often scathing towards Rogers early on. The modern day military and political establishment, by contrast, is unashamedly Type 2 (Rhodes notably excepted), from General Ross and Blonsky to Senator Sterns and Justin Hammer. Even the minor generals only seem to give a damn about getting a hold of the Iron Man technology and nothing else.
    • SHIELD is much more morally grey in comparison, but it's not clear whether it's a US agency given Fury reports to the World Security Council.
  • Extremely Short Timespan: So far, most of the movies take place almost at the same time even though they were all made years apart. Iron Man 2 contains references to The Incredible Hulk and Thor that indicate all three films happened at roughly the same time, and the original Iron Man was only six months earlier. (Captain America: The First Avenger, on the other hand, took place mainly 70 years ago during WWII; and we aren't told when the modern-day bits are in relation to the other films - although SHIELD's world map in Iron Man 2 includes a marking at what would be about the right spot for where Cap was found, meaning the final scenes of that film also probably happen at about the same time). To balance it out, The Avengers takes place at least a year later.
    • The Avengers tie-in comic Fury's Big Week puts more detail into the timeline by showing the events of Iron Man 2, Thor and The Incredible Hulk all happened the same week. Tony and Rhodey's fight took place the same day Bruce Banner crossed the border into the United States, which was also the same day Agent Coulson reported electro-magnetic disturbances in New Mexico to Nick Fury. Thor and Mjolnir arrived in New Mexico the day after the Stark Expo battle, while Hulk's fight at Culver University took place on the same day as Tony and Fury's conversation at the end of Iron Man 2, which was also the same day Thor got his powers back (and possibly the same day Cap was discovered).
    • Averted in Avengers: Endgame, which has a five-year Time Skip in its first half-hour.
  • Genre Roulette: Though collectively under the "superhero" genre, each hero's movies skew towards their own genre. Iron Man is Science Fiction, The Incredible Hulk is a Monster Movie, Thor is Fantasy, and Captain America: The First Avenger is more of a War Movie. The Avengers, throwing everybody together, falls under Science Fantasy.
  • Gilligan Cut: From the Marvel One-Shot The Consultant.

Agent Coulson: "Stop it. I am not calling the consultant."
*cut to [a clip of] the The Stinger of The Incredible Hulk* Tony Stark - not Iron Man - was the consultant; hired as such at the end of Iron Man 2.

  • Government Agency of Fiction: SHIELD in all the movies, and before their time, there was the Strategic Scientific Reserve, which is implied to be the OSS to SHIELD's CIA.
  • Hero of Another Story: Many of the movies tease that there are other superheroes out there, Tony Stark pops up in The Incredible Hulk, Nick Fury has appeared at least by name in every film so far, Hawkeye as an Agent of SHIELD in Thor, etc.
  • Hey, It's That Guy!: A twofer -- For all of the well known actors appearing in the films, and for the various cameo appearances in the films by characters from other entries in the universe.
  • Hide Your Gays: Averted as of the end of Phase 3: A gay man is one member of a support group run by Steve Rogers in Avengers: Endgame, and Valkyrie (played by Tessa Thompson) has been acknowledged to be gay as well, although that has yet to appear on-screen.
  • Live Action Adaptation: Obviously.
  • Mr. Alt Disney: Howard Stark is deliberately modeled on Walt Disney, starting from his physical appearance and moving on from there. For instance, the "archived footage" of him in Iron Man 2 is deliberately modeled on the short film Disney made in the early 1960s to explain his EPCOT project.
  • Multiverse: A unifying theme in the back half of Phase 4, hinted at in Spider-Man: Far From Home and WandaVision, and explicitly invoked in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.
    • In the very first episode of Loki, it's revealed that the MCU used to be a Multiverse, but became a singular "Sacred Timeline" forged out of all the different universes by the godlike Timekeepers after a multiversal war. The Time Variance Authority, created by the Timekeepers, is given charge of making sure it stays a single timeline. However in episode two, what is believed to be an alternate Loki uses their own equipment to "bomb" the Sacred Timeline and spawn a new multiverse.
  • Mythology Gag: Bound to be several considering their comic book origins. A few in particular come to mind:
    • Tony considers making the Mk II armor completely gold, but then decides it's "a little ostentatious" before throwing the red in.
    • A student being interviewed about the Hulk's rampage is named Jack McGee after the reporter from the 70s TV series. His friend is named Jim Wilson, an old side character from the comics.
    • A billboard in New Mexico advertises a "Journey Into Mystery," the title of the series Thor debuted in.
    • Agent Coulson gets gas from Roxxon Oil in "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Thor's Hammer".
  • Not Wearing Tights: Surprisingly, for a superhero universe, the heroes often don't wear tights. Iron Man simply has Power Armor, Hulk has little more than a pair of Magic Pants, and Thor spends a lot of the time in Civvie Spandex and mostly dons his battle armor and cape in Asgard where it's much more typical. Though Captain America does wear tights as part of his USO costume, he later dons a still pretty traditional superhero uniform, but it's mostly re-colored battle fatigues and a mask. Even later, his modern-day costume in The Avengers resembles a flight suit with added details. Hawkeye and Black Widow use basic spy uniforms.
  • Nothing Is the Same Anymore: While all four of the main heroes made big splashes, the coming of Thor made Earth aware of intelligent life on other worlds and made SHIELD and the WSC realize how technologically outmatched Earth is.
  • The Other Darrin: Mark Ruffalo is this to Edward Norton as Bruce Banner in the Avengers movie.
    • And before that, Don Cheadle replaced Terrence Howard as James Rhodes.
    • Howard Stark has been played by a different actor in each film he's appeared in (Iron Man, Iron Man 2, and Captain America).[please verify]
  • Time Skip: A conversation with Banner in The Avengers notes that while Hulk, Iron Man 2 and Thor took place within a week of each other The Avengers takes place at least a year after that.
  • Phlebotinum Du Jour: The entire Verse invokes three versions:
    • Genetic Engineering Is the New Nuke: Captain America and the Super Serum which made him who he is has been coveted ever since World War II, with many sides failing to reproduce it in any functional capacity. Cap himself, The Hulk, The Red Skull, and The Abomination are all byproducts of this form of phlebotinum.
    • I Love Nuclear Power: Gamma radiation is the specific shtick of the Hulk franchise, but other heroes have some radiation involved too (Captain America's origin involved "Vita-Rays", Thor's hammer can cause electromagnetic disturbances), and all Tesseract and Arc-Reactor (see below) based-technology emits gamma and other types of radiation.
    • Imported Alien Phlebotinum: Asgardian tech, specifically the Tesseract. Besides all the Asgardian gear in Thor and the use of the Tesseract in Captain America and The Avengers, it's also implied that Iron Man's Arc Reactor was reverse-engineered from the Tesseract by Howard Stark.
  • Playing Against Type:
  • Promoted Fanboy: Notably, Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury; when Marvel asked for the rights to his likeness for the Ultimate Marvel version of Fury, Jackson said he wanted the chance to play Fury in a movie in exchange.
  • Reasonable Authority Figure: SHIELD.
  • Rule of Cool: In two regards: One, the production teams never forget (as their DC counterparts far too often seem to) what makes their world and characters cool and fun. Two: one of the reasons the MCU attracts A-list talent is because they want to be involved in a cool and fun project that lets them do things they wouldn't elsewhere.
  • Running Gag: As with all Marvel productions, Marvel Comics co-creator the late Stan Lee being featured in most of the films made before 2021 in blink-and-you'll-miss-it (and sometimes longer) Creator Cameos.
    • It's not a good idea for Asgardians like Thor and Loki to boast how powerful they are. They're not even going to finish the sentence.
  • Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: Generally trending strongly to the idealistic side.
    • A major part of the conflict in the Avengers' team stemmed from Steve Rogers' "outdated and irrelevant" idealism clashing head on with Tony Stark's hedonistic and materialistic cynicism. Ironic, considering how Steve and Howard (Tony's father) got-along quite well in World War II. (At one point in The Avengers, Steve says that Tony "isn't the man his father was" to Tony's face. It doesn't go over well.)
  • Secret Identity: Black Widow and, to a certain extent, Bruce Banner are the only heroes who have them.
    • Tony Stark had one for a few hours.
    • Played with in regards to Thor, whose friends made an attempt at disguising him as a Dr. Donald Blake in order to fool SHIELD agents. It didn't work.
  • Smug Snake: Loki straddles the line between this and Magnificent Bastard. While he's far from incompetent, he is nowhere near as good as he thinks he is and ultimately, his arrogance is what leads to his downfall. Interestingly, as he moves from villain to anti-hero and beyond he grows more capable (although he never does stop being smug).
  • Spy Catsuit: Black Widow and Maria Hill; probably goes for all the female SHIELD agents. Hawkeye seems to have a variation of one as well. All of the bridge crew of the helicarrier also wear them.
  • The Stinger: Virtually all of the movies have had one, so far. The Incredible Hulk and Captain America: The First Avenger are exceptions. One was originally planned for the Hulk's movie (The Tony Stark scene) but was edited into the film proper. Captain America‍'‍s stinger was more like a teaser trailer for the Avengers movie.
  • Superhero: *ahem* Have you been reading this page?
  • Super Soldier: About half of the superhuman origins in this 'verse have their roots in trying to either bioengineer better soldiers or just give them better equipment; most obviously Captain America but also Iron Monger, Hulk, Abomination, the Hammer drones, and Red Skull. Most of the rest are tied to Asgardian tech the Infinity Stones, specifically the Tesseract (see Imported Alien Phlebotinum above).
  • Super Weight:
    • Type -1: Steve Rogers pre-treatment
    • Type 0: Agent Coulson, Thunderbolt Ross, Howard Stark, Tony Stark, Quentin "Mysterio" Beck
    • Type 1: Black Widow, Hawkeye, Thor (human), Nick Fury, Maria Hill, the Howling Commandos, SSR soldiers, Emil Blonsky (pre-serum)
    • Type 2: Captain America, Red Skull, Emil Blonsky (after serum), Spider-Man, anyone armed with HYDRA weaponry, Whiplash (first suit)
    • Type 3: Most Asgardians, Loki (during Thor), Frost Giants, Chitauri soldiers
    • Type 4: Iron Man, War Machine, Obadiah Stane (Iron Monger suit), Whiplash (second suit), Hammeroids, Hulk, the Abomination, Thor, Odin, Loki (during The Avengers), the Destroyer, the Tesseract (so far), Heimdall, Leviathans
    • Type 5: the Bifrost, Thanos
  • This Is Gonna Suck: Numerous scenes throughout the movies, but the biggest by far being the post credit scene for Thor.
  • Thou Shalt Not Kill: Largely averted. While the various heroes portrayed to date have different rules of engagement, none of them follow the classic super hero idea of never ever using deadly force, nor are they portrayed as being unheroic for doing so.
    • Iron Man is perfectly willing to incinerate terrorists with flamethrowers, blow them away with rockets, put smart bullets between their eyes, pulp them with repulsors, or even just his armored hands. He makes the best weapons on Earth, and you'd better remember that.
    • Thor, on the other hand, has to be pressed pretty firmly for him to use lethal force; though he'll lay the smack down on Frost Giants like it was going out of style, not a single one of Coulson's security team in New Mexico was hurt bad enough to require medical attention - though the way he made "some of the most highly trained professionals in the world look like a bunch of minimum-wage mall cops" just freaks out everyone present even more.
    • Captain America blows up Nazis real good. He'll drop that to save a buddy, though.
    • Oddly enough, the Hulk so far is the only hero who restrained himself from using lethal force against a clearly evil opponent - he spared Blonsky at Betty's plea. It's a Long List, but he's made a greasy smear out of everyone else who's crossed him, and it's sheer dumb luck that his body count is so low. Yeah, you'd better "Leave Hulk Alone."
      • Well, dumb luck and the fact that very few people want to get too close to Hulk.
  • Time Skip: Five years' worth, in the first half-hour of Avengers: Endgame. Because of it, the MCU is now running five years ahead of "real time" (i.e., Spider-Man: Far From Home, released in 2019, is set in 2024.)
  • Truer to the Text: Captain America: The First Avenger is significantly more faithful to the source material than the 1990 Captain America film was, to say nothing of the 1979 TV movies starring Reb Brown. But then, this is to be expected from Marvel making their own movies.
  • The Verse: The MCU is designated Earth-199999 in the overall Marvel Multiverse.
  • Wham! Line: The Stinger from Iron Man. Whilst there had been talk of Marvel wanting to make an Avengers movie at some point, this was the moment that it became a reality.

Nick Fury: I'm here to talk to you about the Avenger Initiative.

    • And the second big Wham! Line of the MCU; not so much for what's being said as who it's said to:

The Other: To challenge them is to court death... [cue Thanos]

Agent Cale: Is this one of Stark's?
Agent Coulson: I don't know. That guy never tells me anything.


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