[0:00] The Marvel Cinematic Universe has been 
going strong since 2008, but its story  
[0:05] at this point covers thousands of years. 
Need to catch up on the latest developments?  
[0:10] Ah, let's just go through the whole thing.
[0:12] "Uh, where to start. Um…"
[0:17] If you really want to know where things 
started in the Marvel Cinematic Universe,  
[0:21] you have to go all the way back to 
before the Big Bang. No, really.
[0:26] Before the beginning of the universe, before 
even the creation of the "six singularities"  
[0:30] that caused the universe to explode into 
existence, there were the Celestials. Beings  
[0:35] of infinite cosmic power, the Celestials — led by 
Arishem the Judge — created the original planets,  
[0:42] stars, and lifeforms of the infant 
universe following the Big Bang.
[0:46] Realizing they need help to expand 
the universe and create more life,  
[0:50] the first Celestials seed planets 
with embryonic Celestials.  
[0:54] These new gods would be born once sentient life 
on each planet rose to a critical juncture,  
[1:00] allowing for the Emergence of a new Celestial 
and resulting in the destruction of that world.  
[1:05] To assist in this process, the Celestials 
genetically engineered Deviant monsters  
[1:10] to wipe out the apex predators of each world, 
encouraging sentient life to develop and multiply.
[1:16] Unfortunately, the Celestials miscalculated. 
The Deviants did their job so well they started  
[1:21] hunting down and killing all lifeforms, preventing 
Emergences. To keep them in check, the Celestials  
[1:28] created the Eternals, synthetic lifeforms sent 
to different worlds across the cosmos to kill  
[1:33] the Deviants and protect the planet's lifeforms. 
Regarded as gods and superheroes by the populace,  
[1:39] the Eternals are unknowingly preparing the planets 
for their destruction. Following each Emergence,  
[1:45] the Eternals' memories are wiped so they 
could be reused on different worlds.
[1:49] Meanwhile, other interesting things are happening 
throughout the universe. The "six singularities"  
[1:54] that created the cosmos became the Infinity 
Stones — objects that controlled fundamental  
[1:59] forces like time, space, and reality itself. 
They were then scattered across the universe,  
[2:05] popping up here and there and awaiting 
the eventual arrival of a giant golden  
[2:09] oven mitt that would be used by a purple 
sociopath to kill off half the universe.
[2:14] That, of course, was billions of years ago, but 
it's not the only thing to happen in those long  
[2:19] eons. Millions of years before we get to the 
present-day MCU, Ego the Living Planet comes  
[2:25] into existence, gains cosmic awareness, and 
seeds "thousands of worlds" with his essence in  
[2:31] an attempt to create another Celestial being like 
himself. But though he may in fact be a god-like  
[2:36] figure, in the end he's still essentially just a 
selfish, deadbeat dad. No wonder Peter has issues.
[2:41] "Well, of course I have issues. 
That's my freakin' father!"
[2:47] As far as the heroes and villains of Earth 
are concerned, the MCU doesn't start with  
[2:51] Tony Stark getting kidnapped in 2008, Carol 
Danvers being taken to Hala in the '90s, or  
[2:57] even with Steve Rogers volunteering for the Super 
Soldier program in the '40s. The actual beginning  
[3:03] happened in 5000 BC when ten immortal Eternals 
— Sersi, Ikaris, Ajak, Kingo, Sprite, Phastos,  
[3:12] Makkari, Thena, Druig, and Gilgamesh — arrived 
on Earth to take out the Deviants on our planet.
[3:19] For thousands of years, the Eternals 
protected emerging humankind,  
[3:23] largely through epic super 
battles with giant monsters.  
[3:27] By 1521, the Eternals finally manage to defeat 
all the Deviants on Earth — or so they think.  
[3:33] Lacking any real direction now that their 
main reason for coming to the planet is gone,  
[3:38] they scatter and get jobs as teachers, Bollywood 
film stars, and South American cult leaders.
[3:44] Since the Celestials have instructed 
the Eternals not to interfere in  
[3:48] humanity unless Deviants were involved, 
other god-like beings get the chance to  
[3:53] descend onto Earth and have their time 
to shine. These include the Asgardians,  
[3:58] vastly powerful alien beings who visit our planet 
many times and give rise to Norse mythology.  
[4:04] Still, the most exciting stuff those guys were 
up to happens off-world in the realm of Asgard.
[4:09] This mythological time scale begins 
millennia ago, as we find out in "Thor:  
[4:14] The Dark World," when Malekith the Accursed 
lays siege to Asgard and is fought off by Bor,  
[4:20] the father of Odin. Bor vanquishes Malekith, 
which turns out to be a temporary solution.
[4:26] While we don't know exactly when it happens,  
[4:28] the next chronological event that we see from our 
characters is Odin's conquest of the Nine Realms  
[4:34] alongside his first child, Hela, 
Goddess of Death. During this era,  
[4:38] the magic warhammer Mjolnir is forged in 
the heart of a dying star, and used by Hela.
[4:45] Thanks to her bloodthirsty 
ruthlessness and ambition,  
[4:48] Odin turns against her, and in the battle that 
follows, Hela slaughters the Valkyrior. The sole  
[4:53] surviving Valkyrie flees from Asgard, spending 
the next few thousand years drunk and depressed.  
[4:59] Eventually, she winds up on Sakaar, a 
cosmic garbage dump that an immortal  
[5:04] being called the Grandmaster builds 
into an interstellar gladiatorial arena.  
[5:09] Hela is then imprisoned in another dimension by 
Odin, who covers up all traces of her existence.
[5:15] Sometime after that (but still far enough 
back that people were writing about it  
[5:19] in the 13th century), Odin and Frigga 
have a son, Thor. Shortly thereafter,  
[5:24] Odin slays the frost giant Laufey and adopts his 
son, Loki, as his own. Not too long after this,  
[5:31] during their youth, Loki turns into a 
snake because he knows Thor loves snakes,  
[5:35] and then tries to stab him. In one 
universe, he manages to succeed.
[5:40] "What was your nexus event, your majesty?"
[5:43] "I killed Thor."
[5:45] Also millions of years before the present day, 
a meteorite made of the super-metal Vibranium  
[5:50] strikes Earth in Africa, drastically 
affecting the surrounding area. Much,  
[5:55] much later, this area becomes the country 
of Wakanda when a "warrior shaman" receives  
[6:00] a vision from the goddess Bast and founds a 
dynasty of kings known as the Black Panthers.  
[6:05] The Wakandans become secretive and isolationist, 
remaining unconquered throughout history and using  
[6:11] the Vibranium to create fantastic technology, 
away from the eyes of the outside world.
[6:17] Moving to just about a thousand 
years before the present day,  
[6:20] the warlord Xu Wenwu makes a fantastic discovery 
of his own when he comes across ten otherworldly  
[6:26] rings that grant him immortality and the 
strength of a god. Using the rings to  
[6:31] establish his Ten Rings criminal organization, 
Wenwu conquers kingdoms and topples governments,  
[6:37] amassing an incredible power structure 
that influences the direction of the world.
[6:42] Believe it or not, there's not a 
whole lot that happens between the  
[6:46] unification of Wakanda, the rise 
of Wenwu, and the 20th century.
[6:50] In 1693 the witch Agatha Harkness escapes 
being burned at the stake by her mother  
[6:55] and a bunch of other witches who aren't 
happy with her practice of dark magic.  
[6:59] She drains their life energies and gets her 
hands on the Darkhold before disappearing  
[7:03] to get into all sorts of trouble before 
she pops up again in the present day.
[7:08] Jumping ahead to 1942, a Nazi officer 
known as Johann Schmidt experiments on  
[7:13] himself with an early version of Dr. Abraham 
Erskine's Super Soldier Serum, gaining both a  
[7:19] physically perfect body and a decidedly redder 
complexion. Now calling himself the Red Skull,  
[7:25] he takes charge of a splinter group called Hydra. 
With the discovery of one of the Infinity Stones  
[7:31] (in the form of the Tesseract), he creates 
a technologically advanced army of his own.
[7:35] That same year, Steve Rogers volunteers 
for the Strategic Scientific Reserve's  
[7:40] attempt at creating a super-soldier using 
a technique created by Dr. Abraham Erskine.  
[7:46] The project works, giving Steve the body of 
a hunky Chris Evans. After the experiment,  
[7:51] Erskine is assassinated, and his research is lost. 
Rather than risking their only super-soldier by  
[7:57] sending him to fight in the war, the SSR gives 
Steve the codename Captain America and uses  
[8:03] him primarily as a spokesman to sell war bonds 
in USO shows set to an extremely catchy song.
[8:09] Eventually, Steve goes AWOL to rescue his 
best friend Bucky Barnes, and becomes an  
[8:14] active soldier in the war, leading a strike team 
called the Howling Commandos, including Bucky.  
[8:19] On one of their missions, Bucky falls from a train 
into a ravine, seemingly to his death. However,  
[8:25] Bucky is actually taken into custody by the 
Soviet Army, given cybernetic enhancements,  
[8:30] and brainwashed into becoming a 
super-assassin, codenamed Winter Soldier.
[8:35] After attempting to use the Tesseract, 
the Red Skull is sucked into a wormhole,  
[8:40] becoming the second person in "Captain America: 
The First Avenger" to survive an apparent death.  
[8:45] In reality, he winds up on the distant planet 
Vormir, serving as a sort of spectral guardian  
[8:51] for the Soul Stone. As for Steve, he crashes a 
bomber jet into the arctic to keep Hydra from  
[8:56] destroying New York. He is also presumed 
dead, but he survives, frozen in suspended  
[9:02] animation for the next 66 years. Jeez, doesn't 
anyone who dies in this movie actually die?
[9:09] While things are pretty quiet for the MCU between 
1945 and 1995, there are a few notable exceptions.  
[9:16] Peggy Carter continues to work for 
the SSR, first in New York in 1946,  
[9:21] and then in Los Angeles alongside 
Howard Stark in 1947. Around this time,  
[9:26] the Soviet Union produces the first 
graduates of its brutal Red Room facility,  
[9:31] where orphaned girls are trained as spies 
and assassins– codenamed Black Widows.
[9:36] Sometime after this — presumably around 1948 
or '49 — Steve Rogers travels back in time  
[9:43] from 2023 to reunite with Peggy. She continues 
to work in military intelligence for the next  
[9:49] few decades with Stark, whose defense contracts 
turn Stark Industries into the world's leading  
[9:54] arms manufacturer. By 1970, both of them are 
working out of SSR Headquarters at Camp Lehigh,  
[10:00] along with a few other notable figures. Arnim 
Zola, who worked with the Red Skull back in  
[10:05] the '40s, is stationed here, and although his 
body dies in the '70s, his brain is transferred  
[10:10] into a computer databank that continues 
Hydra's infiltration of the government. Also,  
[10:16] Hank Pym is working here, assisted by Bill Foster 
in his experiments with the size-changing "Pym  
[10:21] Particles" that will allow him and his wife Janet 
Van Dyne to become the original Ant-Man and Wasp.
[10:28] Between the '70s and the '90s, several small 
but key events happen throughout the MCU.  
[10:33] In 1974, Howard Stark launches the Stark 
Expo, displaying the City of the Future,  
[10:39] powered by a clean-energy ARC reactor 
that's about the size of a house.  
[10:44] For some reason, he also hides the structure of a 
new element in the arrangement of the buildings,  
[10:49] which is the kind of science it 
pays to not think too hard about.
[10:52] "Congratulations, sir. You 
have created a new element."
[10:58] In 1980, Ego comes to Earth, winning the 
heart of Meredith Quill. Nine months later,  
[11:04] their son Peter Quill is born. In 1987, 
Janet Van Dyne is lost in the Quantum Realm  
[11:10] after she and Hank Pym attempt to stop a rogue 
Soviet missile targeting the United States.
[11:16] In 1988, Meredith Quill dies from brain cancer 
(intentionally caused by Ego), leaving her son  
[11:23] a mixtape of classic rock favorites. Peter is 
then abducted by a band of outer-space outlaws  
[11:28] called the Ravagers. Their leader, Yondu, then 
raises Quill as a son, albeit very abusively.
[11:35] In 1989, Pym resigns from the SSR 
(now renamed as the Strategic Homeland  
[11:40] Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division)  
[11:43] after finding out that they intended 
to use Pym Particles to create weapons.
[11:47] Also that year, Air Force Captain Carol 
Danvers, who uses the callsign "Avenger"  
[11:52] during her flights, volunteers for a test flight 
of a lightspeed engine created by scientist Wendy  
[11:58] Lawson. Lawson turns out to be one of the Kree, 
a militaristic alien race constantly at war  
[12:04] with the shapeshifting Skrulls, and her engine is 
powered by the Tesseract. When they're shot down,  
[12:10] Carol's body is overloaded with the Tesseract's 
energy, giving her incredible powers and also  
[12:15] wiping her memory. A Kree soldier named 
Yon-Rogg abducts her and takes her back  
[12:20] to the Kree homeworld of Hala, where she is made 
to believe that she's actually a Kree named Vers,  
[12:26] fighting alongside them as a 
member of the Kree Starforce.
[12:30] While all of this is happening on Earth, 
things continue to develop in space.  
[12:34] Thanos, an incredibly powerful alien from 
the planet Titan who's obsessed with balance,  
[12:39] begins to seek out the Infinity Stones. Along the 
way, he lays waste to half of the population of  
[12:45] entire planets, occasionally taking young 
survivors and training them as soldiers.
[12:50] Assuming that most of the more humanoid characters 
are the same age as the people portraying them,  
[12:56] then his two most notable adoptions 
happen in the late '80s or early '90s.  
[13:00] Gamora is taken in as a young girl after Thanos 
kills half of the population of her home planet.  
[13:06] Throughout her childhood, Thanos pits her against 
her adopted sister, Nebula. Every time they spar,  
[13:12] Gamora wins, and Thanos systematically replaces 
pieces of Nebula's body with cybernetic parts in  
[13:19] order to make her a more efficient killer. This 
creates a lot of resentment in Nebula, not only  
[13:24] against Thanos but also toward Gamora, which 
will greatly affect their later relationship.
[13:30] In 1991, the Soviet government sends the Winter 
Soldier to assassinate Howard and Maria Stark.  
[13:36] This will have massive ramifications later on, 
but the immediate effect is that their brilliant  
[13:41] slacker son, Tony Stark, is left in charge of 
Stark Industries, along with Obadiah Stane as  
[13:47] CEO. They continue to manufacture weapons 
using Tony's increasingly deadly designs,  
[13:53] selling them to all sides of 
virtually every global conflict,  
[13:57] with Obadiah in particular making a profit 
from secret arms deals with terrorist groups.
[14:03] In 1992, King T'Chaka of Wakanda goes 
to Oakland, California, to investigate  
[14:08] arms deals involving stolen Vibranium. The 
culprit is his brother, N'Jobu, who is killed in  
[14:14] the altercation. N'Jobu's son, Erik, is a witness 
to the whole thing and grows up craving revenge.
[14:21] Meanwhile, Russian super-soldier Alexei 
Shostakov and Black Widow weapons designer  
[14:26] Melina Vostokoff go deep undercover in 
Ohio, posing as an all-American family  
[14:32] with their so-called "daughters" — 7-year-old 
Natasha Romanoff and 3-year-old Yelena Belova.
[14:37] While Alexei and Melina work to steal a 
SHIELD (or actually HYDRA) project focused  
[14:42] on free will and mind control, Natasha and Yelena 
experience some semblance of a normal childhood.
[14:48] By 1995, however, the mission is complete, 
and the family flees to Cuba. However,  
[14:54] once they arrive they are split apart and 
Natasha and Yelena return to the Red Room,  
[14:58] where they continue their Black 
Widow training/torture sessions.
[15:03] Also in 1995, Carol Danvers — still without her 
memories of Earth — returns to her home planet  
[15:09] after escaping from the Skrulls. She teams up 
with SHIELD Agents Nick Fury and Phil Coulson  
[15:14] to stop the Skrulls from invading Earth, only 
to learn that they're not actually the bad guys.  
[15:20] Instead, it's the Kree that are the problem, 
with Yon-Rogg and Ronan the Accuser en route  
[15:25] in search of the Infinity Stones that will 
end their war of conquest once and for all.
[15:31] Carol, taking the name Captain Marvel, fights 
them off and saves a bunch of Skrull refugees.  
[15:37] In the process, an alien cat scratches Nick 
Fury's left eye, blinding it and causing him  
[15:42] to sport a fashionable eyepatch for the rest 
of the series. Before she journeys back into  
[15:47] space to aid the Skrulls, Carol gives Fury a pager 
that can summon her in case of a dire emergency.  
[15:53] Inspired by Carol and her original callsign, Fury 
lays the groundwork for the Avengers Initiative,  
[15:59] a program designed to create 
a team of super-powered heroes  
[16:03] to deal with large-scale 
threats like alien invasions.
[16:06] In 1996, Wenwu — having used his Ten Rings 
organization to secretly conquer or influence  
[16:12] practically everything on Earth — turns his 
attention to the mystical realm of Ta Lo.  
[16:17] After finding a magical forest near the village 
entrance, he meets and falls in love with the  
[16:22] village guardian, Ying Li. The two marry and 
have two children — Shang-Chi and Xialing.  
[16:28] For a time, Wenwu reforms, but when 
his wife is killed by his rivals,  
[16:32] he decides to recreate the Ten Rings and 
train his son Shang-Chi to be a living weapon.
[16:38] In 1999, Tony Stark meets 
bio-engineers Maya Hansen  
[16:42] and Aldrich Killian at a conference in Bern, 
Switzerland. He's very rude to Aldrich,  
[16:47] who remembers that as a sore point for 
about 14 years. Throughout all this,  
[16:52] Hydra continues its secret infiltration of SHIELD 
and all levels of the United States government.
[16:58] All that brings us to 2008 and "Iron 
Man," the movie that launched the MCU.  
[17:03] Almost everything from here on 
plays out in chronological order,  
[17:07] in the years that the movies 
were actually released. Almost.
[17:10] In 2008, Tony Stark is demonstrating 
his newest weapons in the Middle East  
[17:15] when he's kidnapped by a terrorist 
organization called the Ten Rings,  
[17:19] in what will eventually be revealed as a 
plot by Stane to get Tony out of the picture.
[17:24] While he's imprisoned, the terrorists force him 
and another captive, Dr. Ho Yinsen (who was also  
[17:31] at that fateful 1999 convention in Bern, not that 
Tony noticed), to make weapons for them. Instead,  
[17:37] Tony is able to recreate a miniaturized version of 
his father's ARC reactor, using it to stabilize a  
[17:43] piece of shrapnel that's lodged near his heart. 
The reactor also powers the "Iron Man," a suit  
[17:49] of weaponized armor built from scrap, which 
allows Tony to escape after Yinsen's death.
[17:54] "Tony Stark was able to build this 
in a cave! With a box of scraps!"
[18:01] He returns to America, eats a cheeseburger, 
refines his design, and wipes out the Ten Rings  
[18:07] (the ones in the Middle East, at least) in 
a brutally effective display of the Iron  
[18:12] Man's weapons. He also defeats Stane, who 
attempts to kill Tony and create his own  
[18:16] massive suit of powered armor. Tony then 
publicly reveals his identity as Iron Man,  
[18:22] causing Nick Fury to approach him 
about the Avengers initiative.
[18:26] Around the same time as Tony's capture, Dr. 
Bruce Banner — whose seven PhDs apparently  
[18:31] include physics and biological engineering — is 
working on recreating the Super Soldier program.  
[18:37] Instead of Erskine's "Vita Rays," he uses Gamma 
radiation, testing it on himself and turning  
[18:42] himself into a rampaging, green, monstrous 
Hulk whenever he gets angry. After the Hulk  
[18:48] inadvertently injures Banner's girlfriend, 
Betty Ross, he attempts to go underground,  
[18:53] but returns to America in search of a cure for his 
condition. He winds up dealing with a scientist  
[18:59] named Samuel Sterns, who wants to recreate 
the Hulk, and a soldier called Emil Blonsky,  
[19:05] who turns himself into a similarly 
hulking monster called the Abomination.
[19:10] Also, around this time, SHIELD agent Clint 
Barton, aka Hawkeye, is tasked with finding  
[19:16] and eliminating Natasha Romanoff, the Black 
Widow. Barton tracks down Natasha to her  
[19:21] safehouse in Budapest but feels Natasha wants 
out of the Red Room, so he lets her live. SHIELD  
[19:26] decides to let Natasha defect to their side — but 
requires her to kill her overseer General Dreykov  
[19:33] first. Natasha and Clint rig a five-story building 
with bombs and lure the Red Room's mastermind into  
[19:39] the kill zone — but Dreykov's young daughter 
Antonia also gets caught in the explosion. While  
[19:44] disturbed by the additional red in her ledger, 
Natasha nevertheless begins working for SHIELD.
[19:52] Six months after revealing his identity publicly, 
Tony Stark is called to testify before Congress,  
[19:57] because they are justifiably concerned about a 
private citizen building a suit of armor that can  
[20:02] vaporize a tank. To create their own version, they 
turn to rival weapons manufacturer Justin Hammer.
[20:08] After Tony's friend, Colonel James Rhodes, 
delivers a prototype Iron Man suit,  
[20:13] Hammer and Russian scientist Ivan Vanko 
reverse-engineer them into an army of drones.  
[20:19] Stark also gets a new personal 
assistant, who is revealed to be  
[20:23] SHIELD agent and Red Room defector 
Natasha Romanoff, the Black Widow.
[20:27] "I want one."
[20:28] "No."
[20:29] Stark and Rhodes, equipped with his own 
militarized suit of armor codenamed War  
[20:34] Machine, defeat Vanko and Hammer.
[20:36] Over at the Ten Rings compound, a now 14-year-old 
Shang-Chi has become the Master of Kung Fu, having  
[20:43] been taught every possible way to kill a man over 
the last seven years. Assigned to assassinate the  
[20:48] man responsible for his mother's murder, Shang-Chi 
completes his mission but is badly traumatized.  
[20:54] Unwilling to return to his father, Shang-Chi 
cleverly adopts the name Shaun and starts  
[21:00] going to high school in San Francisco. There he 
meets his best friend Katy, a skilled driver.
[21:05] While all this is happening on Earth, there's 
other stuff going on in the Golden Realm of  
[21:09] Asgard. Loki tricks Thor into antagonizing 
the Frost Giants of Jotunheim against  
[21:15] Odin's orders. As a consequence, Odin exiles 
Thor to Earth and enchants his hammer, Mjolnir,  
[21:22] so that only someone worthy of Thor's power can 
lift it. It lands in New Mexico, where Agent  
[21:27] Coulson discovers it. After a bunch of hicks try 
to yank it out of the ground with pickup trucks,  
[21:32] SHIELD constructs a temporary facility around 
it. Thor eventually proves himself worthy,  
[21:37] regains his hammer, and stops Loki 
from staging a coup in Asgard.
[21:41] In 2011, a team of Russian oil drillers discovers 
the crashed Hydra plane in the arctic and alerts  
[21:48] SHIELD. Captain America is thawed out and revived, 
and after realizing that he's in the 21st century,  
[21:54] he joins up with Nick Fury's Avengers 
Initiative. It turns out he was just in time!
[21:59] In 2012, Loki, last seen adrift in 
space after his failed coup in Asgard,  
[22:05] is enlisted by Thanos to recover the Tesseract 
from Earth, with his recent brief visit to the  
[22:11] planet being seen by the Mad Titan as relevant 
employment experience. In exchange, Thanos gives  
[22:16] him control of the Chitauri, a massive army of 
hive-minded destroyers, which would allow Loki to  
[22:22] lay waste to the planet. Loki, apparently being in 
One Of His Moods that day, agrees. He lets himself  
[22:29] be captured by SHIELD, incites a riot, and stabs 
poor Phil Coulson in the back – but don't worry,  
[22:35] he gets better. The ensuing ruckus provides 
the superheroes with a reason to come together.
[22:40] The result is the Battle of New York, in which the 
Avengers — Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, Black  
[22:46] Widow, Hulk, and Hawkeye — are gathered for the 
first time as a team. The good guys win after Loki  
[22:52] is smashed against the ground five or six times, 
but the battle is not without its consequences.
[22:57] Unlike in the real world, where it's pretty 
nice these days, the MCU's version of Hell's  
[23:02] Kitchen takes a lot of damage and winds up being 
a center of corruption and graft as it's rebuilt.  
[23:08] This injustice leads blind lawyer Matt Murdock to 
take on the identity of Daredevil to fight against  
[23:14] criminal kingpin Wilson Fisk, and eventually 
team up with other super-powered "street-level"  
[23:19] crimefighters — Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Iron 
Fist, and kinda-sorta the Punisher — on Netflix.
[23:27] The reconstruction of New York is mostly handled 
by the newly formed Department of Damage Control,  
[23:32] who take over the lucrative 
contract and leave construction  
[23:36] foreman Adrian Toomes embittered — and in 
possession of advanced alien technology.
[23:41] While the Battle of New York comes with 
its fair share of trauma, it also leaves  
[23:45] some people inspired. After seeing Clint Barton 
unknowingly saving her life while battling aliens  
[23:50] with a bow and arrow, 10-year-old Kate Bishop 
decides to take up archery and learn martial  
[23:55] arts in an attempt to protect her family against 
future threats. She turns out to be a gifted,  
[24:00] if extremely reckless, prodigy who often 
damages public property with her trick shots.
[24:06] In 2013, Tony Stark in particular is 
overwhelmed by the concept of his universe  
[24:11] suddenly expanding to include gods, aliens, 
and other unknowable cosmic forces. He deals  
[24:17] with post-traumatic stress, which unfortunately 
coincides with the return of Aldrich Killian.  
[24:24] Killian has been experimenting with Maya 
Hansen's regenerative "Extremis" treatment,  
[24:28] which has the unfortunate tendency 
to cause its subjects to explode.
[24:33] To cover his operations, Killian appropriates 
Wenwu's Ten Rings and creates a fictional  
[24:39] terrorist based on Wenwu called the Mandarin, 
hiring an actor named Trevor Slattery to play  
[24:44] him in threatening videos. The plot is 
uncovered and stopped by Tony and Rhodey.
[24:50] "I wouldn't go in there for 
twenty minutes, ha ha ha."
[24:54] In the aftermath, Killian is killed by Pepper 
Potts and Slattery gets sent to federal prison  
[24:59] where he's later abducted by the real Ten Rings 
for impersonating Wenwu. Although Wenwu is intent  
[25:05] on killing this strange man who named himself 
after a chicken dish, he has a change of heart  
[25:10] after seeing how good Slattery is at performing 
Shakespeare and decides to make him his jester.
[25:16] Around this time, Phil Coulson 
resurfaces and begins recruiting  
[25:19] some additional members into his own agents 
of SHIELD. They have their own adventures,  
[25:24] including many involving the Inhumans and Ghost 
Rider, but like the good secret agents they are,  
[25:29] a lot of this flies beneath the 
radar of most major MCU events.
[25:34] Oh, also, Malekith comes back and Thor fights 
him, and Loki becomes the latest in a long line  
[25:40] of presumed deaths that actually aren't. He 
stashes Odin in a retirement home in New York  
[25:45] and then takes his identity, ruling over Asgard 
and putting on critically acclaimed plays.
[25:51] "I'm sorry about that thing with the Tesseract. 
I just couldn't help myself. I'm a trickster."
[25:58] In 2014, Hydra's decades-long plot 
to infiltrate and take over America  
[26:03] is finally discovered by 
Captain America and Black Widow,  
[26:06] who also learn that the Winter Soldier is a 
brainwashed Bucky Barnes. While Cap fights  
[26:11] to restore his best friend's memories, the 
Hydra plot is exposed, and in the aftermath,  
[26:16] SHIELD collapses, leaving the Avengers without the 
oversight and support of the larger organization.
[26:22] That power vacuum leads directly to 
Tony Stark and Bruce Banner attempting  
[26:27] to create an artificial intelligence 
that would help protect the world.  
[26:30] Unfortunately, they goof that plan up big time, 
instead creating a genocidal robot named Ultron  
[26:36] who winds up destroying an entire city, 
resulting in the breakup of the country Sokovia.
[26:41] Hoping for an ally against Ultron, Tony and Bruce 
combine the Mind Stone, a synthesized body created  
[26:47] by Ultron, and Tony's onboard AI, J.A.R.V.I.S., 
into a much more heroic AI called the Vision.  
[26:54] Also, Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver, two 
definitely-not-mutants, join the team.  
[26:58] Speedster Quicksilver immediately dies, partly 
from bullets but mostly because Disney and Fox  
[27:04] were having a problem figuring out the character's 
film rights. The destruction in Sokovia also kills  
[27:09] the family of Helmut Zemo, who then dedicates his 
life to revenge. Immediately after the battle,  
[27:15] the Hulk hijacks a Quinjet and blasts off 
to space, eventually landing on Sakaar.
[27:21] While all that's going on, Peter Quill is out 
in space on a job to steal a valuable orb,  
[27:26] which — unbeknownst to him — 
contains an Infinity Stone.  
[27:30] That puts him in the sights of both Ronan 
the Accuser, who's been looking for another  
[27:34] Infinity Stone since 1995, and 
Thanos, who sends Gamora after him.
[27:39] Quill and Gamora wind up running 
across Drax (a very literal  
[27:43] warrior whose family was killed by Thanos), 
Rocket (a space raccoon who was painfully  
[27:48] experimented on and given cybernetic 
enhancements), and Groot (a tree).
[27:54] After being imprisoned together, the five of them 
stage a jailbreak, defeat Ronan in a dance-off,  
[28:00] recover the Power Stone with the help 
of the real power, which is friendship,  
[28:04] and turn it over to the Nova Corps, a 
bunch of space cops on the planet Xandar.  
[28:09] Shortly thereafter, Thanos attacks 
Xandar and recovers it for himself.
[28:14] In 2015, an electrical engineer named Scott Lang 
gets out of prison and stumbles onto Hank Pym's  
[28:21] old size-changing equipment. Under the guidance of 
Pym and his daughter Hope, Lang becomes the second  
[28:27] Ant-Man, and helps to keep the Pym Particles from 
falling into the hands of an evil arms dealer.
[28:32] More importantly, it's likely somewhere around 
this time that a kid named Peter Parker is bitten  
[28:37] by a radioactive spider, tries to capitalize 
on his powers by becoming famous as Spider-Man,  
[28:42] and fails to stop a robber 
that later kills his Uncle Ben.  
[28:46] None of this is actually covered in the MCU, but 
you might've seen five other movies about it.
[28:50] The following year sees Helmut Zemo's 
plan to destroy the Avengers reach  
[28:54] its fruition. As the world responds to the 
destruction of Sokovia by trying to install  
[28:59] new governmental oversight over the Avengers, 
Zemo furthers a wedge between Captain America  
[29:05] and Iron Man by revealing that Bucky was 
the one who killed Tony Stark's parents.
[29:10] He also frames Bucky for the assassination of 
King T'Chaka of Wakanda, leaving the king's  
[29:16] son T'Challa to take over leadership of the 
country — not to mention the identity (and  
[29:21] powers) of the Black Panther. The end result 
of all of this is that the Avengers break up,  
[29:26] the ones loyal to Cap go underground, and T'Challa 
refuses to give Zemo the death he desires.
[29:32] Fleeing the U.S. after the rest of Cap's team is 
imprisoned, Natasha Romanoff spends some time in  
[29:37] Norway watching James Bond films. Unfortunately, 
her vacation is cut short when she's attacked by  
[29:43] Taskmaster, an assassin who can mimic any 
fighting style. Later, she discovers Taskmaster  
[29:49] is the brainwashed daughter of a still-alive 
General Dreykov, who has restarted a crueler  
[29:55] version of the Red Room that brainwashes 
new Black Widows and robs them of free will.
[30:00] One of those Black Widows turns out 
to be Natasha's sister Yelena. Freed  
[30:04] of her programming by another Widow, Yelena 
sends the brainwashing antidote to Natasha,  
[30:10] drawing her into the fight. Together, 
Yelena and Natasha work to reunite  
[30:14] with their former "parents," Alexei and 
Melina, and really kill Dreykov this time.  
[30:19] Although the dysfunctional deep cover family has 
more than its share of issues, they manage to  
[30:23] pull together and take down the Red Room. In the 
end, Yelena gets to work liberating Black Widows  
[30:29] around the world while Natasha goes to break 
her other family, the Avengers, out of jail.
[30:34] While all this is going on, Dr. Stephen Strange, 
who lost the fine motor control in hands after  
[30:40] a car accident, seeks out the Ancient One and, 
after her death, becomes a Master of the Mystic  
[30:46] Arts. He stops an invasion by Dormammu, 
a demonic force from the Dark Dimension,  
[30:52] by using the Time Stone to die over and over 
again until the cosmic villain gets annoyed  
[30:57] enough to leave the Earth alone. Meanwhile, the 
Guardians of the Galaxy encounter and subsequently  
[31:03] kill Ego before he can manipulate Peter Quill 
into aiding his conquest of the entire galaxy.
[31:10] In the absence of the Avengers, Tony 
Stark begins to mentor Peter Parker.  
[31:14] As Spider-Man, Peter tries to deal with 
the evil arms dealer known as the Vulture,  
[31:19] aka Adrian Toomes, who turns out to be his 
homecoming date's dad. The Vulture is defeated,  
[31:24] arrested, and sent to prison, but not before 
he and several of Peter's classmates figure  
[31:29] out Spider-Man's real identity. Also, Tony 
Stark finally proposes to Pepper Potts.
[31:34] Lest you think Peter is the only 
superpowered teenager in the MCU,  
[31:38] over in New Orleans teenagers Tandy Bowen 
and Tyrone Johnson acquire powers of light  
[31:43] and darkness and become the vigilantes Cloak 
and Dagger. Meanwhile, on the West Coast,  
[31:48] privileged teenager Alex Wilder and his friends 
learn their parents are all supervillains who  
[31:53] control a powerful criminal organization 
called the Pride. The kids go on the run,  
[31:58] learn many of them have superpowers 
or connections to advanced technology,  
[32:02] and even run afoul of dangerous artifacts like 
the Darkhold. Sadly, it looks like Peter won't  
[32:07] be meeting any of these young heroes as their 
worlds are only slightly connected to the MCU.
[32:12] In Asgard, Thor returns from two years of 
looking for Infinity Stones in various realms  
[32:18] to discover Loki's deception. When they find 
the real Odin, he's at the end of his life,  
[32:23] and his death allows Hela to escape her 
millennia of imprisonment. She destroys Mjolnir,  
[32:29] blasts the two brothers into space, and 
takes over Asgard. Thor winds up on Sakaar,  
[32:35] where he recruits Hulk and Valkyrie for a 
mission to overthrow Hela, which goes about  
[32:39] as well as it can for a plan that ends with the 
complete destruction of Asgard via fire giant.
[32:44] In Wakanda, T'Challa's rule is 
challenged by his cousin Erik,  
[32:48] who teams up with evil arms dealer Ulysses 
Klaue and then betrays him in order to  
[32:53] gain favor with Wakandans who know Klaue as a 
Vibranium smuggler. After being presumed dead,  
[32:59] T'Challa returns and, aided by Nakia, Okoye, 
and Shuri, regains control of his country.
[33:06] After six years of waiting around, Thanos decides 
to personally seek out the Infinity Stones,  
[33:11] and the results are devastating. He kills Loki and 
nearly obliterates the last surviving Asgardians,  
[33:17] and an invasion of Earth leads to things getting 
so desperate that the whole Avengers crew (except  
[33:23] Hawkeye and Ant-Man, who are under house arrest 
for violating the Sokovia Accords) need to get  
[33:28] back together to sort it out. They don't do so 
well. Despite fighting on two fronts, with one  
[33:33] small team in space and a massive force on Earth, 
Thanos gathers the stones, snaps his fingers,  
[33:39] and kills half the life forms in the universe, 
dissolving them into dust. Before he dissolves,  
[33:44] Nick Fury uses the space-pager to alert 
Captain Marvel that Earth needs her help.
[33:49] A month later, Captain Marvel and the 
surviving Avengers track Thanos down in space,  
[33:54] only to find out that he's destroyed the stones 
and, with them, any chance of bringing back the  
[34:00] dead half of the universe. Thor beheads 
Thanos, and the Avengers return home.
[34:05] Weirdly enough, all of this happens while Ant-Man 
is involved in a relatively low-stakes heist  
[34:10] movie. When the snap happens, though, he's left 
stranded in the Quantum Realm. While he's there,  
[34:15] five years go by, during which the heroes 
deal with the horrific trauma in various,  
[34:20] mostly unhealthy ways. Notably, Tony Stark 
and Pepper Potts have a daughter named Morgan,  
[34:26] Banner merges his brain with the Hulk, while 
Thor and Valkyrie found New Asgard in Norway.
[34:32] Hawkeye loses his entire family in 
the snap, causing him to go rogue,  
[34:36] adopting a new hairstyle and anti-hero 
identity as the merciless Ronin, who hunts  
[34:41] down and ruthlessly kills criminals around the 
world. One of these criminals is William Lopez,  
[34:47] the father of fighting prodigy Maya. After seeing 
her dad die, Maya swears vengeance on Ronin,  
[34:53] not knowing that her dad's boss 
— Kingpin — wanted William dead.
[34:58] After Ant-Man returns from the Quantum Realm 
(where, for him, only a few hours have passed),  
[35:03] the heroes realize that the solution to the 
problem is, of course, time travel. With the help  
[35:08] of Iron Man and the now-smart Hulk, the heroes 
travel back to various key points in the timeline  
[35:14] (including 1970, 2012, and 2014) to gather up the 
Infinity Stones of those eras, along with Mjolnir,  
[35:22] circa 2013. They also inadvertently 
bring the Thanos of 2014 forward to 2023,  
[35:28] along with all of his minions. Fortunately, the 
Hulk uses a rebuilt Infinity Gauntlet to wish  
[35:34] everyone back to life, and virtually 
every hero in the entire MCU takes  
[35:38] Thanos on at once. The final blow is dealt 
by Iron Man, who dies on the battlefield.
[35:44] After gathering for a funeral, Steve Rogers hops 
into the timestream to return everything to where  
[35:50] it should be, returning after living a full 
life with Peggy Carter in an alternate past  
[35:55] to bequeath his shield to Sam Wilson, 
naming him the new Captain America.
[36:00] Outside of the mainstream MCU, the version of 
Loki that the Avengers freed from an alternate  
[36:06] 2012 in "Avengers: Endgame" ends up in the Gobi 
Desert, where he immediately begins fulfilling his  
[36:11] "glorious purpose" by trying to conquer the world, 
again. Instead, he gets picked up by the Time  
[36:17] Variance Authority, or TVA, a time police force 
tasked with hunting down rogue variants like Loki  
[36:23] and destroying alternate timelines before they can 
branch out too far from their "sacred timeline."
[36:29] Loki gets paired with Mobius, a sympathetic 
TVA agent, who recruits the trickster god  
[36:34] into the agency to help find their 
latest target — another Loki variant.
[36:39] "This isn't about you."
[36:42] This variant turns out to be a 
female version of Loki called Sylvie,  
[36:46] who restarts the multiverse, allowing a bunch 
of rogue timelines to emerge from history.  
[36:51] Loki teams up with Sylvie and discovers 
the TVA is made up of variants forcibly  
[36:56] recruited into the organization to prune rogue 
timelines and prevent really evil versions of  
[37:02] the TVA's mysterious leader from destroying 
everything. While offered a chance to let this  
[37:06] deception persist, Sylvie instead murders the 
mastermind, letting the multiverse run wild.
[37:13] While this may lead to the destruction of 
reality, it makes one cosmic being's life  
[37:17] more interesting. The god-like voyeur the Watcher 
observes realities in which Peggy Carter receives  
[37:23] the Super Soldier Serum, Doctor Strange destroys 
his universe, and Thor becomes a party animal.  
[37:30] Ultimately, the Watcher is forced to evolve from 
observer to doer when a variant Ultron threatens  
[37:35] to destroy all sentient life in the multiverse. 
Assembling his own Guardians of the Multiverse  
[37:40] team, the Watcher manipulates events so the 
alternate realities can continue to coexist.
[37:47] In the mainstream MCU, the effects of Hulk's 
reverse snap are being felt on both a cosmic and  
[37:53] street level. People like Yelena Belova 
and Monica Rambeau snap back to existence,  
[37:58] only to discover that five years have 
passed and their loved ones are now gone.  
[38:02] Reestablishing their lives proves 
difficult since different people  
[38:06] live in their homes and billions are still 
legally dead. While support networks form,  
[38:10] entire nations are also forcing out recent 
immigrants due to the sudden rise in population.
[38:16] Believing life was better during the Blip when 
half of all life was gone, some people react  
[38:21] to these changes violently. Anarchist Karli 
Morgenthau forms a terrorist group, the Flag  
[38:26] Smashers, to attack governments threatening her 
One World vision and even augments her team with  
[38:31] a new version of the Super Soldier Serum. This 
puts her in the sights of Sam Wilson, who rejects  
[38:37] Steve Rogers' request that he become the new 
Captain America. After working with Bucky Barnes  
[38:42] and seeing how Steve's legacy can be tarnished by 
unworthy successors like the dangerously unhinged  
[38:48] John Walker, Sam takes on the mantle of 
Captain America and stops the Flag Smashers.
[38:54] The sudden rise in sentient life on Earth also 
jump-starts the Emergence, which threatens to  
[38:59] destroy the entire planet when a new Celestial 
is born. Alerted by the cosmic event and a few  
[39:05] remaining Deviants, the Eternals reunite. Where 
before they have always stood by and allowed  
[39:10] planets to be destroyed, a few now have enough 
love for humanity to try and save the Earth.  
[39:15] Sersi draws enough power from her teammates 
to halt the birth of the Celestial Tiamut,  
[39:20] and the Celestial Arishem uses the Eternals' 
memories to determine if Earth should be spared.
[39:26] While all this is going on, one rogue Avenger 
is unknowingly creating her own brand of chaos  
[39:32] in the small town of Westview, New Jersey. 
Unable to cope with the loss of Vision,  
[39:36] who Thanos kills by ripping the Mind Stone 
out of his head, Wanda Maximoff manifests  
[39:41] powerful reality-warping abilities. Drawing 
from her childhood love of American sitcoms,  
[39:47] Wanda warps Westview into an idyllic town 
where she lives a suburban life with a new  
[39:52] version of Vision. She even gives birth to twin 
boys who quickly mature in a single episode.
[39:57] To maintain this illusion, Wanda 
inadvertently mind-controls  
[40:01] the real-life citizens of Westview 
into becoming her personal puppets.  
[40:05] Her activities attract the attention 
of the new intelligence agency SWORD  
[40:09] and Agatha Harkness. While Wanda eventually 
comes to her senses and tries to free Westview,  
[40:15] Agatha goads Wanda into a battle. Wanda comes out 
on top, however, and although she has to sacrifice  
[40:21] her happy life with her husband and children, she 
embraces her new role as "The Scarlet Witch." She  
[40:26] also takes Agatha's Darkhold and starts studying 
it, leading to some major problems very soon.
[40:32] Meanwhile, former assassin-turned-car-valet 
Shang-Chi, currently going by Shaun, learns  
[40:38] his father is gunning for him when Ten Rings 
agents steal the jade pendant his mother left him.  
[40:43] Teaming up with his sister, Shang-Chi 
finally addresses his issues with  
[40:47] his father and stopping Wenwu from 
unleashing the soul-sucking monster  
[40:51] known as Dweller-in-Darkness on the world. 
Before dying to save his son, Wenwu grants  
[40:57] Shang-Chi the ten rings, which begin 
sending signals out into the universe.
[41:02] In Europe, Peter Parker attempts to 
have a vacation free of Spider-Man.  
[41:06] Unfortunately, this becomes impossible when Nick 
Fury (actually the shapeshifting Skrull Talos,  
[41:13] who is covering for Fury while he's on vacation 
in space) recruits Spider-Man to help Mysterio,  
[41:18] a man claiming to be from an alternate universe, 
to save the world from dangerous elemental beings.
[41:24] Except it's all a lie. Mysterio is just Quentin 
Beck, a disgruntled ex-Stark employee who uses  
[41:31] Peter to get his hands on a pair of Stark tech 
sunglasses that can control an army of weaponized  
[41:36] drones. Spider-Man gets the drop on Mysterio's 
illusions to keep him from killing thousands of  
[41:42] people — but in a final act of spite, Mysterio 
exposes Peter's secret identity to the world.
[41:49] With his secret identity now exposed, 
Peter turns to Doctor Strange,  
[41:53] hoping the sorcerer can snap his 
fingers and wish his problems away.  
[41:57] Instead, Strange offers to cast a spell to make 
the world forget Peter Parker is Spider-Man. It  
[42:02] seems like an ideal solution — until Peter keeps 
asking Strange to rewrite the spell, creating  
[42:08] multiple fractures in the multiverse and drawing 
in people who know Peter Parker is Spider-Man.
[42:13] Soon, Spider-Man villains from different 
cinematic universes, including Doctor Octopus,  
[42:18] Sandman, the Lizard, and Electro, begin slipping 
into the MCU. However, the worst new arrival  
[42:24] is the Green Goblin, who kills Peter's Aunt May. 
Distraught, Peter receives help from an unexpected  
[42:30] source — two multiverse Peter Parkers who look 
a lot like Andrew Garfield and Tobey Maguire.
[42:36] Together, the Spider-Men concoct some creative 
cures for their enemies and depower their shared  
[42:41] Rogues Gallery. But just as things seem to be 
looking up, the multiverse begins to fracture.  
[42:46] Peter does the responsible thing by asking Strange 
to make the whole world forget Peter Parker  
[42:51] and prevent the villains from coming through. This 
essentially makes Peter a nonentity in the MCU,  
[42:57] cuts him off from his support 
network of heroes and friends,  
[42:59] and sets him up for a brand-new 
trilogy of solo Spider-Man films.
[43:03] However, not all heroes need to be alone for the 
holidays. After a now 22-year-old Kate Bishop  
[43:09] crashes an underground New York auction and steals 
Clint Barton's former Ronin outfit, she draws a  
[43:15] lot of unwanted and potentially lethal attention 
to herself from the Track Suit Mafia and Kingpin.
[43:20] Fortunately, Hawkeye is in town with his family 
to see the embarrassingly catchy "Rogers:  
[43:25] The Musical." Initially hoping to retrieve 
his Ronin suit and keep Kate out of trouble,  
[43:30] Clint ends up mentoring Kate as they go up against 
Maya Lopez, aka Echo, Yelena Belova, and Kingpin.  
[43:38] After bonding with Clint over their 
shared trauma and showing she's really  
[43:41] good at shooting people with trick arrows, 
Kate looks like she'll be taking over the  
[43:45] mantle of Hawkeye and joining the MCU's 
ever-expanding roster of new superheroes.
[43:51] Every universe meets its 
end one day – but right now,  
[43:54] the Marvel Cinematic Universe 
is expanding faster than ever.
[43:57] The addition of TV shows on Disney+, as well as 
Disney's acquisition of the Marvel properties  
[44:03] that once belonged to Fox, means that more 
characters are entering the MCU than ever before.  
[44:08] In addition, Marvel Studios' collaboration with 
Sony, which owns the film rights to Spider-Man  
[44:12] and many Spider-Man-related characters, means 
the universe is more open to outside visitors  
[44:17] than ever before, from the previous Sony 
Spider-Men to the Tom Hardy version of Venom.
[44:22] On Disney+, fans will soon be treated to the 
arrivals of Moon Knight, Ms. Marvel, She-Hulk,  
[44:28] Echo, and a Secret Invasion of Skrulls. On 
the big screen, a Multiverse of Madness is  
[44:34] preparing to burst open. Also on the big screen, 
we'll see the further adventures of Dane Whitman,  
[44:40] aka the Black Knight, the return of Blade, and an 
exciting sequel in the third Ant-Man and the Wasp  
[44:46] adventure, which will feature Kang the Conqueror, 
a menacing variant of the character you may know  
[44:52] as He Who Remains. A Black Panther sequel will 
broaden the world of Wakanda, and a fourth "Thor"  
[44:58] movie will prove Jane Foster worthy of wielding 
the hammer. And in the more distant future,  
[45:03] we'll certainly see the arrival of the Fantastic 
Four, the X-Men, and who knows what else.
[45:09] The MCU timeline is an ever-shifting thing, 
but when it comes to the first 15 years or so,  
[45:15] you can now consider yourself fully caught up.
[45:18] "Cool? Cool."
[45:19] "So cool."
[45:20] Check out one of our newest videos right here!  
[45:22] Plus, even more Looper videos about the 
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