[0:00] Spoilers ahead for the entire MCU.
[0:02] Though, I don't discuss Fantastic 4's
[0:04] timeline placement until the end of the
[0:06] video. So, if you haven't seen it yet
[0:08] and don't want to get spoiled, no
[0:10] worries. I'll give a warning before we
[0:12] get there, so you can stop if you'd
[0:14] like. The MCU is getting big. Big enough
[0:17] my timeline video is almost 9 hours
[0:19] long, dangerously close to YouTube's
[0:21] 12-hour limit. So, like the TVA, I've
[0:24] decided to do some pruning to make a
[0:26] timeline that isn't so timeconuming.
[0:29] This isn't to replace that one, just a
[0:31] way to take a step back and focus on the
[0:34] bigger picture. The MCU is divided into
[0:37] sagas that are divided into phases. We
[0:40] had the Infinity Saga. Now we're into
[0:42] the Multiverse Saga. And next up, all
[0:45] signs point to a mutant saga. Feige has
[0:48] basically said as much. Quote, "The
[0:50] whole story of Secret Wars really leads
[0:53] us into a new age of mutants and of the
[0:55] X-Men." So to understand the timeline
[0:58] and the overall arc of the MCU is to
[1:02] understand one the journey of the
[1:04] Infinity Stones, two the intermingling
[1:07] of worlds in the multiverse, and three
[1:09] the various breadcrumbs that have been
[1:11] dropped so far pointing to the Age of
[1:13] Mutants. That's what we'll focus on,
[1:16] which means any stories that don't
[1:18] directly impact these arcs will be left
[1:20] out. The rest you can find in the 9-hour
[1:23] version. Now, we're about to rewind back
[1:26] to the beginning of time. But first,
[1:28] working on so many complex videos
[1:31] involves a lot of research, which often
[1:33] means I have a lot of tabs open.
[1:35] Thankfully, I use Opera, which keeps
[1:38] everything simple and intuitive. Like
[1:40] when you have a bunch of tabs open and
[1:42] you're trying to remember what was the
[1:44] tab I was just on. These tab traces make
[1:47] it easy to see where you're coming from
[1:49] at a glance. The darker line is the last
[1:51] tab I was on, and the lines get lighter
[1:54] as you go further back in my history.
[1:57] When I really want to get organized, I
[1:59] use tab islands. I can group tabs like
[2:01] this, or even use Arya, Opera's free
[2:04] built-in AI tool. I press command slash
[2:07] or control slash to access the command
[2:10] line and just ask it to group all my
[2:12] wiki tabs, for example. And like that,
[2:15] it's done. Then I can expand and
[2:17] collapse tab islands as needed. Arya can
[2:20] do a lot more than that too, like
[2:22] answering questions. If I ask, "What's a
[2:25] good snack to eat?" before a long
[2:26] recording session, Arya quickly gives an
[2:29] answer. And that's helpful for me
[2:30] because this hour-long video is on the
[2:33] shorter side for my channel. And all
[2:35] that while I'm listening to music with
[2:37] Opera's built-in music player, which
[2:39] integrates with Spotify, Apple Music,
[2:41] YouTube Music, and more. You can detach
[2:44] the player and controls without
[2:45] interrupting your work. You can even
[2:47] move it outside the browser. I also love
[2:50] Opera's themes. There's a whole gallery
[2:52] to choose from, and they're totally
[2:54] customizable, like Midsummer or Aurora
[2:57] with their calming animated backgrounds
[2:59] that can be customized to your liking.
[3:01] I'm looking at my browser all day. So,
[3:04] it's great to be able to shape it into a
[3:06] clean and comfortable work environment,
[3:08] perfect for me. I recommend Opera. Check
[3:11] out my link in the description to try it
[3:13] out for yourself. And now back to the
[3:15] timeline. We'll start at the beginning
[3:18] of the universe with godlike beings
[3:21] known as celestials. The first is
[3:24] Arishm. According to the Eternals, he
[3:26] created the first sun and brought light
[3:28] into the universe. He built things out
[3:31] from there through a process called
[3:33] emergence. He put seeds in planets that
[3:35] fed on the energy of intelligent life to
[3:38] grow into new celestials. They would
[3:40] burst out of their planets, destroying
[3:42] all life there in the process. But it's
[3:45] all part of a cycle because those new
[3:47] celestials would go on to make more
[3:49] stars and galaxies leading to more
[3:52] planets populated by life. Without this
[3:55] process, the universe would fall into
[3:58] darkness. So in the beginning there was
[4:00] Arishm. After him there were six
[4:03] singularities representing fundamental
[4:06] elements of existence. space, mind,
[4:09] reality, power, soul, and time. After
[4:12] the Big Bang, presumably set off by
[4:14] Arishm, those six singularities were
[4:17] concentrated into the Infinity Stones.
[4:20] The opening text of the Eternals tells
[4:22] us that Arishim was there before the
[4:24] singularities. Otherwise, we know
[4:27] nothing about them. If you're curious
[4:29] what the comics say, they were
[4:31] originally called soul gems until Thanos
[4:34] was like, "Only one of them controls the
[4:36] soul, so maybe infinity gems is a better
[4:39] name." And later they became stones. As
[4:42] for their origins, before time, there
[4:44] was a sentient being of limitless power.
[4:47] But as the only living thing around, it
[4:49] was lonely and chose to end itself. From
[4:52] its ashes rose all reality, then the
[4:56] core of that being reincarnated into the
[4:58] six infinity gems. Billions of years go
[5:02] by with a lot of flashbacks and origins,
[5:04] ancient civilizations, other dimensions,
[5:07] artifacts, ancient civilizations located
[5:09] in other dimensions, etc. There are a
[5:12] lot, but the most important for these
[5:14] stories are Asgard and Wakanda. 2 and a
[5:17] half billion years ago, a vibranium
[5:20] meteor struck Africa. And a few thousand
[5:22] years ago, Wakanda formed there. A
[5:25] warrior shaman ate the heart-shaped
[5:27] herb, a plant affected by the vibranium,
[5:30] giving him power, enabling him to become
[5:32] Wakanda's leader, the Black Panther.
[5:35] There's also Asgard. The MCU has not
[5:38] explored its origins, but powerful
[5:40] beings live there. Powerful enough, they
[5:42] become the gods of Norse mythology. They
[5:45] look over the nine realms, essentially
[5:47] nine planets, including Earth, connected
[5:50] by what they call Egrasil, the world's
[5:52] tree. The Bifrost, overseen by the
[5:55] Asgardian Heimdoll, allows for
[5:57] teleportation between them. The
[5:59] Asgardians are the first civilization we
[6:02] know of to interact with the Infinity
[6:04] Stones, other than little references
[6:06] like in Guardians of the Galaxy when the
[6:08] collector shows a celestial using the
[6:10] power stone to mow down entire
[6:12] civilizations. But the earliest known
[6:15] specific reference to use of the
[6:17] infinity stones comes in 2988 BC. That's
[6:21] when beings known as the dark elves who
[6:24] are said to have dwelt in the darkness
[6:26] before the universe began their hands on
[6:28] the reality stone and turned it into
[6:31] ether, which they tried using to restore
[6:34] the darkness. King Boore of Asgard
[6:36] defeated them, then took the ether and
[6:39] hid it on a distant world. Before we
[6:41] continue with the Infinity Stones, just
[6:43] a quick aside. Around 600 BC, King
[6:47] Boore's son Odin, has inherited the
[6:49] throne. And with his daughter, Hela, the
[6:51] goddess of death, they conquered the
[6:53] nine realms until a few hundred years
[6:55] later, after the turn of the millennium,
[6:57] Odin reforms and decides to focus on
[7:00] peace instead. But Hela never loses her
[7:03] blood lust. So Odin imprisons her in
[7:05] hell with a name like Goddess of Death.
[7:08] Not sure what Odin was expecting.
[7:10] Asgard's next interaction with the
[7:12] stones is in 1400 AD with the space
[7:15] stone contained inside that cube, the
[7:18] tesseract. In the movies from the first
[7:20] Captain America, all we know is that Red
[7:23] Skull found it at a church in Norway in
[7:25] the 1940s. But Marvel has published a
[7:28] couple of timelines, including their
[7:30] recent official timeline book, which
[7:33] clarifies it was put there by none other
[7:35] than King Odin. How did he get the
[7:37] tesseract? Why did he put it on Earth?
[7:40] No idea. The book itself says, "For
[7:43] unknown reasons, the Tesserat cube that
[7:46] contains a space stone is hidden inside
[7:48] a medieval church." Nice. As for the
[7:50] other four stones, we don't know their
[7:52] journeys, but we know where they
[7:54] eventually end up. The mind stone is
[7:57] first seen in 2012 in the Avengers. It
[8:00] powers Loki's mind controlling scepter
[8:02] gifted to him by Thanos. The power stone
[8:05] is kept in a temple on the planet Morag,
[8:07] accessible once every 300 years when the
[8:10] sea lowers. That's where Peter Quill
[8:12] finds it in 2014 per Guardians of the
[8:14] Galaxy. The time stone is obtained by
[8:17] Agamodto, the first sorcerer supreme who
[8:20] discovered the mystic arts. He built a
[8:22] container for the time stone that'll
[8:24] come to be called the eye of Agamoto per
[8:27] Doctor Strange in 2016. And finally, we
[8:30] don't hear about the soul stone until
[8:32] Infinity War when we find out it's kept
[8:35] on the planet Vormir, where its guardian
[8:37] explains the rules to any seeking it.
[8:40] Obtaining the stone costs the life of
[8:42] someone you love. So, we know where they
[8:44] end up, and in each case, they've
[8:46] probably been there a long time. After
[8:49] Odin dropping off the space stone in
[8:51] 1400, let's next stop in 1571 when we
[8:55] meet the MCU's chronologically first
[8:58] known mutant, Neymar. A few years before
[9:01] this, a mine tribe found an underwater
[9:03] deposit of vibranium. Eating the
[9:06] affected plant life saved them from
[9:07] smallpox that had been ravaging their
[9:09] village, but it also turned them blue
[9:12] and made it so they could only breathe
[9:14] underwater. One woman who ate the plant
[9:16] was pregnant at the time and her baby
[9:18] was born a mutant who will come to be
[9:21] called Neymar. He isn't blue, can
[9:23] breathe above water, and has ankle wings
[9:25] that let him fly. It gets a little
[9:28] confusing to call him a mutant because
[9:30] we typically think of mutants as people
[9:32] who get an ability from the Xgene, but
[9:35] Neymar got his from that vibranium
[9:38] plant, right? Or maybe the plant gave
[9:40] him some power, but also helped manifest
[9:43] what was already there, resulting in
[9:46] those little wings. Maybe we'll find out
[9:48] more in the mutant saga. In the 21st
[9:51] century, Earth will assemble its
[9:53] mightiest heroes. The first appears
[9:55] during World War II. Scientist Dr.
[9:58] Erskine develops a super soldier serum
[10:00] before he's kidnapped by Johan Schmidt,
[10:03] head of the Nazi research division
[10:04] Hydra. Why? Schmidt's heard tell of
[10:07] something left behind by the gods that
[10:09] can only be seized by a superior man. He
[10:13] doesn't know the details. That thing is
[10:15] the space stone and Odin is the god.
[10:18] Also, he's not wrong. It can only be
[10:20] held by someone superior. A mere human
[10:23] would be destroyed by the stone's power.
[10:25] In 1940, the serum turns Schmidt into
[10:28] red skull. And two years later, he finds
[10:31] the tesseract at the church in Norway
[10:33] and uses it to make powerful weapons. To
[10:36] oppose him, the Strategic Scientific
[10:38] Reserve, or SSR, America's answer to
[10:40] Hydra, rescues Erskine and gives the
[10:43] serum to a good guy, maybe the goodest
[10:46] Steve Rogers, turning him into Captain
[10:49] America, and Rogers will be the only one
[10:52] because a Hydra spy kills Earth, then
[10:55] destroys the remaining serum. Captain
[10:57] America wages war on Red Skull and
[11:00] starts to fall in love with SSR agent
[11:02] Peggy Carter. Also falling is Roger's
[11:05] best friend, Bucky Barnes, off a train
[11:08] by the Danube River. He's presumed dead,
[11:10] but in reality, he survives thanks to
[11:13] some experimental serum he'd received
[11:15] from Hydra while held captive. They
[11:17] recapture him and brainwash him into
[11:19] becoming a Winter Soldier, an assassin
[11:22] kept on stasis and only unfrozen on
[11:24] occasions when they need someone dead.
[11:27] Captain America's war with Red Skull
[11:29] ends with Rogers crashing the Skull's
[11:31] plane into the ocean to stop bombs from
[11:33] reaching the US. Rogers lives but is
[11:36] frozen underwater and presumed dead. As
[11:38] for Red Skull, he's banished by the
[11:41] Space Stone to Vormir, where he becomes
[11:43] the undead steward of the soul stone. As
[11:46] for the Tesseract, it's found by the
[11:48] SSR's own Howard Stark. Over the next
[11:51] couple of decades, SSR becomes Shield
[11:54] and Stark studies the Tesseract where
[11:57] Red Skull used its power for weapons.
[12:00] Stark uses it in 1963 to make the Ark
[12:03] Reactor, a safer alternative to nuclear
[12:06] power. You know who else is at SHIELD?
[12:08] Red Skull's scientist Dr. Zola recruited
[12:12] through Operation Paperclip, a realworld
[12:14] intelligence program where German
[12:16] scientists were recruited to the US
[12:18] after World War II. Another scientist
[12:20] with a breakthrough in the 60s, Hank Py,
[12:23] who discovers the pin particle, which
[12:26] can shrink or gigantify things. He does
[12:29] the only natural thing and becomes an
[12:31] agent of shield as Ant-Man. Over 20
[12:35] years later, he'll regret that because
[12:37] now his wife joins Ant-Man as the Wasp.
[12:40] And to stop a missile, she has to go
[12:42] subatomic. She saves lives, but to do
[12:44] it, she has to shrink small enough to
[12:47] get through the molecules of the bomb.
[12:49] Small enough, Janet Van ends up stranded
[12:52] in the quantum realm, a place outside
[12:55] time and space that will become key to
[12:57] the multiverse saga. By 1989, Shield,
[13:01] NASA, and the US Air Force have joined
[13:03] forces to continue studying the
[13:05] Tesseract under scientist Dr. Wendy
[13:08] Lawson. But she has her own motivations.
[13:12] Lawson is an undercover alien, a CRE
[13:14] named Marll. For a thousand years, the
[13:17] Cree has been at war with the green
[13:19] shape-shifting scrolls. But when Marll
[13:22] realized her own cre are fascist
[13:24] oppressors and the scrolls just want to
[13:27] live in peace, she defected and hoped to
[13:29] develop a light speeded engine using
[13:31] space stone power that could get the
[13:33] scrolls to a safe new home away from the
[13:36] cre. Working for her are two test flight
[13:39] pilots from the US Air Force. Best
[13:42] friends Carol Danvers and Maria Rambo.
[13:45] One day the cre come for Wendy. They
[13:48] kill her, but Danver manages to destroy
[13:50] the engine to keep it out of their
[13:52] hands, which releases a blast of space
[13:55] stone energy, changing Danver's DNA to
[13:58] make her Captain Marvel. But before she
[14:00] can become a hero, the CRE brainwipe her
[14:03] so Danverse thinks she's one of them,
[14:06] and she'll spend the next 6 years
[14:08] fighting scrolls, thinking she herself
[14:10] is a cre. In 1995, she realizes the
[14:14] truth. Not only is she human, but
[14:16] scrolls are actually good guys. She
[14:19] frees herself and gets her memories back
[14:21] with help from Nick Fury of SHIELD. And
[14:24] that experience, finding out about
[14:26] fascistic aliens, teaches Fury there are
[14:29] some pretty big threats out there. For
[14:31] Earth's protection, they need to
[14:33] assemble humankind's most aabled
[14:35] individuals. He comes up with the
[14:38] protector initiative until he gets a
[14:40] better idea from Danver's old US Air
[14:42] Force call sign. Avenger. He has no idea
[14:46] how right he is because Thanos is
[14:49] already out there actively killing
[14:51] people. Also, a flurkin scratches his
[14:54] eye, a wound from which he will never
[14:56] heal. And also, Captain Marvel heads to
[14:59] Hala, the Cre home world, to end the CRE
[15:02] scroll war by destroying the Supreme
[15:05] Intelligence, the AI that rules the Cre
[15:08] home world. Don't worry, I'm sure
[15:10] that'll work out fine. Now, let's talk
[15:12] about the mad Titan, Thanos. Some time
[15:15] ago, his home planet Titan suffered
[15:18] overpopulation. He suggested killing
[15:21] half the population at random so the
[15:23] other half could flourish. Thanos was
[15:25] ignored and instead they all died. Since
[15:28] then, he's become convinced the universe
[15:30] will suffer the same fate. So, he's been
[15:32] going planet to planet, systematically
[15:35] killing half the population on each.
[15:37] When did this happen? Not that long ago,
[15:40] because in the late '9s, he kills half
[15:42] the Zobarians while taking one as a
[15:45] daughter, Gamora. The MCU timeline book
[15:48] describes this as one of his earliest
[15:51] atrocities. So, he clearly hasn't been
[15:53] at it for long. Soon, he'll realize
[15:55] there's an easier way to get this all
[15:57] done. The Infinity Stones. If he could
[16:00] get his hands on all six, he could erase
[16:02] half of all life in the universe with
[16:04] the snap of his fingers. That's how
[16:07] powerful they are. Like I mentioned
[16:09] earlier, we know he'll get the Mind
[16:11] Stone in that scepter. Next, he'll come
[16:13] for the space stone, currently held by
[16:15] SHIELD on Earth. But first, Earth's
[16:18] mightiest heroes. In 2005, Bruce Banner
[16:22] becomes the Hulk thanks to a gamma
[16:24] experiment gone wrong. The point of the
[16:26] experiment, led by General Thaddius
[16:28] Ross, was to try and recreate the super
[16:31] soldier serum, though he kept Banner in
[16:33] the dark, who thought it was for the
[16:35] advancement of medicine. In 2008, Tony
[16:38] Stark,
[16:39] >> genius, billionaire, playboy,
[16:41] philanthropist
[16:42] >> and son of the now deceased Howard Stark
[16:45] is kidnapped by terrorists, escapes by
[16:48] building an exoskeleton and returns
[16:50] home. Changed by the experience, he puts
[16:52] away superficial things and focuses on
[16:55] doing the right thing as the superhero
[16:58] Iron Man. In 2010, the world finds out
[17:02] about gods and monsters, namely Thor and
[17:05] Hulk. Let's start with Thor. King Odin
[17:08] of Asgard has two sons. Thor, the god of
[17:11] thunder, and his younger adoptive son,
[17:13] Loki, the god of mischief, who has
[17:16] always been jealous of his older brother
[17:18] in line for the throne. Thor is
[17:20] temporarily banished to Earth for some
[17:22] disobedience. And when Loki tries to
[17:24] keep him there, the public battle is
[17:26] hard to miss. Hulk has his own public
[17:28] battle with the abomination. One of
[17:31] Ross's men transformed by an
[17:33] experimental serum combined with some of
[17:35] Banner's blood. Some of that blood also
[17:37] drips into an open wound on Samuel
[17:40] Stern's head. He was a scientist working
[17:42] with Banner to cure him of Hulk before
[17:45] Ross's guy forced him to make the
[17:47] abomination. And with gamma irdiated
[17:50] blood in his head, Sterns will soon have
[17:52] a brain with superpowered intellect.
[17:55] Hulk versus Abomination, Thor versus
[17:57] Loki, and Iron Man 2's story starts
[18:00] battle with Whiplash all overlap over
[18:03] the course of a week as told by the
[18:05] comic Fury's Big Week, chronicling his
[18:08] dealing with all of this at the same
[18:10] time. Now, the world knows about
[18:12] superpowered beings, and so does Fury.
[18:15] He recruits all of them to his Avengers
[18:17] initiative, including Steve Rogers,
[18:20] found in the ice and thought out in
[18:22] 2011. Fury rounds out the team with a
[18:25] couple of agents of Shield, the bow and
[18:27] arrow wielding Clint Barton, cenamed
[18:29] Hawkeye, along with Natasha Romangh,
[18:32] once a brainwashed Russian assassin
[18:34] known as a Black Widow, until Barton saw
[18:36] good in her and helped her defect. In
[18:39] 2012, Thanos finally makes his play for
[18:42] the Space Stone by working with Loki,
[18:45] who still wants power and is bitter
[18:47] after Thor defeated him. To help Loki
[18:50] obtain the space stone, Thanos gives him
[18:52] the mind stone containing scepter and a
[18:55] Chitauri army. But the Avengers are
[18:58] there to stop them and they have a Hulk.
[19:06] This becomes known as the Battle of New
[19:08] York. And in the end, rather than gain a
[19:11] stone, Thanos loses one because Shield
[19:14] takes the scepter containing the mind
[19:16] stone. As for the space stone, Thor
[19:18] takes it back to Asgard for safekeeping.
[19:21] In 2013, Thor's Earth girlfriend,
[19:24] scientist Jane Foster, goes through a
[19:27] portal and accidentally comes into
[19:29] contact with the ether, the reality
[19:31] stone hidden by King Boore millennia
[19:33] ago. She's infected by that ether, and
[19:36] so the dark elves come after her. Thor's
[19:38] mother is killed in the process, but
[19:40] Thor manages to get the ether out of
[19:43] Jane and defeat the elves just like his
[19:45] grandpa. Then to keep the reality stone
[19:48] safe, he leaves it with the collector,
[19:50] curator of the largest museum in the
[19:52] galaxy, located in the skull of a long
[19:54] deadad celestial. In 2014, Nick Fury,
[19:57] Steve Rogers, and Natasha Romangh
[19:59] uncover an awful truth. Shield has been
[20:03] compromised by Hydra since its
[20:04] inception, an effort led by Dr. Zola.
[20:08] Now Hydra is about to execute their
[20:10] ultimate plan. launch three helicarriers
[20:13] to watch over the world and kill
[20:15] millions at a time with the click of a
[20:16] button. Anyone they deem a threat to
[20:18] their cause. People like Bruce Banner or
[20:21] Doctor Strange. The plot is foiled by
[20:24] Rogers Romanoff Fury and a new friend to
[20:26] Captain America, veteran Sam Wilson, who
[20:29] pilots a personal fight suit Falcon. But
[20:32] it comes at a cost. shield is dissolved
[20:36] and the emotional toll Rogers has to
[20:38] fight one of Hydra's winter soldiers,
[20:40] the friend he thought was dead, Bucky
[20:43] Barnes. Though in the end, Rogers
[20:45] manages to get through to him a little,
[20:47] lighting a spark that'll one day allow
[20:49] Barnes to escape the brainwashing and
[20:51] become his old self. That same year,
[20:54] Thanos tries for another stone, the one
[20:57] on Morag, the power stone. After Loki's
[21:00] failure to get him the space stone, this
[21:02] time Thanos tries sending a cre warlord,
[21:04] Ronin. Ronin does get the stone, but
[21:07] then goes rogue. See, the cre aren't
[21:10] just at war with scrolls. They're also
[21:11] at war with the Nova Empire. And Ronin
[21:14] figures out that by simply touching the
[21:16] stone to the surface of their home
[21:18] planet, he could wipe them all out.
[21:20] Except by the time he tries to do that,
[21:22] the Guardians of the Galaxy have formed,
[21:24] and they come to stop him with a
[21:26] danceoff. The group is made up of
[21:28] Thanos's own adoptive assassin daughter,
[21:31] Gamora, who has seen the evil of his
[21:33] ways. Peter Quill, half human and though
[21:36] he hasn't learned it yet, half
[21:38] celestial, which enables him to survive
[21:40] holding the stone for a moment. Rocket,
[21:42] a raccoon with sentience thanks to a
[21:44] twisted scientific experiment by an
[21:46] alien with a god complex. His friend
[21:49] Groot of the Flora Colossus species. and
[21:52] Drax the destroyer who lost his family
[21:54] to a Thanos culling. After killing
[21:56] Ronin, they leave the power stone in the
[21:59] care of the Novaore.
[22:01] In 2015, the Avengers assemble again to
[22:04] retrieve Loki's mind control scepter. It
[22:07] was taken by Shield, but Shield turned
[22:09] out to be Hydra, which means the bad
[22:11] guys have the mind stone. So far,
[22:13] they've used it to experiment on Wanda
[22:16] and Pro Maximoff, twins with an axe to
[22:19] grind against the Avengers. years ago,
[22:21] their parents were killed by bombs that
[22:23] bore the name Stark Industries. The
[22:26] experiments gave him super speed, and
[22:29] for her, it unlocked magical powers that
[22:31] were already there. Because although she
[22:33] doesn't know it yet, she is the Scarlet
[22:36] Witch, a powerful entity prophesied in
[22:39] the Darkhold. This is when the MCU
[22:41] starts to get weird. The Avengers get
[22:44] the scepter, then Stark and Banner turn
[22:46] into mad scientists. Ever since their
[22:48] battle with aliens, Stark has been
[22:50] paranoid about what else will threaten
[22:52] the Earth. He and Banner have been
[22:54] working on something, a global AI to
[22:57] protect the world. They don't know much
[22:59] about this stone, but it resembles an
[23:01] AI. It could be the key. Experimenting
[23:05] with it does create an AI, Ultron, which
[23:08] goes rogue, and comes up with a plan to
[23:10] bring about world peace by killing all
[23:12] humans. As part of his plan, he builds
[23:15] himself a living vibranium body powered
[23:18] by the mind stone in its forehead. But
[23:21] the Avengers steal the body before
[23:23] Ultron can move in. And instead, they
[23:25] install Jarvis, a good guy AI, one Stark
[23:29] has been using as an assistant for
[23:30] years, named after his childhood butler.
[23:33] Jarvis wakes up in the vibranium body
[23:36] and calls himself Vision. Seeing the
[23:38] threat of Ultron, the Maximoffs put
[23:40] aside their differences with Stark to
[23:42] join Vision and the Avengers. In the
[23:45] end, they stop Ultron, though the battle
[23:47] is not without casualties. Wanda's
[23:50] brother is killed and many civilians,
[23:52] too. And some of their blood is on the
[23:55] Hulk's hands. Before Wanda joined up
[23:58] with the Avengers, she used her powers
[24:00] to transform Banner. When he turned
[24:03] unexpectedly, he couldn't control his
[24:05] Hulk form. And seeing how dangerous he
[24:07] is, Hulk exiles himself from Earth with
[24:10] a Quinjet. In 2016, egotistical genius
[24:14] surgeon Dr. Strange is in a car accident
[24:17] that destroys his hands, ending his
[24:19] career as a surgeon. So, he goes in
[24:21] search of a way to fix them and finds
[24:23] the masters of the mystic arts. They
[24:26] teach him their ways. And just like he
[24:27] mastered medicine once, now he masters
[24:30] magic. He even defeats a mystical being,
[24:33] Dormamu, from the dark dimension by
[24:36] manipulating time with the eye of
[24:38] Agamodo, which he soon learns is powered
[24:40] by the time stone. Now, while Strange
[24:43] has been busy learning the ways of
[24:45] magic, the Avengers end up in shambles
[24:48] thanks to a civil war. With Ultron,
[24:50] General Thaddius Ross saw the danger of
[24:53] the Avengers. That rogue AI killed a lot
[24:56] of people, and though the Avengers
[24:57] stopped him, they were the ones who made
[24:59] him in the first place. And after that,
[25:02] Wanda, still learning to control her
[25:04] magic, accidentally gets some people
[25:06] killed. So Ross tries to pass accords,
[25:09] which would make the Avengers
[25:11] accountable to the UN. Stark, rattled
[25:14] with guilt, supports it, while Rogers
[25:16] fears what'll happen when the Avengers
[25:18] and the UN disagree. Heroes are split,
[25:21] leading to Civil War, partly instigated
[25:24] by Helmet Zemo. He lost his family to
[25:26] Ultron in hopes to see the Avengers in
[25:29] ruin as revenge. So he plants a bomb at
[25:32] the signing, frames Roger's old friend,
[25:34] Bucky Barnes, the Winter Soldier, and
[25:36] the cherry on top, he shows Stark
[25:38] footage of his parents' assassination by
[25:41] Hydra, carried out by the Winter
[25:43] Soldier. The bomb at the Accords also
[25:46] happened to kill the Black Panther from
[25:47] Wakanda, leaving his son, Tchala, to
[25:50] take over. And now Tchala, the new Black
[25:53] Panther, hates the Winter Soldier as
[25:55] much as Stark does. So, they band
[25:58] together in this Civil War and recruit
[26:00] another hero, Spider-Man. Captain
[26:02] America also has some recent recruits on
[26:05] his side, Sam Wilson, aka the Falcon,
[26:08] and Ant-Man. Not Hank Py, but a new
[26:11] Ant-Man he trained, Scott Lang. The war
[26:14] ends with half of them in the raft, a
[26:16] special prison developed by Ross for
[26:19] enhanced individuals, though they're
[26:21] soon broken out by Romangh and Rogers.
[26:24] But the Avengers are finished. After
[26:27] their vicious battle, Stark and Rogers
[26:29] are no longer speaking. But in a couple
[26:32] years, when Thanos quests for the
[26:33] Infinity Stones, they will be forced to
[26:36] put aside their differences and
[26:38] reassemble the Avengers. In 2017, King
[26:42] Odin passes away. But first, a
[26:45] confession about the daughter he had
[26:47] before Thor. Hela, the goddess of death,
[26:50] now imprisoned in hell. With Odin's
[26:53] death, she's freed. With her return,
[26:56] Thor and Loki are forced to put aside
[26:58] their differences and work together.
[27:00] Their battle with Hela sends them on a
[27:02] strange journey to Sakar, a planet where
[27:05] they find Hulk, having the time of his
[27:07] life competing in gladiator matches.
[27:09] This is apparently where he ended up
[27:11] after exiling himself. He joins up with
[27:14] Thor, Loki, and Valkyrie, an Exxgardian
[27:18] warrior Thor finds on Sakar, one who
[27:20] left Asgard thousands of years ago after
[27:23] her friends were slaughtered by Hela.
[27:25] Together, they stop Hela with a
[27:27] dangerous gambit, Ragnarok. She's
[27:30] powered by Asgard. So, they evacuate as
[27:33] many as they can onto a big ship,
[27:35] destroy Asgard, and her along with it.
[27:39] But she's nothing compared to what comes
[27:41] next. Thanos tried getting the space
[27:43] stone through Loki and the power stone
[27:46] through Ronin. Both failed. Now he takes
[27:49] matters into his own hands. He kills
[27:52] half the population on the Nova Empire's
[27:54] capital planet and helps himself to the
[27:56] power stone. He kills half the
[27:58] Asgardians on the ship where they
[28:00] evacuated, including Loki and Heimdoll,
[28:03] and helps himself to the space stone.
[28:05] Getting the reality stone from the
[28:07] collector is easy. The only tough one is
[28:09] the soul stone where red skull reveals
[28:12] the price. A soul for a soul. You must
[28:15] sacrifice the one you love. That turns
[28:17] out to be his daughter Gamora. He comes
[28:20] to Vormir with her and leaves without
[28:22] her. Now he has four stones. On Titan,
[28:25] he finds the other Guardians of the
[28:27] galaxy along with some heroes from
[28:29] Earth. Iron Man, Spider-Man, and Doctor
[28:31] Strange who've decided on taking the
[28:34] fight to him. Titan wounds Stark and
[28:36] nearly kills him. Until Strange bargains
[28:39] for his life by handing over the time
[28:41] stone. It seems crazy, but Strange has
[28:44] looked into every possible future. This
[28:47] was the only way that would lead to
[28:49] their eventual victory. The final stone
[28:52] is in Vision's skull. The Avengers had
[28:54] hoped they could remove it with help
[28:56] from Wakandan technology. If they could
[28:58] remove it, they could destroy it without
[29:00] killing Vision. But now time's up and
[29:04] the job falls to the only one powerful
[29:06] enough to destroy it. Wanda, the Scarlet
[29:09] Witch. It's not fair. In the time since
[29:12] she joined the Avengers, she and Vision
[29:14] have fallen in love. Nevertheless, she
[29:16] destroys the stone. Vision is dead, but
[29:19] Thanos has the time stone. He turns back
[29:22] time, then rips the stone from Vision's
[29:24] head, killing him all over again.
[29:27] Finally, with all six stones in his
[29:29] gauntlet, he snaps. Half of all living
[29:32] things in the universe vanish. Including
[29:34] Hank Py, his daughter Hope, and his wife
[29:37] Janet. Uninvolved in this battle, Scott
[29:40] Lang had worked with Hank and Hope to
[29:42] rescue Janet from the quantum realm. Now
[29:45] he's making another trip to help Ava
[29:48] Star, who was turned into a sort of
[29:50] quantum ghost thanks to an experiment
[29:52] gone wrong. The quantum realm has
[29:54] healing particles that could help. It's
[29:56] a long story. The important thing is
[29:58] while Scott is in the quantum realm,
[30:00] they vanish. So, no one can pull him
[30:03] back out and he's trapped there. 3 weeks
[30:06] later, the remaining Avengers track down
[30:08] Thanos to get the stones and undo the
[30:10] snap, but they're too late. Thanos
[30:13] already destroyed the stones, so Thor
[30:16] cuts off his head. 5 years later, a rat
[30:20] skitters over the quantum machine and
[30:22] pulls Lang out of the quantum realm. He
[30:24] realizes time works differently there
[30:26] because it's been 5 years on the
[30:28] outside, but in the quantum realm, it
[30:30] only felt like 5 hours. Could they maybe
[30:33] use the pin particles and the quantum
[30:35] realm to go back in time and fix things?
[30:38] Kind of. You cannot change the past. If
[30:41] you go back in time, you end up in
[30:44] another reality. You could stop Thanos
[30:46] there, but your original reality would
[30:48] be no less broken. But they could go
[30:51] back in time to another reality, borrow
[30:54] their Infinity Stones, bring them back
[30:56] to their home reality, undo the snap,
[30:59] then return the stones back where they
[31:01] came from. They do pull off the time
[31:03] heist, but three complications. One, the
[31:07] soul stone always has a price, and this
[31:09] time Romangh had to foot the bill by
[31:11] sacrificing herself. Two, some of the
[31:14] Avengers went back to 2012 during the
[31:17] battle of New York to grab the tesseract
[31:19] for the space stone and scepter for the
[31:22] Mind Stone. They got the Mind Stone, but
[31:25] past Loki managed to steal the
[31:27] Tesseract, forcing Rogers and Stark to
[31:29] visit 1970 instead, where they could
[31:32] grab the Tesseract from Tony's dad, who
[31:34] was studying it at the time, and some
[31:36] pin particles from Hank to fuel their
[31:38] return trip. This is important to
[31:40] mention because that past Loki who stole
[31:43] the tester act sets up the multiverse
[31:45] saga. More on that later. Complication
[31:48] three, visiting the past in another
[31:50] reality means visiting a world where
[31:52] Thanos is still alive. Past Thanos finds
[31:55] out about the future Thanos that
[31:56] succeeded was then killed. And now the
[31:59] Avengers are trying to undo his good
[32:01] work, not on his watch. So, past Thanos
[32:05] follows the Avengers back to their
[32:06] reality and attacks with an army. But
[32:09] not before Hulk wields the borrowed
[32:11] stones and snaps, bringing everyone back
[32:15] except Romangh because no takebacks with
[32:17] the soul stone. All the heroes who come
[32:20] back join in what becomes known as the
[32:22] Battle of Earth. Humanity triumphs, but
[32:25] not without paying another price. Stark
[32:28] gets the stones, then snaps Thanos and
[32:31] his army out of existence. The thing is,
[32:33] Hulk and Thanos are powerful beings.
[32:36] Stark is human. That much power, he
[32:39] didn't stand a chance. This is how the
[32:41] Infinity saga ends. Stark dies. Thor
[32:45] leaves in search of what comes next
[32:46] while leaving Valkyrie in charge of New
[32:48] Asgard, a home for refugee Asgardians in
[32:50] Norway. He'll team up with the Guardians
[32:52] for a bit, reconnect with Jane, who
[32:54] temporarily becomes Mighty Thor before
[32:56] succumbing to cancer, joining Heimd Doll
[32:58] and Valhalla. and Thor will adopt a girl
[33:00] dead thanks to a god's negligence before
[33:02] getting resurrected by her dad, Gore
[33:04] reaching eternity. That's all from Love
[33:06] and Thunder and not super important to
[33:08] the overall arc. And Captain America
[33:11] goes back in time to those other
[33:13] realities to return the stones. But he
[33:16] takes a detour on his way back, spending
[33:19] a life with Peggy Carter and growing old
[33:22] before returning home and handing off
[33:24] the shield to Sam Wilson, promoting him
[33:26] from Falcon to Captain America. Hulk, by
[33:29] the way, after the 5-year time jump, we
[33:32] learn Banner has sort of cured himself.
[33:34] He now retains his intellect and
[33:36] personality in Hulk form, though now
[33:39] he's always in Hulk form until She-Hulk
[33:42] reveals he's built a Hulk inhibitor
[33:44] device, allowing him to stay human when
[33:46] he wants. That show also reveals that
[33:49] Hulk apparently had a son on Sakar named
[33:52] Scar. And now we reach the multiverse
[33:55] saga. So, a quick lesson on the
[33:57] multiverse. According to Kevin Feige's
[33:59] once production assistant, Richie
[34:01] Palmer, now executive producer, there's
[34:03] a distinction to be made between
[34:05] alternate timelines and alternate
[34:07] realities, both of which make up the
[34:10] multiverse. Let's start with the one the
[34:12] MCU has most concerned itself with so
[34:15] far, alternate timelines. Think of a
[34:18] timeline as a rope made up of many
[34:20] strands. Each strand represents a slight
[34:23] variation on events. You see your
[34:25] friend, on one strand, you say, "Hi." On
[34:28] another you say, "Hey." And maybe on one
[34:30] you say, "What's up?" The strands are
[34:33] all different, but similar enough
[34:35] they're part of the same rope heading in
[34:37] the same general direction. But
[34:39] sometimes events on a strand differ
[34:42] significantly enough that they branch
[34:44] off into their own timeline, an
[34:46] alternate timeline. These are universes
[34:49] born of a whatif. And that's the basis
[34:52] of the animated series. As an example,
[34:54] take the first episode. In the original
[34:57] timeline, in Captain America: The First
[34:59] Avenger, Peggy Carter is asked to leave
[35:02] the room before they administer Roger's
[35:04] a serum, and she does. But in one strand
[35:07] of time, she stays. That simple choice
[35:11] cascades into bigger changes. The others
[35:14] stay in the room, too, including the
[35:16] Hydra spy, giving him an opportunity to
[35:19] shoot Steve before they can begin the
[35:21] procedure. With him injured, Carter gets
[35:24] a serum instead, resulting in the
[35:26] creation of an alternate timeline
[35:28] starring Captain Carter. What about
[35:31] alternate realities? Palmer and the MCU
[35:34] have not given an explicit definition.
[35:37] But my interpretation is this. If
[35:39] alternate timelines are strands that
[35:41] branch off an existing rope, alternate
[35:44] realities are other ropes entirely, like
[35:47] those other universes that have crossed
[35:49] over into the broader MCU at times, as
[35:52] in movies made by other studios, the
[35:54] Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield
[35:56] Spider-Man universes, the Tom Hardy
[35:59] Venom universe, or the X-Men universe,
[36:01] etc. With that out of the way, back to
[36:04] the multiverse saga. Remember that Loki
[36:06] who stole the tesseract during the
[36:08] Avengers time heist? Yeah, he wasn't
[36:10] supposed to do that. That change on this
[36:12] strand of time threatens to branch into
[36:15] a new universe, an alternate timeline.
[36:18] Not if the time variance authority can
[36:20] help it. They arrest Loki and erase this
[36:23] strand of time before it can become an
[36:25] alternate timeline. Why? It takes some
[36:27] doing, but by teaming up with a female
[36:29] variant of himself named Sylvie from
[36:31] another timeline, he uncovers the truth.
[36:34] In the 31st century, a scientist
[36:36] Nathaniel Richards will discover the
[36:38] multiverse and meet other versions of
[36:41] himself. They'll work together at first,
[36:43] sharing technology and knowledge. But
[36:45] some Nathaniel Richards are jerks, like
[36:48] Kang the Conqueror. Guess what he likes
[36:50] to do? It's an allout war that threatens
[36:53] to destroy the multiverse until one
[36:55] Nathaniel discovers that all the tears
[36:58] in reality created by that war birthed a
[37:01] creature Eli capable of consuming time
[37:04] and space itself. One Nathaniel will
[37:07] isolate the timeline then weaponize Eli
[37:11] and harness its power to prevent
[37:13] branching. So, for example, if Loki
[37:16] steals the Tesseract and a branch starts
[37:18] to form, Nathaniel's organization, the
[37:21] TVA, erases it. They prune it. Why?
[37:25] Because a new branch means a new
[37:27] universe, which means a new Nathaniel
[37:29] Richards. Many new branches means many
[37:32] new Nathaniels, which inevitably leads
[37:34] to multiversal war and potentially the
[37:36] end of all things. That's why there can
[37:39] only be one Nathaniel remaining, thus
[37:41] earning him the moniker, He who remains.
[37:44] This timeline with no branching is
[37:47] referred to as the sacred timeline.
[37:49] Learning all this, Sylvie is
[37:51] understandably upset. It means no one
[37:54] has free will and we're all living
[37:56] pre-ordained lives, erased if they
[37:58] deviate from the path. So, she kills he
[38:01] who remains. As if that wasn't enough,
[38:04] the two Loki variants also instigate a
[38:06] bit of a revolt in the TVA. So, they'll
[38:08] stop pruning universes because doing
[38:11] that disappears billions upon billions
[38:14] of people. With no he who remains and no
[38:17] pruning, the timeline starts branching
[38:19] infinitely. Except he who remains has a
[38:22] temporal loom with a fail safe that will
[38:25] automatically destroy all but the sacred
[38:27] timeline when it reaches capacity. So,
[38:30] Loki has a choice. Option one, destroy
[38:33] the loom to save all those innocent
[38:35] timelines, but risk multiversal war when
[38:39] Nathaniel Richards variants inevitably
[38:41] appear, which risks the end of
[38:43] everything, including the sacred
[38:45] timeline. Or option two, prune those
[38:48] extra timelines so at least the sacred
[38:51] one can exist. Instead, Loki opts for a
[38:54] third option. He destroys the loom and
[38:57] just as promised, multiversal war. Loki
[39:00] can see the timelines dying. Except Loki
[39:03] is a god. He uses magic and lends his
[39:06] own power to keep those timelines alive.
[39:09] The only problem is that it's a
[39:10] full-time job. He can't just turn the
[39:13] timelines on and leave. He has to sit
[39:15] there and keep the power on, presumably
[39:18] for eternity, thus becoming the god of
[39:21] stories. With his sacrifice, a
[39:24] multiverse is allowed to form and
[39:26] flourish. You might have some questions.
[39:29] What exactly is Loki doing? If
[39:31] multiversal war is what kills the
[39:33] timelines, is Loki's power killing
[39:36] Nathaniel Richard's variants like Kang
[39:38] the Conqueror? No. Because we see at the
[39:41] end of Loki season 2, the TVA is doing
[39:43] that. It becomes their mission to
[39:45] monitor his variants and make sure they
[39:47] stay out of trouble. So maybe Loki is
[39:50] just keeping the timelines alive. Kang
[39:53] can still go bad and conquer, assuming
[39:56] he manages to evade the TVA. But if he
[39:58] tries to end an entire timeline, past,
[40:01] present, and future, that's where Loki's
[40:04] magic kicks in to prevent that. You
[40:06] might also ask, "This all sounds like
[40:08] it's about alternate timelines. What
[40:11] about alternate realities? For example,
[40:14] did Tobey Maguire's Spider-Man universe
[40:16] only pop into existence once Loki
[40:19] allowed the timeline to bloom into a
[40:22] multiverse? I don't think so. If you
[40:24] look at he who remains precise language,
[40:27] he starts by saying he isolated our
[40:30] timeline. So I think there was some kind
[40:32] of barrier between the sacred timeline
[40:34] and those other universes. For example,
[40:38] Deadpool and Wolverine reveals that
[40:40] Deadpool paid Earth 616, the primary
[40:43] concern of the MCU, a visit in 2018. And
[40:47] Earth 616 has given the label the Sacred
[40:51] Timeline, implying that the Sacred
[40:53] Timeline is expressly distinct from the
[40:56] Fox X-Men universe. Now, with Loki's
[40:59] intervention, there are a bunch of
[41:00] alternate timelines to worry about, and
[41:03] those barriers are down, making the
[41:05] alternate realities accessible, too.
[41:08] That producer, Richie Palmer, explained
[41:10] that No Way Home and Multiverse of
[41:12] Madness are only possible because of
[41:15] what Loki did. When Strange casts the
[41:18] spell that leads to a Spider-Man
[41:20] crossover, Palmer says that Strange
[41:22] didn't know he had to account for
[41:24] infinite other universes. Spells always
[41:27] have risks, but it became infinitely
[41:30] more risky now that alternate timelines
[41:32] exist and alternate realities are
[41:34] accessible. The TLDDR on all this, the
[41:38] multiverse is made up of multiple
[41:40] universes. I I guess I could have just
[41:42] said that. Anyway, returning to the
[41:45] sacred timeline. After losing vision to
[41:48] Thanos, Wanda is lost in her grief. So
[41:51] much so, it releases power she herself
[41:54] is unaware of. The power of the Scarlet
[41:57] Witch, enough to shield her from grief
[41:59] by engulfing the town of Westview in a
[42:02] reality bubble hex that takes
[42:05] inspiration from sitcoms. In it, Wanda
[42:07] is married to Vision and they have two
[42:09] kids. While the town's folk are puppeted
[42:12] by her magic to play their roles in the
[42:14] sitcom. Once she realizes what she's
[42:17] doing, effectively enslaving a town, she
[42:19] ends the hex, which also disappears the
[42:22] vision and two children she conjured.
[42:25] Though worth mentioning that this was
[42:27] all being investigated by Sword, the
[42:30] sentient weapon observation response
[42:32] division. And to fight it, they actually
[42:34] repaired Vision and brought him back to
[42:37] life by stealing some of Wanda's chaos
[42:39] magic. They reprogrammed him to kill
[42:42] Wanda and her hex Vision until Hex
[42:45] Vision restored Real Vision's memories.
[42:48] Real Vision flew off on his own, so
[42:50] Wanda has no idea he's still out there.
[42:53] Also worth mentioning, Monica Rambo,
[42:56] daughter of Carol Danver's best friend,
[42:58] Maria, is with Sword. and repeated trips
[43:01] into Wanda's Hex has given her
[43:03] superpowers. How does this all tie into
[43:05] the multiverse? Well, in many other
[43:08] universes, Wanda has those same two
[43:11] children. So whether consciously or not,
[43:14] her hex either borrowed them from other
[43:16] worlds or recreated two kids from
[43:19] scratch in their image. In 2024,
[43:22] Spider-Man faces the hologram wielding
[43:25] villain Mysterio. The bad guy in his
[43:27] hubris gets himself killed, but leaves
[43:30] behind a dying gift, revealing to the
[43:33] world Spider-Man's true identity. The
[43:35] revelation throws Peter's life into
[43:37] chaos, and soon he'll come knocking on
[43:40] Doctor Strange's door for help that'll
[43:42] inadvertently involve the multiverse.
[43:45] Later that year, emergence. You thought
[43:48] I forgot about that celestial inside the
[43:50] Earth, didn't you? Well, remember, it
[43:53] feeds on the energy of intelligent life.
[43:56] And for five years, there was a lot less
[43:58] of it thanks to Thanos. Then, thanks to
[44:00] the Avengers, all that life came back.
[44:03] And now, the seed has enough energy to
[44:06] emerge. Except Arishm has a bunch of
[44:09] synthetic beings named Eternals, who are
[44:11] meant to ensure emergencies go smoothly.
[44:14] But a group of them have been on Earth
[44:16] since 5,000 BC, and most have come to
[44:19] appreciate humanity. They don't want to
[44:21] see us wiped out. So they find a way to
[44:23] freeze Tiiamit partway through emergence
[44:25] before he can blow up the Earth, leaving
[44:28] a giant celestial sticking out of the
[44:30] Indian Ocean. Countries from around the
[44:32] world quickly flock to this celestial
[44:35] island. And in their research discover a
[44:38] substance more powerful than vibranium,
[44:41] adamantium, the same metal that covers
[44:43] Wolverine's bones and claws. Another big
[44:46] breadcrumb for the upcoming age of
[44:48] mutants. Back to Peter Parker. He comes
[44:51] to Doctor Strange and begs for help. The
[44:53] master of the mystic arts offers to cast
[44:56] a spell to erase everyone's knowledge of
[44:58] his identity, but things go wrong. Like
[45:01] I mentioned before, Strange didn't
[45:03] realize just how wrong they could go
[45:05] because he didn't know there are now
[45:07] infinite timelines and the barriers are
[45:10] down between realities. The spell
[45:12] invites to Earth 616 anyone who already
[45:15] knows that Peter Parker is Spider-Man.
[45:18] Of course, that includes other
[45:20] Spider-Man, but also some of their
[45:22] villains. Before an infinite number of
[45:24] universal trespassers can flood Earth
[45:27] 616, they stop it by casting another
[45:30] spell, one that erases everyone's
[45:33] knowledge of Peter Parker. He's alone in
[45:35] the world after that, but the
[45:36] alternative was potentially no world at
[45:39] all. But Strange is not done with the
[45:41] multiverse yet, thanks to Wanda
[45:44] Maximoff. She's still grieving for her
[45:47] lost children, and she's been studying
[45:49] the Darkhold, getting in touch with her
[45:51] inner Scarlet Witch. In her dreams, she
[45:54] sees those children every night, which
[45:57] means they're out there in the
[45:58] multiverse somewhere. After all, dreams
[46:00] are just visions from those other
[46:02] worlds. But crossing universes isn't
[46:05] easy, even for the Scarlet Witch.
[46:08] Thankfully, she's discovered a girl in
[46:10] another universe named America Chavez
[46:13] with the ability to open portals between
[46:16] worlds. Wanda wants to take that power
[46:18] for herself, which would kill Chavez.
[46:22] Strange protects the girl, which takes
[46:24] them on a trip to other universes,
[46:26] including Earth 838, a world where a
[46:30] Doctor Strange variant tried using the
[46:32] Dark Hole to stop Thanos, but
[46:34] accidentally caused an incursion, wiping
[46:36] out an entire universe, trillions of
[46:39] sentient beings. That Strange was
[46:41] sentenced to execution by the
[46:43] Illuminati, a group of heroes including
[46:45] that world's Reed Richards, Captain
[46:47] Carter, Charles Xavier, and others.
[46:50] Ultimately, they stop Wanda by showing
[46:53] her the monster she's become, by showing
[46:55] her those children in another world,
[46:58] terrified of the Scarlet Witch. So,
[47:01] Wanda collapses the Darkhold Castle on
[47:03] herself where the Darkhold was first
[47:06] inscribed. She's gone and every copy of
[47:09] the Dark Hold in the multiverse is
[47:11] destroyed. Though, Wanda has to come
[47:13] back at some point, right? I think she's
[47:15] probably coming back in 2025. A girl
[47:18] named Camala Khan puts on a bangle and
[47:21] gets light-based superpowers, turning
[47:23] her into the superhero at Miss Marvel.
[47:26] But that's not all. Her friend studies
[47:28] her DNA and finds a mutation. And when
[47:32] they say the word mutation, you hear
[47:36] the X-Men animated theme. So there's no
[47:38] mistaking that this is the sort of
[47:40] mutation that leads to the X-Men. It's
[47:42] again a little confusing because just
[47:44] like Neymar, we have an external
[47:46] explanation for her powers, the Bengal,
[47:49] but also mutation. We'll see how it all
[47:52] shakes out. In 2026, 8 years after Hank,
[47:56] Scott, and Hope rescued Janet from the
[47:58] quantum realm, they all get sucked back
[48:00] into it thanks to a couple of major
[48:02] blunders. Janet never told them what
[48:06] happened to her in the quantum realm.
[48:08] While she was stranded, she met another
[48:10] stranded individual and worked with him
[48:12] to try and escape until she realized
[48:15] that he was Kang the Conqueror, exiled
[48:18] to the quantum realm by other Nathaniel
[48:20] Richards variants. So instead, she tried
[48:23] her best to stop him from leaving, even
[48:25] if it meant stranding herself, too.
[48:27] Should I have mentioned this earlier?
[48:29] No, because the quantum realm exists
[48:31] outside of time and space. Therefore,
[48:33] chronologically, I can bring it up
[48:35] whenever I want. Not knowing any of
[48:37] this, Scott's daughter, Cassie, decided
[48:39] to build a satellite to communicate with
[48:41] the quantum realm. After teaching
[48:43] herself quantum physics, thus revealing
[48:46] themselves to Kang and getting them all
[48:48] sucked into the realm. Working together
[48:50] and with an army of quantum realm
[48:52] rebels, they defeat Kang, who gets
[48:54] sucked into an energy core. Considering
[48:57] realworld events which have led to some
[48:59] changes in the MCU's direction, that may
[49:02] be the last we see of him. And it can be
[49:04] explained away. We can say the TVA is
[49:06] doing a great job monitoring his
[49:08] variance. Later that year, more
[49:11] multiverse shenanigans. You know that
[49:14] bangle which gives Miss Marvel powers?
[49:16] It's actually a quantum band. Two of
[49:19] them can be used to open a portal. In
[49:21] ancient times, they were used to create
[49:23] a teleportation network of jump points.
[49:26] Why does that matter now? Well, remember
[49:28] years ago when Captain Marvel killed the
[49:30] AI on Hala? Turns out that was a bad
[49:33] idea. Since then, without their AI
[49:36] overlord, the planet plummeted into
[49:38] civil war. The CRE ended up depleting
[49:40] their planet of resources and pushing
[49:43] their son to the brink of death. So, Cre
[49:46] warrior Dar Ben gets an idea. Use the
[49:49] Bengals to open portals on other planets
[49:51] and steal their resources. Miss Marvel
[49:54] has one bangle. Darben finds the other.
[49:57] And though you need two for portals, she
[49:59] makes one work by overpowering it, which
[50:02] leads to unstable portals, which gets
[50:04] Miss Marvel, Captain Marvel, and Monica
[50:06] Rambo quantumly entangled, leading to
[50:09] all sorts of hijinks. In the end, Darben
[50:12] steals Miss Marvel's bangle, but two
[50:14] Bengals are too much power. She
[50:16] accidentally gets herself killed and
[50:18] rips a hole in spaceime. Monica is able
[50:21] to close that hole by traveling through
[50:22] it and sealing it from the other side,
[50:25] trapping her in another world. A world
[50:28] with a talking blue beast, one of the
[50:30] X-Men. Is this the X-Men universe? As in
[50:34] Earth 1, the one where all the X-Men
[50:37] movies take place, or just another
[50:40] universe that happens to have X-Men? We
[50:42] don't know yet. But definitely on Earth
[50:45] 1005 is Deadpool until the TVA grabs
[50:49] him. Recently in his world, Wolverine
[50:52] died. Bigger problem, Wolverine is an
[50:55] anchor being, which means after his
[50:57] death, the universe will wither and die
[50:59] in a couple thousand years. Even bigger
[51:02] problem, Mr. Paradox at the TVA is
[51:04] impatient and is building a time ripper
[51:07] to destroy Deadpool's world immediately.
[51:10] Even more bigger problem. Charles Xavier
[51:13] had a twin sister, Cassandra Nova.
[51:15] Pruned by the TVA as a child and sent to
[51:18] the void. Basically a time garbage dump
[51:20] located outside time. She's vengeful.
[51:23] She decides to commandeer that time
[51:25] ripper and use it to eradicate all
[51:28] timelines. Thankfully, Deadpool in his
[51:31] quest to save his own world. Found a
[51:33] Wolverine from another world and working
[51:35] together, they stop her. Along the way,
[51:38] they also make some friends in the void
[51:40] from alternate realities like Blade,
[51:42] Electra, X-23, and Gambit. By 2027,
[51:46] General Thaddius Ross has been elected
[51:49] president of the United States. With
[51:51] help from a scientist with superpowered
[51:53] intelligence, Sam Sterns. Ross publicly
[51:56] blamed Sterns for making abomination
[51:58] back in 2010, tossed him in a secret
[52:01] prison, and has been using him as a
[52:02] captive personal think tank for years.
[52:05] In other news, Ross decides it's time
[52:07] for a new Avengers. So, he tasks Sam
[52:10] Wilson, once the Falcon, now Rogers
[52:12] Captain America replacement, with
[52:14] putting a team together. At the same
[52:17] time, Ross is trying to broker a treaty
[52:19] between countries. With the emergence of
[52:22] Celestial Island, everyone wants
[52:24] adamantium. Rather than an arms race, he
[52:26] wants countries to cooperate and share
[52:28] the substance around the world
[52:30] equitably. As revenge against Ross for
[52:33] keeping him in prison, Sterns tries to
[52:35] sabotage the treaty. Captain America
[52:37] manages to keep the treaty alive, but
[52:40] can't stop Stern's plan entirely. The
[52:42] scientist turns Ross into a Red Hulk.
[52:45] Captain America stops him, too. Then
[52:48] Ross takes responsibility for his
[52:50] actions, landing him and Sterns in the
[52:53] raft where Sterns warns Captain America
[52:56] that with his super intelligence, he's
[52:58] become aware of other worlds and other
[53:01] people from those other worlds are
[53:03] coming soon to a theater near you. And
[53:06] while Captain America works on putting a
[53:08] team of Avengers together, Valentina
[53:10] Algra de Fontaine, director of the CIA,
[53:13] kind of accidentally puts her own
[53:15] together. She has a team of anti-heroes
[53:18] who have been doing dirty work for her.
[53:20] A black widow, Natasha Romangh's sister,
[53:22] Yolena Bova. Ava Star, the quantum
[53:25] ghost. Taskmaster, long story. And John
[53:28] Walker, a guy who was briefly made
[53:31] Captain America, then screwed it all up
[53:33] before Wilson took his rightful spot.
[53:35] When Valentina is threatened with
[53:37] impeachment over unethical behavior, she
[53:40] tries to cover it up by destroying the
[53:42] evidence, which means killing all those
[53:44] anti-heroes and the leftovers of Project
[53:47] Century. An experiment she was
[53:49] overseeing to make a superhero so
[53:52] powerful the Avengers would be made
[53:54] obsolete. She thought the experiment was
[53:56] a failure, but it turns out it worked on
[53:58] a guy named Bob. Through a series of
[54:01] mishaps, Bob's traumatic side takes over
[54:04] and he becomes a villain, the void,
[54:06] thanks to his ability to send people
[54:08] into a shadow world where they face
[54:10] traumatic memories. But those
[54:12] anti-heroes save him with the power of
[54:15] friendship and to divert the public from
[54:17] her own screw-ups. Fontaine is like,
[54:20] "You're welcome. I totally brought this
[54:22] team together on purpose. I wasn't
[54:24] trying to blow them up or anything. You
[54:26] see, these guys, they are the new
[54:28] Avengers." Except for Taskmaster because
[54:31] she dies a few minutes into the movie
[54:33] when Ghost shoots her in the head back
[54:36] when she was still working for Fontaine
[54:38] before she realized the CIA director
[54:40] wanted them all dead. And now let's take
[54:43] a journey to another world, Earth 828. I
[54:46] just got back from the theater, so it's
[54:48] time to talk Fantastic 4. I'm about to
[54:51] spoil the whole movie, so if you haven't
[54:53] seen it yet, do yourself a favor, pause
[54:55] the video, go watch it, then come back.
[54:58] I'm going to cover this movie a little
[55:00] differently because the timeline
[55:02] placement is complex and partly unknown.
[55:05] First, I'll go through the major events
[55:07] of the movie. Then, I'll talk about
[55:08] where they might fit on the timeline.
[55:11] So, there's another universe out there,
[55:13] Earth 828, where, as far as we know,
[55:16] none of the familiar heroes have
[55:18] emerged. No Iron Man, Captain America,
[55:21] Hulk, or Thor. But they do have a few
[55:24] heroes. Four to be specific. The
[55:26] smartest man alive, Reed Richards, his
[55:28] wife Sue Storm, her brother Johnny, and
[55:31] their close friend Ben Grim. They all go
[55:34] to space, come into contact with cosmic
[55:36] rays, and come back with superpowers.
[55:39] Reed is stretchy, Sue turns invisible
[55:41] and makes force fields. Johnny has
[55:44] firepowers, and Grim is deformed into a
[55:46] rockman with incredible strength.
[55:49] Working together, they stop villains and
[55:50] inspire the world. Four years later,
[55:53] Reed and Sue are expecting a baby. Also,
[55:56] the Silver Surfer shows up with an
[55:58] announcement. Galactis is coming to eat
[56:00] your planet. Who is Galactis? The movie
[56:03] doesn't tell us much other than he was a
[56:06] man once, billions of years ago before
[56:08] the power cosmic turned him into a giant
[56:11] powerful being with eternal hunger, who
[56:14] is Silver Surfer. She once lived on a
[56:17] planet he chose to eat, but she
[56:19] successfully negotiated mercy by
[56:22] offering to become his herald. Now she
[56:24] helps him find more planets to consume
[56:27] while hers gets to live on. The
[56:29] Fantastic Four come to negotiate when
[56:31] Galactis senses the unborn child and in
[56:34] him the power cosmic. Galactis makes an
[56:38] offer. Give me the baby so he can take
[56:40] my place and free me from this curse.
[56:43] Then I'll spare your world. Of course,
[56:45] they refuse and ultimately stop him by
[56:48] pushing him into a portal to the far
[56:50] ends of the universe. In the battle, Sue
[56:53] pushes herself to the limit, leaving her
[56:56] on the ground, heart stopped, not
[56:58] breathing. Reed tries to bring her back,
[57:00] but can't. Their baby, on the other
[57:03] hand, with the power cosmic, revives his
[57:06] mother. That's how powerful he is. In
[57:09] the post credits, 4 years later, a
[57:12] certain ruler from Latvaria, Victor von
[57:14] Doom, arrives at the Fantastic 4's home.
[57:17] Sue finds him crouched over her son,
[57:20] Franklin. Now, we know Franklin is
[57:22] extremely powerful, but what does Doom
[57:25] want with him exactly? Whatever it is,
[57:28] likely has something to do with the
[57:30] upcoming Avengers Doomsday. And when
[57:32] does this all take place on Earth 828?
[57:35] We know it's all happening in the '60s.
[57:38] But in Thunderbolt's postredit scene,
[57:40] which takes place in Earth 616's 2028,
[57:44] 14 months after the end of the movie,
[57:46] Thunderbolt's new Avengers witness the
[57:48] arrival of the Fantastic 4's ship. Does
[57:51] that mean that not only did the
[57:53] Fantastic 4 hop from one universe to
[57:56] another, but also left six decades into
[57:58] the future? Honestly, we don't know. My
[58:01] personal theory is that the two worlds
[58:03] Earth 616 and 828 simply function on
[58:07] different time scales. So, for example,
[58:09] when it's 1968 on Earth 828, maybe it's
[58:13] 2028 on Earth 616. It's easy to imagine
[58:17] how that could happen. For example, if
[58:19] humanity invented the calendar 60 years
[58:22] later in one world, that world's years
[58:25] would always be behind the others. or if
[58:27] civilization as a whole rose later
[58:30] leading to a delayed calendar and
[58:31] delayed technological advancement etc.
[58:34] Think of it like different time zones
[58:36] except instead of a few hours difference
[58:38] it's a few decades difference. For
[58:41] simplicity I'll run with the time
[58:43] difference assumption and talk in terms
[58:45] of Earth 616 years. We'll probably have
[58:48] to wait for Doomsday to pin this all
[58:50] down. But for now, just as a thought
[58:53] experiment, if we assume that Doom
[58:55] showing up at their home in Fantastic 4
[58:58] is what somehow leads to them dimension
[59:00] hopping in Thunderbolts and that one
[59:03] happens right after the other, we can
[59:05] assume the Fantastic 4 postredits takes
[59:08] place in 2028. Working backwards, the
[59:11] Fantastic 4's postredits is 4 years
[59:14] after Franklin's birth. So that puts his
[59:16] birthday in 2024, the same year Tiiamit
[59:19] partially emerged and Doctor Strange
[59:21] meddled with the multiverse. And four
[59:24] years before that, the Fantastic 4 got
[59:26] their powers in 2020, while Earth 616
[59:30] was still down half its population
[59:32] thanks to 2018 snap, not to be reversed
[59:35] until 2023. Anyway, like I said, when
[59:38] worlds actually collide in Doomsday, we
[59:41] should get more evidence on the how and
[59:44] when of all this. And that's where we
[59:47] leave things for now. We've got two
[59:49] Avengers teams. One formed by Valentina,
[59:52] kind of by mistake. Another, Captain
[59:54] America, is in the process of putting
[59:56] together. Meanwhile, Dr. Doom is up to
[59:59] something on Earth 828. and it'll all
[60:01] come crashing together December 18th,
[60:04] 2026 in theaters on Earth 1218. Marvel's
[60:08] designation for the real world according
[60:10] to the Google search I just did. Anyway,
[60:12] I got to go finish up my Conjuring
[60:14] timeline, so I'll see you later. Also,
[60:17] special thank you to three consultants
[60:19] who helped with this video. Cenamed N,
[60:22] M, and A. You know who you are. Thank
[60:24] you and see you on the next one. Take