---
title: 'MCU Timeline Explained'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=egbSfudHOrk'
video_id: 'egbSfudHOrk'
date: 2026-06-30
duration_sec: 3629
---

# MCU Timeline Explained

> Source: [MCU Timeline Explained](https://youtube.com/watch?v=egbSfudHOrk)

## Summary

This video provides a comprehensive overview of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) timeline, focusing on the grand arcs of the Infinity Stones, the Multiverse, and the setup for the Age of Mutants. It condenses the main storyline, skipping side plots to highlight the journey from the creation of the universe to the events leading up to the Mutant Saga.

### Key Points

- **Video Scope** [[0:00]] — The video covers spoilers for the entire MCU, with a warning before discussing the Fantastic Four's timeline placement.
- **Trimming the Timeline** [[0:17]] — The creator's timeline video is almost 9 hours long, so this is a pruned version to focus on the bigger picture, divided into the Infinity Saga, Multiverse Saga, and upcoming Mutant Saga.
- **Three Key Arcs** [[1:02]] — To understand the MCU timeline, one must follow the journey of the Infinity Stones, the intermingling of worlds in the Multiverse, and the breadcrumbs pointing to the Age of Mutants.
- **Beginning of the Universe** [[3:18]] — The universe began with the Celestial Arishem, who created the first sun and initiated the process of emergence, planting seeds in planets that feed on intelligent life to birth new Celestials.
- **Infinity Stones Origins** [[4:03]] — After the Big Bang, six singularities (Space, Mind, Reality, Power, Soul, Time) were concentrated into the Infinity Stones. The Eternals' opening text places Arishem before these singularities.
- **Vibranium Meteor and Wakanda** [[5:17]] — 2.5 billion years ago, a vibranium meteor struck Africa, leading to the formation of Wakanda, where a warrior shaman ate the heart-shaped herb to become the Black Panther.
- **First Known Infinity Stone Use** [[6:15]] — In 2988 BC, the Dark Elves used the Reality Stone (Ether) to try to restore darkness. King Bor of Asgard defeated them and hid the stone.
- **Space Stone on Earth** [[7:35]] — In 1400 AD, King Odin hid the space stone (Tesseract) in a church in Norway for unknown reasons, as per the official timeline book.
- **First Known Mutant** [[8:55]] — In 1571, Namor is the chronologically first known mutant, born with ankle wings after his mother ate a vibranium-affected plant while pregnant.
- **Captain America and World War II** [[9:55]] — In 1940, Steve Rogers becomes Captain America through the super soldier serum to oppose Red Skull, who found the Tesseract. Bucky Barnes falls from a train and is presumed dead.
- **Captain Marvel's Origin** [[13:58]] — In 1989, Carol Danvers is exposed to Space Stone energy, becoming Captain Marvel. In 1995, she regains her memories and inspires Nick Fury to create the Avengers initiative.
- **Thanos's Mission Begins** [[15:18]] — Thanos, from the doomed planet Titan, begins killing half of a planet's population, like the Zobarians in the late 1990s, taking Gamora as his daughter.
- **Earth's Heroes Emerge** [[16:18]] — In 2005, Bruce Banner becomes the Hulk. In 2008, Tony Stark becomes Iron Man. In 2010, Thor and Hulk become public, leading to Fury's Avengers initiative.
- **Battle of New York** [[18:42]] — In 2012, Thanos sends Loki with the Mind Stone scepter to retrieve the Space Stone, but the Avengers stop him. Thor takes the Space Stone to Asgard, and SHIELD takes the mind stone.
- **Reality Stone Conflicts** [[19:21]] — In 2013, Jane Foster is infected by the Reality Stone (Ether). Thor removes it and leaves it with the Collector for safekeeping, after the Dark Elves attack.
- **Hydra's Fall** [[19:57]] — In 2014, the Avengers uncover Hydra's infiltration of SHIELD and stop Project Insight. Captain America reunites with Bucky, who is the Winter Soldier.
- **Guardians of the Galaxy Form** [[20:54]] — In 2014, the Guardians of the Galaxy form to stop Ronan from using the Power Stone on Xandar. They leave the stone with the Nova Corps.
- **Age of Ultron** [[22:01]] — In 2015, Tony Stark and Bruce Banner create Ultron, a rogue AI. The Avengers stop him, but Wanda Maximoff and Pietro Maximoff get powers. Vision is born.
- **Doctor Strange's Origin** [[24:14]] — In 2016, Dr. Stephen Strange becomes a master of the mystic arts and defends Earth from Dormammu using the Time Stone.
- **Civil War** [[24:50]] — In 2016, the Avengers split over the Sokovia Accords. Captain America and Iron Man fight, resulting in the team's disbandment.
- **Thor: Ragnarok** [[26:39]] — In 2017, Hela is freed after Odin's death. Thor destroys Asgard to stop her, but Thanos attacks the refugee ship, killing Loki and Heimdall and taking the Space Stone.
- **Infinity War** [[27:49]] — Thanos collects all six Infinity Stones and snaps, wiping out half of all life. The remaining Avengers fail to stop him until they later plan a time heist.
- **Endgame Time Heist** [[30:06]] — In 2023, the Avengers use the Quantum Realm to time travel, borrow Infinity Stones from the past, and undo the snap. Tony Stark sacrifices himself to kill Thanos and his army.
- **End of Infinity Saga** [[32:45]] — The Infinity Saga ends with Stark's death, Thor leaving to find himself, and Captain America going back in time to live with Peggy Carter.
- **Multiverse Saga Begins** [[33:55]] — The multiverse saga begins with Loki escaping with the Tesseract, leading to his arrest by the TVA and the discovery of Kang the Conqueror.
- **He Who Remains and the Sacred Timeline** [[36:36]] — In the 31st century, Nathaniel Richards discovers the multiverse. To prevent multiversal war, he creates the TVA and maintains the Sacred Timeline, killing variants that branch off.
- **Loki's Sacrifice** [[38:01]] — Sylvie kills He Who Remains, allowing infinite branching timelines. Loki destroys the temporal loom and uses his power to keep the timelines alive, becoming the God of Stories.
- **WandaVision** [[41:38]] — In 2024, Wanda Maximoff creates a hex bubble in Westview, accidentally enslaving the town. She ends the hex, losing her conjured children, but Monica Rambeau gains powers.
- **Spider-Man: No Way Home** [[43:22]] — In 2024, Peter Parker asks Doctor Strange to erase his identity, but the spell accidentally brings in villains and alternate Spider-Men from other universes.
- **Eternals and Celestial Island** [[44:03]] — Tiamut partially emerges from the Indian Ocean, creating Celestial Island and revealing adamantium, a metal stronger than vibranium, hinting at the Age of Mutants.
- **Doctor Strange: Multiverse of Madness** [[45:44]] — Wanda Maximoff, corrupted by the Darkhold, tries to take America Chavez's powers to cross universes and find her children. She is stopped and seems to die.
- **Ms. Marvel and Mutants** [[47:18]] — In 2025, Kamala Khan's DNA shows a mutation, accompanied by the X-Men theme, confirming her connection to mutants despite her bangle-given powers.
- **Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania** [[47:56]] — In 2026, Scott, Hope, and Hank are pulled into the Quantum Realm, where they face Kang the Conqueror, who is seemingly defeated.
- **The Marvels** [[50:02]] — In 2026, a Kree warrior, Dar-Benn, uses the quantum bands to steal resources from planets. Monica Rambeau is trapped in an alternate universe with an X-Man (Beast).
- **Deadpool & Wolverine** [[50:52]] — Deadpool's universe is dying after the death of its anchor being, Wolverine. He teams up with an alternate Wolverine to stop Cassandra Nova from destroying all timelines.
- **Captain America: Brave New World** [[51:46]] — In 2027, President Ross becomes Red Hulk with help from Samuel Sterns. Captain America stops him, and Sterns warns of threats from other worlds.
- **Thunderbolts Formation** [[53:35]] — Valentina de Fontaine accidentally forms a team of anti-heroes, who later become the new Avengers after saving Bob (The Void) and diverting public attention.
- **Fantastic Four Timeline** [[54:43]] — In Earth-828 (likely the 1960s), the Fantastic Four get powers and stop Galactus. Four years later, Doctor Doom visits their son, Franklin. The movie's post-credits scene connects to Thunderbolts in 2028 on Earth-616.

### Conclusion

The MCU is currently in the Multiverse Saga, with two Avengers teams forming and the arrival of the Fantastic Four from another universe. The stage is set for the upcoming Mutant Saga, with many breadcrumbs pointing to the Age of Mutants.

## Transcript

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