MCU Timeline Explained

[00:00] Spoilers ahead for the entire MCU.

[00:02] Though, I don't discuss Fantastic 4's

[00:04] timeline placement until the end of the

[00:06] video. So, if you haven't seen it yet

[00:08] and don't want to get spoiled, no

[00:10] worries. I'll give a warning before we

[00:12] get there, so you can stop if you'd

[00:14] like. The MCU is getting big. Big enough

[00:17] my timeline video is almost 9 hours

[00:19] long, dangerously close to YouTube's

[00:21] 12-hour limit. So, like the TVA, I've

[00:24] decided to do some pruning to make a

[00:26] timeline that isn't so timeconuming.

[00:29] This isn't to replace that one, just a

[00:31] way to take a step back and focus on the

[00:34] bigger picture. The MCU is divided into

[00:37] sagas that are divided into phases. We

[00:40] had the Infinity Saga. Now we're into

[00:42] the Multiverse Saga. And next up, all

[00:45] signs point to a mutant saga. Feige has

[00:48] basically said as much. Quote, "The

[00:50] whole story of Secret Wars really leads

[00:53] us into a new age of mutants and of the

[00:55] X-Men." So to understand the timeline

[00:58] and the overall arc of the MCU is to

[01:02] understand one the journey of the

[01:04] Infinity Stones, two the intermingling

[01:07] of worlds in the multiverse, and three

[01:09] the various breadcrumbs that have been

[01:11] dropped so far pointing to the Age of

[01:13] Mutants. That's what we'll focus on,

[01:16] which means any stories that don't

[01:18] directly impact these arcs will be left

[01:20] out. The rest you can find in the 9-hour

[01:23] version. Now, we're about to rewind back

[01:26] to the beginning of time. But first,

[01:28] working on so many complex videos

[01:31] involves a lot of research, which often

[01:33] means I have a lot of tabs open.

[01:35] Thankfully, I use Opera, which keeps

[01:38] everything simple and intuitive. Like

[01:40] when you have a bunch of tabs open and

[01:42] you're trying to remember what was the

[01:44] tab I was just on. These tab traces make

[01:47] it easy to see where you're coming from

[01:49] at a glance. The darker line is the last

[01:51] tab I was on, and the lines get lighter

[01:54] as you go further back in my history.

[01:57] When I really want to get organized, I

[01:59] use tab islands. I can group tabs like

[02:01] this, or even use Arya, Opera's free

[02:04] built-in AI tool. I press command slash

[02:07] or control slash to access the command

[02:10] line and just ask it to group all my

[02:12] wiki tabs, for example. And like that,

[02:15] it's done. Then I can expand and

[02:17] collapse tab islands as needed. Arya can

[02:20] do a lot more than that too, like

[02:22] answering questions. If I ask, "What's a

[02:25] good snack to eat?" before a long

[02:26] recording session, Arya quickly gives an

[02:29] answer. And that's helpful for me

[02:30] because this hour-long video is on the

[02:33] shorter side for my channel. And all

[02:35] that while I'm listening to music with

[02:37] Opera's built-in music player, which

[02:39] integrates with Spotify, Apple Music,

[02:41] YouTube Music, and more. You can detach

[02:44] the player and controls without

[02:45] interrupting your work. You can even

[02:47] move it outside the browser. I also love

[02:50] Opera's themes. There's a whole gallery

[02:52] to choose from, and they're totally

[02:54] customizable, like Midsummer or Aurora

[02:57] with their calming animated backgrounds

[02:59] that can be customized to your liking.

[03:01] I'm looking at my browser all day. So,

[03:04] it's great to be able to shape it into a

[03:06] clean and comfortable work environment,

[03:08] perfect for me. I recommend Opera. Check

[03:11] out my link in the description to try it

[03:13] out for yourself. And now back to the

[03:15] timeline. We'll start at the beginning

[03:18] of the universe with godlike beings

[03:21] known as celestials. The first is

[03:24] Arishm. According to the Eternals, he

[03:26] created the first sun and brought light

[03:28] into the universe. He built things out

[03:31] from there through a process called

[03:33] emergence. He put seeds in planets that

[03:35] fed on the energy of intelligent life to

[03:38] grow into new celestials. They would

[03:40] burst out of their planets, destroying

[03:42] all life there in the process. But it's

[03:45] all part of a cycle because those new

[03:47] celestials would go on to make more

[03:49] stars and galaxies leading to more

[03:52] planets populated by life. Without this

[03:55] process, the universe would fall into

[03:58] darkness. So in the beginning there was

[04:00] Arishm. After him there were six

[04:03] singularities representing fundamental

[04:06] elements of existence. space, mind,

[04:09] reality, power, soul, and time. After

[04:12] the Big Bang, presumably set off by

[04:14] Arishm, those six singularities were

[04:17] concentrated into the Infinity Stones.

[04:20] The opening text of the Eternals tells

[04:22] us that Arishim was there before the

[04:24] singularities. Otherwise, we know

[04:27] nothing about them. If you're curious

[04:29] what the comics say, they were

[04:31] originally called soul gems until Thanos

[04:34] was like, "Only one of them controls the

[04:36] soul, so maybe infinity gems is a better

[04:39] name." And later they became stones. As

[04:42] for their origins, before time, there

[04:44] was a sentient being of limitless power.

[04:47] But as the only living thing around, it

[04:49] was lonely and chose to end itself. From

[04:52] its ashes rose all reality, then the

[04:56] core of that being reincarnated into the

[04:58] six infinity gems. Billions of years go

[05:02] by with a lot of flashbacks and origins,

[05:04] ancient civilizations, other dimensions,

[05:07] artifacts, ancient civilizations located

[05:09] in other dimensions, etc. There are a

[05:12] lot, but the most important for these

[05:14] stories are Asgard and Wakanda. 2 and a

[05:17] half billion years ago, a vibranium

[05:20] meteor struck Africa. And a few thousand

[05:22] years ago, Wakanda formed there. A

[05:25] warrior shaman ate the heart-shaped

[05:27] herb, a plant affected by the vibranium,

[05:30] giving him power, enabling him to become

[05:32] Wakanda's leader, the Black Panther.

[05:35] There's also Asgard. The MCU has not

[05:38] explored its origins, but powerful

[05:40] beings live there. Powerful enough, they

[05:42] become the gods of Norse mythology. They

[05:45] look over the nine realms, essentially

[05:47] nine planets, including Earth, connected

[05:50] by what they call Egrasil, the world's

[05:52] tree. The Bifrost, overseen by the

[05:55] Asgardian Heimdoll, allows for

[05:57] teleportation between them. The

[05:59] Asgardians are the first civilization we

[06:02] know of to interact with the Infinity

[06:04] Stones, other than little references

[06:06] like in Guardians of the Galaxy when the

[06:08] collector shows a celestial using the

[06:10] power stone to mow down entire

[06:12] civilizations. But the earliest known

[06:15] specific reference to use of the

[06:17] infinity stones comes in 2988 BC. That's

[06:21] when beings known as the dark elves who

[06:24] are said to have dwelt in the darkness

[06:26] before the universe began their hands on

[06:28] the reality stone and turned it into

[06:31] ether, which they tried using to restore

[06:34] the darkness. King Boore of Asgard

[06:36] defeated them, then took the ether and

[06:39] hid it on a distant world. Before we

[06:41] continue with the Infinity Stones, just

[06:43] a quick aside. Around 600 BC, King

[06:47] Boore's son Odin, has inherited the

[06:49] throne. And with his daughter, Hela, the

[06:51] goddess of death, they conquered the

[06:53] nine realms until a few hundred years

[06:55] later, after the turn of the millennium,

[06:57] Odin reforms and decides to focus on

[07:00] peace instead. But Hela never loses her

[07:03] blood lust. So Odin imprisons her in

[07:05] hell with a name like Goddess of Death.

[07:08] Not sure what Odin was expecting.

[07:10] Asgard's next interaction with the

[07:12] stones is in 1400 AD with the space

[07:15] stone contained inside that cube, the

[07:18] tesseract. In the movies from the first

[07:20] Captain America, all we know is that Red

[07:23] Skull found it at a church in Norway in

[07:25] the 1940s. But Marvel has published a

[07:28] couple of timelines, including their

[07:30] recent official timeline book, which

[07:33] clarifies it was put there by none other

[07:35] than King Odin. How did he get the

[07:37] tesseract? Why did he put it on Earth?

[07:40] No idea. The book itself says, "For

[07:43] unknown reasons, the Tesserat cube that

[07:46] contains a space stone is hidden inside

[07:48] a medieval church." Nice. As for the

[07:50] other four stones, we don't know their

[07:52] journeys, but we know where they

[07:54] eventually end up. The mind stone is

[07:57] first seen in 2012 in the Avengers. It

[08:00] powers Loki's mind controlling scepter

[08:02] gifted to him by Thanos. The power stone

[08:05] is kept in a temple on the planet Morag,

[08:07] accessible once every 300 years when the

[08:10] sea lowers. That's where Peter Quill

[08:12] finds it in 2014 per Guardians of the

[08:14] Galaxy. The time stone is obtained by

[08:17] Agamodto, the first sorcerer supreme who

[08:20] discovered the mystic arts. He built a

[08:22] container for the time stone that'll

[08:24] come to be called the eye of Agamoto per

[08:27] Doctor Strange in 2016. And finally, we

[08:30] don't hear about the soul stone until

[08:32] Infinity War when we find out it's kept

[08:35] on the planet Vormir, where its guardian

[08:37] explains the rules to any seeking it.

[08:40] Obtaining the stone costs the life of

[08:42] someone you love. So, we know where they

[08:44] end up, and in each case, they've

[08:46] probably been there a long time. After

[08:49] Odin dropping off the space stone in

[08:51] 1400, let's next stop in 1571 when we

[08:55] meet the MCU's chronologically first

[08:58] known mutant, Neymar. A few years before

[09:01] this, a mine tribe found an underwater

[09:03] deposit of vibranium. Eating the

[09:06] affected plant life saved them from

[09:07] smallpox that had been ravaging their

[09:09] village, but it also turned them blue

[09:12] and made it so they could only breathe

[09:14] underwater. One woman who ate the plant

[09:16] was pregnant at the time and her baby

[09:18] was born a mutant who will come to be

[09:21] called Neymar. He isn't blue, can

[09:23] breathe above water, and has ankle wings

[09:25] that let him fly. It gets a little

[09:28] confusing to call him a mutant because

[09:30] we typically think of mutants as people

[09:32] who get an ability from the Xgene, but

[09:35] Neymar got his from that vibranium

[09:38] plant, right? Or maybe the plant gave

[09:40] him some power, but also helped manifest

[09:43] what was already there, resulting in

[09:46] those little wings. Maybe we'll find out

[09:48] more in the mutant saga. In the 21st

[09:51] century, Earth will assemble its

[09:53] mightiest heroes. The first appears

[09:55] during World War II. Scientist Dr.

[09:58] 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

[1:00:01] come crashing together December 18th,

[1:00:04] 2026 in theaters on Earth 1218. Marvel's

[1:00:08] designation for the real world according

[1:00:10] to the Google search I just did. Anyway,

[1:00:12] I got to go finish up my Conjuring

[1:00:14] timeline, so I'll see you later. Also,

[1:00:17] special thank you to three consultants

[1:00:19] who helped with this video. Cenamed N,

[1:00:22] M, and A. You know who you are. Thank

[1:00:24] you and see you on the next one. Take