Recapping the MCU

One of the biggest obstacles the MCU faces right now is gaining and retaining audience members. The universe is so vast and interconnected that unless you’ve seen every single project it feels like you're missing something. And the unfortunate reality is that you probably are. But if you don’t care about the details, inside jokes, comic book references and every thread of interrelation then you really just need the broad strokes so here we go. Whether you are a tired, burnt out fan or a new audience member I’m hoping these short guides will help you catch up on all of the important information so you can enjoy the current state of the MCU.

Let's start with Phase 1; The franchise is built off of Iron Man released in 2008 and a comic book character no one really cared about. His first movie is him rewriting his father’s legacy, ceasing the manufacturing of weapons and building the first Iron Man suit.

Next is Iron Man 2 because even the MCU doesn’t really acknowledge the Incredible Hulk as cannon. In Iron Man 2 we see that other people are attempting to recreate the technology that Tony uses as Iron Man. Tony and Pepper are officially together. And we get introduced to Natasha as Black Widow.

Moving on we have Captain America, the origin story that at this point everyone knows. Scrawny, disabled Steve proves that he is a good man and then gets injected with Super Soldier serum, he saves Bucky who spent his whole life saving Steve. They are war brothers, they defeat a bunch of Nazi’s and then Bucky “dies”. This is also our first introduction to an infinity stone in the form of the tesseract which Howard Stark ends up in possession of after Steve goes into the ice.

Next we have the first Thor movie, we get introduced to Loki, and Jane and more importantly for future events we learn of the enchantment placed on Thor’s hammer as this concept still alludes people. He who is worthy shall wield the power of Thor, the power, not just the hammer. So for everyone asking questions after endgame it was given to you clearly within the first 30 seconds of the first Thor movie. If you are worthy of lifting the hammer then you can also control lightning…that was the enchantment. Anyway Thor proves himself worthy again and everything's fine.

The last film in phase 1 is the Avengers, our first team up movie. The team is pulled together by Nick Fury and immediately Steve and Tony knock heads, Bruce obviously is tested, Clint is mind controlled by Loki giving Nat extra motivation to take him down and Thor really just wants to save his brother. Loki uses the tesseract to open a portal to space and allow the Jtari through. Just to be clear Loki is an anti hero and his alien invasion kind of got out of control. End credit scenes for phase 1 also introduce Thanos. This is also our second exposure to an infinity stone through the use of Loki’s scepter.

Relationships of note; Pepper and Tony, Thor and Jane, Steve and Tony are colleagues that respect and tolerate each other but they are not friends. Thor takes Loki back to Asgard for imprisonment.

The infinity saga is perfectly set up by the end of this phase, Loki being an anti-hero is also set up pretty obviously.

Those are really all the relevant notes from Phase 1, feel free to drop any specific questions and I will be happy to answer them.