The massive scope of the MCU has allowed Marvel Studios to create a sprawling, interconnected universe built on a shared continuity, and much like the comics the movies are based on, that means things can get pretty complicated. The Marvel Cinematic Universe doesn't start with Tony Stark getting kidnapped in 2008, Carol Danvers being taken to Hala in the '90s, or even with Steve Rogers volunteering for the Super Soldier program in the '40s. Instead, like most universes, this one starts at the Big Bang. Going chronologically, the first event we see in the MCU is the creation of the Infinity Stones. As the Collector explains in Guardians of the Galaxy, they were formed from the "six singularities" that caused the universe to explode into existence, before being scattered across the universe. That, of course, was billions of years ago, but "millions of years" before we get to the present-day MCU, Ego the Living Planet comes into existence and starts seeding worlds with his essence in an attempt to create another Celestial being like himself. Watch the video to see the entire MCU timeline explained!
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00:00The massive scope of the MCU has allowed Marvel Studios to create a sprawling, interconnected
00:05universe built on a shared continuity.
00:08And much like the comics the movies are based on, that means things can get pretty complicated.
00:13The Marvel Cinematic Universe doesn't start with Tony Stark getting kidnapped in 2008,
00:18Carol Danvers being taken to Hala in the 90s, or even with Steve Rogers volunteering for
00:22the Super Soldier program in the 40s.
00:25Instead, like most universes, this one starts at the Big Bang.
00:29Even chronologically, the first event we see in the MCU is the creation of the Infinity
00:34Stones.
00:35As the Collector explains in Guardians of the Galaxy, they were formed from the six
00:39singularities that caused the universe to explode into existence, before being scattered
00:44across the universe.
00:46That of course was billions of years ago, but millions of years before we get to the
00:50present-day MCU, Ego the Living Planet comes into existence and starts seeding worlds with
00:55his essence in an attempt to create another celestial being like himself.
01:00Thousands of years ago, as we find out in Thor the Dark World, Malekith the Accursed
01:04laid siege to Asgard and was fought off by Bor the father of Odin.
01:09Bor vanquished Malekith, which turns out to be a temporary solution.
01:13While we don't know exactly when it happens, the next chronological event we see from our
01:16characters is Odin's conquest of the Nine Realms, alongside his first child Hela, goddess
01:22of death.
01:23During this era, the magic warhammer Mjolnir is forged in the heart of a dying star, and
01:27long before Thor, Hela carries it into battle.
01:31Once the realms have been conquered, Hela's bloodthirsty nature causes Odin to turn against
01:35her, and in the battle that follows, Hela destroys the Valkyries.
01:38The sole surviving Valkyrie flees from Asgard and eventually winds up drunk and depressed
01:43on Sakaar.
01:44Hela is then imprisoned in another dimension by Odin, who literally covers up all traces
01:49of her existence.
01:50Sometime after that, but still pretty far back, Odin and Frigga have a son, Thor.
01:56Shortly thereafter, Odin slays the frost giant Laufey and adopts his son Loki as his own.
02:00As children, they did not exactly get along.
02:03He transformed himself into a snake, and he knows that I love snakes, so I went to pick
02:07up the snake to admire it, and he transformed back into himself, and he was like, yeah,
02:10it's me!
02:11And he stabbed me."
02:12Also millions of years before the present day, a meteorite made of the supermetal Vibranium
02:17strikes Earth and Africa, drastically affecting the surrounding area.
02:21Much, much later, this area becomes the country of Wakanda, when a warrior shaman receives
02:25a vision from the goddess Bast and founds a dynasty of kings known as the Black Panthers.
02:31Believe it or not, there's not a whole lot that happens between the unification of Wakanda
02:35and the 20th century.
02:37The first big event that we see in the movies is the arrival of, well, the First Avenger.
02:42In 1942, a Nazi officer known as the Red Skull creates a splinter group called HYDRA.
02:47With the discovery of one of the Infinity Stones, he creates a technologically advanced
02:51army of his own.
02:53That same year, Steve Rogers volunteers for an experimental attempt at creating a supersoldier,
02:58using a technique created by Dr. Abraham Erskine.
03:02The project works, giving Steve the body of Marvel's hunkiest, Chris.
03:06When Erskine is assassinated, the research is lost.
03:09Rather than risking their only supersoldier by sending him to fight in the war, the army
03:13gives Steve the codename Captain America and uses him primarily as a spokesman to sell
03:18war bonds.
03:19Eventually, Steve becomes an active soldier in the war, leading a strike team called the
03:23Howling Commandos.
03:25On one of their missions, his best friend Bucky falls from a train in the mountains.
03:29Steve believes him to be dead, but he's actually taken into custody by the Soviet Army and
03:34brainwashed into becoming a superassassin, codenamed Winter Soldier.
03:38After attempting to use the Tesseract, the Red Skull is sucked into a wormhole and somehow
03:42winds up on the distant planet Vormir, serving as a sort of spectral guardian for the Soul
03:47Stone.
03:48As for Steve, he crashes a bomber jet into the Arctic to keep HYDRA from destroying New
03:52York.
03:53He is also presumed dead, but survives, frozen in suspended animation for the next 66 years.
04:00While things are pretty quiet for the MCU between 1945 and 1995, there are a few notable
04:06exceptions.
04:07Peggy Carter continues to work for the Strategic Science Reserve, first in New York in 1946,
04:12and then in Los Angeles alongside Howard Stark in 1947.
04:17Around this time, the Soviet Union produces the first graduates of its brutal Red Room
04:21facility, where orphaned girls are trained as spies and assassins.
04:25Sometimes shortly after this, Steve Rogers travels back in time from 2023 to reunite
04:30with Peggy.
04:31She continues to work in military intelligence for the next few decades with Stark, whose
04:36defense contracts turn Stark Industries into the world's leading arms manufacturer.
04:40By 1970, both of them are working out of SSR headquarters at Camp Lehigh, along with a
04:45few other notable figures, including Arnim Zola.
04:49His body dies in 1972, and his brain is transferred into a computer data bank that continues HYDRA's
04:55infiltration of the government.
04:57Also, Hank Pym is working here, assisted by Bill Foster in his experiments with the size-changing
05:02Pym particles that will allow him and his wife Janet Van Dyne to become the original
05:06Ant-Man and Wasp.
05:08In 1974, Howard Stark launches the Stark Expo, displaying the city of the future, powered
05:14by a clean-energy arc reactor that's about the size of a house.
05:18For some reason, he also hides the structure of a new element in the arrangement of the
05:22buildings, which is the kind of science it pays to not think too hard about.
05:27In 1980, Ego comes to Earth, winning the heart of Meredith Quill, and nine months later her
05:31son Peter is born.
05:33In 1987, Janet Van Dyne is lost in the Quantum Realm after she and Hank Pym attempt to stop
05:38a rogue Soviet missile targeting the United States.
05:42In 1988, Meredith Quill dies from brain cancer, intentionally caused by Ego, leaving her son
05:47a mixtape of classic rock favorites before she dies.
05:51Peter is then abducted by a band of outer space outlaws called the Ravengers, who give
05:55him a pretty terrible childhood.
05:57"...Yondu is the guy who abducted me, kicked the crap out of me so I could learn to fight
06:01and kept me in terror by threatening to eat me."
06:03"...Eat you?"
06:04"...Yeah."
06:05In 1989, Pym resigns from the SSR after finding out that they intended to use his Pym Particles
06:10to create weapons.
06:12The organization has also now been renamed the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement,
06:17and Logistics Division.
06:18"...That's quite a mouthful."
06:20"...I know.
06:21We're working on it."
06:22Also that year, Air Force Captain Carol Danvers, who uses the callsign Avenger, volunteers
06:26for a test flight of a light-speed engine powered by the Tesseract.
06:30When they're shot down by the Kree, a militaristic alien race constantly at war with the shape-shifting
06:35Skrulls, Carol's body is overloaded with the Tesseract's energy, giving her incredible
06:39powers and also wiping her memory.
06:42A Kree soldier named Yong-Rogg abducts her and takes her back to his homeland, Hala.
06:46Here she's made to believe that she's actually a Kree named Veers.
06:50Meanwhile, while all of this is happening on Earth, things continue to develop in space.
06:55Thanos, an incredibly powerful alien from the planet Titan who's obsessed with balance,
07:00begins to seek out the Infinity Stones, laying waste to half of the population of entire
07:04planets.
07:05He also occasionally abducts young survivors, training them as soldiers.
07:09Assuming that most of the more humanoid characters are around the same age as the people portraying
07:14them, then his two most notable adoptions happen in the late 80s or early 90s, Gamora
07:19and Nebula.
07:20Every time the two sisters spar, Gamora wins, and Thanos systematically replaces pieces
07:24of Nebula's body with cybernetic parts.
07:28In 1991, the Soviet government sends the Winter Soldier to assassinate Howard and Maria Stark,
07:33making it look like a car accident.
07:35Their brilliant slacker son, Tony, is left in charge of Stark Industries, along with
07:39Obadiah Stane as CEO.
07:42Unbeknownst to Tony, Stane makes a tidy profit from secret arms deals with terrorist groups.
07:47In 1992, King T'Chaka of Wakanda goes to Oakland, California to investigate arms deals involving
07:53stolen vibranium.
07:54The culprit is his brother N'Jobu, who is killed in the altercation.
07:58N'Jobu's son, Erik, is a witness to the whole thing and grows up craving revenge.
08:03In 1995, Carol Danvers, still without her memories of Earth, returns to her home planet
08:08after escaping from the Skrulls.
08:10She teams up with S.H.I.E.L.D.
08:11agents Nick Fury and Phil Coulson to stop the Skrulls from invading Earth.
08:16It turns out that the Kree are the bad guys, with Yon-Rogg and Ronan the Accuser en route
08:21in search of the Infinity Stones that will end their war of conquest once and for all.
08:25Finally, at full power, Carol fights them off, and in the process, an alien cat scratches
08:30Nick Fury's left eye, blinding it and causing him to sport a fashionable eye patch for the
08:35rest of the franchise.
08:36Before she journeys back into space, Carol gives Fury a pager that can summon her in
08:40case of a dire emergency.
08:42Inspired by Carol and her original call sign, Fury lays the groundwork for the Avengers
08:48a program designed to create a team of superpowered heroes to deal with large-scale threats like
08:53alien invasions.
08:54In 1999, Tony Stark meets bioengineers Maya Hansen and Aldrich Killian at a conference
09:00in Bern, Switzerland.
09:01He's very rude to Aldrich, who remembers that as a sore point for about 14 years.
09:06Throughout all of this, HYDRA continues its secret infiltration of S.H.I.E.L.D. and all
09:11levels of the United States government.
09:14"...Hail HYDRA."
09:18In 2008, we finally catch up to the MCU as it happens.
09:23Tony Stark is demonstrating his newest weapons in the Middle East when he's kidnapped by
09:27a terrorist organization called the Ten Rings, in what will eventually be revealed as a plot
09:32by Stane to get Tony out of the picture.
09:34While he's imprisoned, the terrorists force him and another captive, Dr. Ho Yinsen, who
09:39was also at that fateful 1999 convention in Bern, to make weapons for them.
09:43Instead, Tony is able to recreate a miniaturized ARC reactor, using it to stabilize a piece
09:49of shrapnel that's lodged near his heart.
09:51"...It's impossible.
09:52Tony Stark was able to build this in a cave, with a box of scraps!"
09:59The reactor also powers the Iron Man, a suit of weaponized armor built from scrap, which
10:04allows Tony to escape after Yinsen's death.
10:07He returns to America, eats a cheeseburger, refines his design, and wipes out the Ten
10:12Rings in a brutally effective display of the Iron Man's weapons.
10:15He also defeats Stane, who attempts to kill Tony and creates his own massive suit of powered
10:20armor.
10:21Tony then publicly reveals his identity.
10:23"...I am Iron Man."
10:29Which causes Nick Fury to approach him about the Avengers initiative.
10:33Around the same time as Tony's capture, Dr. Bruce Banner is working on recreating the
10:37Super Soldier program.
10:39Instead of Erskine's Vita-Rays, he uses gamma radiation, testing it on himself and turning
10:44himself into a rampaging green monstrous Hulk whenever he gets angry, which is always.
10:50After the Hulk inadvertently injures Banner's girlfriend Betty Ross, he attempts to go underground,
10:55but returns to America in search of a cure for his condition.
10:58He winds up dealing with a scientist named Samuel Stearns, whose attempt to recreate
11:03the Hulk turns Special Forces soldier Emil Blonsky into the monstrous Abomination.
11:08Six months after revealing his identity publicly, Tony Stark is called to testify before Congress,
11:13because they are justifiably concerned about a private citizen building a suit of armor
11:17that can vaporize a tank.
11:19To create their own version, they turn to rival weapons manufacturer Justin Hammer.
11:24After Tony's friend, Colonel James Rhodes, delivers a prototype Iron Man suit, Hammer
11:28and Russian scientist Anton Vanko reverse-engineer them into an army of militarized drones.
11:35Stark also gets a new personal assistant who is revealed to be SHIELD agent and Red Room
11:39defector Natasha Romanoff, the Black Widow.
11:42Rhodes gets his own suit of armor, codenamed War Machine, and he and Tony team up to defeat
11:46Vanko and Hammer.
11:48Speaking of Hammers, while all this is happening on Earth, there's other stuff going on in
11:52the Golden Realm of Asgard.
11:54Loki tricks Thor into antagonizing the Frost Giants against Odin's orders.
11:59As a consequence, Odin exiles Thor to Earth and enchants his hammer Mjolnir.
12:03"...Whosoever holds this hammer, if he be worthy, shall possess the power of Thor."
12:12It lands in New Mexico, where Agent Coulson discovers it and a bunch of locals try to
12:16yank it out of the ground with pickup trucks.
12:19Thor eventually proves himself worthy, regains his hammer, and stops Loki from staging a
12:23coup in Asgard.
12:24In 2011, the crashed hydroplane is discovered in the Arctic, SHIELD thaws out Captain America,
12:30and after realizing that he's in the 21st century, he teams up with Nick Fury's Avengers
12:34initiative.
12:35It turns out he was just in time.
12:37In 2012, Loki, last seen adrift in space after his failed coup in Asgard, is enlisted by
12:43Thanos to recover the Tesseract from Earth.
12:46In exchange, Thanos gives him control of the Chitauri, a massive army of hive-minded destroyers.
12:52Loki agrees, because he's apparently in one of his moods that day.
12:56The result is the Battle of Manhattan, in which the Avengers — Captain America, Iron
13:00Man, Thor, Black Widow, Hulk, and Hawkeye — are gathered for the first time as a team.
13:05The good guys win after Loki is smashed against the ground a lot, but the battle is extremely
13:10destructive.
13:11The reconstruction is mostly handled by the newly formed Department of Damage Control,
13:15who take over the lucrative contract and leave construction foreman Adrian Toomes embittered
13:20and in possession of advanced technology.
13:22In 2013, Tony Stark is left with post-traumatic stress as a result of the battle, and his
13:27concept of the universe suddenly expanding to include gods, aliens, and other unknowable
13:32cosmic forces.
13:33Unfortunately, this coincides with the return of Aldric Killian, who's been experimenting
13:38with Maya Hansen's regenerative extremis treatment, which has a tendency to cause its subjects
13:43to explode.
13:44To cover his operations, Killian creates a fictional terrorist called the Mandarin, hiring
13:49an actor named Trevor Slattery to play him in threatening videos.
13:53Needless to say, Tony and Rhodey stop Killian's plot after they uncover the truth.
13:57You want something?
13:58Take it.
13:59Although the guns are all fake, because those wankers wouldn't trust me with the real ones.
14:02What?
14:03Hey, do you fancy…
14:04Either of the birds.
14:05Also, Malekith comes back and Thor fights him, and Loki becomes the latest in a long
14:09line of presumed deaths that actually aren't.
14:11He stashes Odin in a retirement home in New York, and then takes his identity, ruling
14:16over Asgard, and putting on critically acclaimed plays for the next two years.
14:20In 2014, HYDRA's decades-long plot to infiltrate and take over America is finally discovered
14:26by Captain America and Black Widow.
14:28Before we get started, does anyone want to get out?
14:34They also learn that the Winter Soldier is Bucky Barnes.
14:37While Cap fights to restore his best friend's memories, the HYDRA plot is exposed, and in
14:42the aftermath, S.H.I.E.L.D. collapses, leaving the Avengers without the oversight and support
14:46of the larger organization.
14:48Tony Stark and Bruce Banner then attempt to recreate an artificial intelligence that would
14:52help protect the world.
14:54Unfortunately, they goof that plan up big time, instead creating a genocidal robot named
14:59Ultron, who winds up destroying an entire country, Sokovia.
15:03Tony and Banner decide that if at first you don't succeed, make another robot and hope
15:07he's not genocidal.
15:09They transform Tony's onboard AI, Jarvis, into a much more heroic AI called The Vision.
15:15In the fight that follows, the Hulk hijacks a Quinjet and blasts off into space, landing
15:20on Sakaar.
15:21Also, Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver, two definitely-not-mutants, join the team.
15:26Quicksilver immediately dies, partly from bullets, but mostly because Disney and Fox
15:30were having a fight over who had the character's film rights.
15:33The destruction of Sokovia also kills the family of Helmut Zemo, who then dedicates
15:38his life to revenge.
15:39While all that's going on, Peter Quill is out in space on a job to steal a valuable
15:44orb, which, unbeknownst to him, contains an Infinity Stone.
15:48That puts him in the sights of both Ronan the Accuser, who's been looking for another
15:51Infinity Stone since 1995, and Thanos.
15:55Ronan sends Gamora after Quill and winds up running across Drax, a very literal warrior
15:59whose family was killed by Thanos, Rocket, a space raccoon who was painfully experimented
16:04on and given cybernetic enhancements, and Groot, a treat.
16:08I am Groot.
16:10After being imprisoned together, the five of them stage a jailbreak, defeat Ronan in
16:13a dance-off, recover the Power Stone with the help of the Power of Friendship, and turn
16:17it over to the Nova Corps, a bunch of space cops on the planet Xandar.
16:21Shortly thereafter, Thanos attacks Xander and recovers it for himself.
16:26In 2015, an electrical engineer named Scott Lang gets out of prison and stumbles onto
16:31Hank Pym's old, size-changing equipment.
16:34Under the guidance of Pym and his daughter Hope, Lang becomes the second Ant-Man and
16:38helps to keep the Pym Particles from falling into the hands of an evil arms dealer.
16:42More importantly, it's likely somewhere around this time that a kid named Peter Parker is
16:46bitten by a radioactive spider, and tries to capitalize on his new superpowers by becoming
16:51famous as Spider-Man, and fails to stop a robber that later kills his Uncle Ben.
16:56None of this is covered in the MCU, but you might have seen five other movies about it.
17:01The following year seems Helmut Zemo's plan to destroy the Avengers reaches fruition.
17:06As the world responds to the destruction of Sokovia by trying to install new governmental
17:10oversight over the Avengers, Zemo furthers the wedge between Captain America and Iron
17:14Man by revealing that Bucky was the one who killed Tony Stark's parents.
17:19He also uses his control over Bucky to assassinate King T'Chaka of Wakanda, leading the king's
17:24son T'Challa to take over leadership of the country, not to mention the identity and powers
17:28of the Black Panther.
17:30The end result of all of this is that the Avengers break up, the ones loyal to Cap go
17:34underground, and T'Challa refuses to give Zemo the death he desires.
17:39While all this is going on, Dr. Stephen Strange, who lost the fine motor control in his hands
17:43after a car accident, seeks out the Ancient One, and following her death, becomes a master
17:48of the mystic arts.
17:50He stops an invasion by Dormammu, a demonic force from the Dark Dimension, by using the
17:55Time Stone to die over and over again until the cosmic villain gets annoyed enough to
17:59leave the Earth alone.
18:01Meanwhile, the Guardians of the Galaxy encounter and subsequently kill Ego before he can manipulate
18:06Peter Quill into aiding his conquest of the entire galaxy.
18:10I'm very popular, y'all!"
18:15In the absence of the Avengers, Tony Stark begins to mentor Peter Parker.
18:19As Spider-Man, Peter tries to deal with the, wait for it, evil arms dealer known as the
18:24Vulture, who turns out to be none other than Adrian Toomes, his homecoming date's dad.
18:29The Vulture is defeated, arrested, and sent to prison, but not before he and several of
18:34Peter's classmates figure out Spider-Man's real identity.
18:37Also, Tony Stark finally proposes to Pepper Potts.
18:40In Asgard, Thor returns from two years of looking for Infinity Stones in various realms
18:45to discover Loki's deception.
18:47When they find the real Odin, he's at the end of his life, and his death allows Hela
18:51to escape her millennia of imprisonment.
18:53She destroys Mjolnir, blasts the two brothers into space, and takes over Asgard.
18:58Thor winds up on Sakaar, where he recruits Hulk and Valkyrie for a mission to overthrow
19:02Hela, which goes about as well as it can for a plan that ends with the complete destruction
19:07of Asgard via fire giant.
19:09Hulk, stop!
19:10Just for once in your life, don't smash!
19:14Big monster!
19:17In Wakanda, T'Challa's rule is challenged by his cousin Eric, who teams up with another
19:22evil arms dealer, Ulysses Klaw.
19:25There are a lot of evil arms dealers in these movies.
19:28Eric betrays Klaw in order to gain favor with Wakandans.
19:32He seemingly kills T'Challa and takes over, but T'Challa returns and regains control of
19:36his country.
19:37I never yielded!
19:38And as you can see, I am not dead!
19:44After six years of waiting around, Thanos decides to personally seek out the Infinity
19:48Stones, and the results are devastating.
19:50He kills Loki and nearly obliterates the last surviving Asgardians.
19:55An attack on Earth leads to things getting so desperate that the whole Avengers crew
19:58— except Hawkeye and Ant-Man, who are under house arrest for violating the Sokovia Accords
20:03— need to get back together to sort it out.
20:06They don't do so well.
20:07Dude, you're embarrassing me in front of the wizard.
20:11I'm sorry.
20:12Either I can't or he won't.
20:13It's okay.
20:14I don't…
20:15Hey, stand down.
20:16Keep an eye on him.
20:17Despite fighting on two fronts, with one small team in space and a massive force on Earth,
20:21Thanos gathers the stones, snaps his fingers, and kills half the lifeforms in the universe,
20:26dissolving them into dust.
20:27As he dissolves, Nick Fury uses the space pager to alert Captain Marvel that Earth needs
20:32her help.
20:33A month later, Captain Marvel and the surviving Avengers track Thanos down in space, only
20:37to find out that he's destroyed the stones.
20:40Thor beheads Thanos, and the Avengers return home, having won this battle while losing
20:44the bigger war.
20:46Weirdly enough, all this happens while Ant-Man is involved in a relatively low-stakes heist
20:51movie.
20:52When the snap happens, he's left stranded in the Quantum Realm, which turns out to
20:55be an extremely lucky coincidence.
20:58While he's there, five years go by, during which the heroes deal with the horrific trauma
21:02of losing trillions of lives in various, mostly unhealthy ways.
21:06Thanks to an assist from the most heroic rat in the universe, Ant-Man returns from the
21:10Quantum Realm, where, for him, only a few hours have passed.
21:14When he reunites with the Avengers, the heroes realize that the solution to their problem
21:18is…
21:19"...time travel!"
21:20With the help of Iron Man and the now-smart Hulk, the heroes travel back to various key
21:24points in the timeline to gather up the Infinity Stones of those eras, along with Mjolnir,
21:28circa 2013.
21:30They also inadvertently bring the Thanos of 2014 forward to 2023, along with all of his
21:36minions.
21:37Right before he starts attacking, the Hulk uses a rebuilt Infinity Gauntlet to wish everyone
21:41back to life, and virtually every hero in the entire MCU takes Thanos on at once.
21:47The final blow is dealt by Iron Man, who dies on the battlefield like a freaking rock star.
21:53After gathering for a funeral, Steve Rogers hops into the time stream to return everything
21:57to where it should be.
21:59After living a full life with Peggy Carter and an alternate past, he returns to this
22:03world one more time as an old man to bequeath his shield to Sam Wilson the Falcon, naming
22:08him the new Captain America.