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"You think you're the only superhero in the world? Mr. Stark, you've become part of a bigger universe. You just don't know it yet."
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A combined setting occupied by most of the movies produced by Marvel Studios and distributed by Disney, starting with Iron Man. Unlike in previous Marvel licensed movies, there exists continuity between different movies.
The brainchild of producer Kevin Feige, a former producer of FOX's X-Men Cinematic Universe and a huge comicbooks fan, he came with the idea of internally producing their own movies based on the properties they still owned at the time which included the almost all the Avengers, the Guardians of the Galaxy, Doctor Strange, the Eternals and many others.
In 2016, there was a split in Marvel between Marvel CEO Ike Perlmutter's faction and Kevin Feige's faction over creative and monetary reasons during the production of Captain America: Civil War, leading to Feige being put under direct leadership of one of Disney's premier producers Alan Horn out of Perlmutter's influence. This also led to a disconnect in the TV productions led by Jeph Loeb and the films as Feige no longer had to connect or acknowledge their existence which eventually led to Continuity Snarls and many other inconsistencies.
In 2019, a major shake up removed Jeph Loeb as the main producer of the TV show with Kevin Feige being put in charge of new TV shows made directly for the Disney + streaming service. These shows are direct Spin Offs of the movies mostly set after the events of Avengers: Endgame.
Phases One through Three of the films are collectively known as the Infinity Saga due to the importance of the Infinity Stones to the story. Phases Four through Six are collectively known as the Multiverse Saga for the same reason.
Works[]
Phases[]
PHASE 1
- Iron Man (2008)
- The Incredible Hulk (2008)
- Iron Man 2 (2010)
- Thor (2011)
- Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)
- The Avengers (2012)
PHASE 2
- Iron Man 3 (2013)
- Thor: The Dark World (2013)
- Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)
- Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)
- Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)
- Ant-Man (2015)
PHASE 3
- Captain America: Civil War (2016) — A Compressed Adaptation of the comic book story.
- Doctor Strange (2016)
- Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017)
- Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
- Thor: Ragnarok (2017)
- Black Panther (2018)
- Avengers: Infinity War (2018)
- Ant-Man and The Wasp (2018)
- Captain Marvel (2019)
- Avengers: Endgame (2019)
- Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019)
PHASE 4
- WandaVision (2021)
- The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (2021)
- Season 1 of Loki
- Black Widow (2021)[1]
- Season 1 of What If...? (2021)
- Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021)
- Eternals (2021)
- Hawkeye (2021) (2021)
- Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021)
- Moon Knight (2022)
- Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022)
- Ms. Marvel (2022)
- Thor: Love and Thunder (2022)
- She-Hulk: Attorney at Law (2022)
- Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022)
- The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special (2022)
PHASE 5
- Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023)
- Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023)
- Secret Invasion (2023)
- Season 2 of Loki (2023)
- The Marvels (2023)
- Echo (2024)
- X-Men '97 (2024)
- Deadpool & Wolverine (2024)
- Agatha: All Along (2024)
- Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man (2024)
- Captain America: New World Order (2025)
- Daredevil: Born Again (2025)
- Thunderbolts* (2025)
PHASE 6
- The Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025)
- Ironheart (2025)
- Avengers: Doomsday (2026)
- Avengers: Secret Wars (2027)
UNKNOWN PHASE
- Eyes of Wakanda (TBD 2024)
- Marvel Zombies (TBD 2024)
- Armor Wars (TBD)
- Wonder Man (TBD)
- Vision Quest (TBD)
- Blade (TBD)
- Shang-Chi 2 (TBD)
- Spider-Man 4 (TBD)
Television[]
Prior to the conclusion of the Infinity Saga, the television branch of the MCU was treated as a Loose Canon, the films never outright dismissing them but never acknowledging them. Following the release of the Disney+ original programming starting in Phase Four, these earlier efforts were largely ignored by the powers that be. Though they were never outright Exiled From Continuity or rendered Canon Discontinuity, these earlier shows were initially found under the "Marvel Legacy" section of Disney+, the grouping for non-MCU Marvel media. On the flipside though, some of the actors from the Netflix shows have reprised their roles in Phase 4 media and onward, such as Charlie Cox returning as Daredevil in Spider-Man: No Way Home and She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, suggesting that the shows may have occurred in a Broad Strokes manner.
ABC:
- Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
- Agent Carter
- Inhumans
Hulu:
- Runaways
- Helstrom (Non-canon)
Freeform (aka ABC family):
- Cloak and Dagger
- Daredevil
- Jessica Jones
- Luke Cage
- Iron Fist
- The Defenders
- The Punisher
There are also two shorts (Marvel One-Shot) released thus far, both starring Agent Phil Coulson:
- The Consultant - premiered on the Thor Blu-ray
- A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Thor's Hammer - premiered on the DVD of Captain America: The First Avenger
And there are also some comic book tie-ins for the movies:
- Captain America: First Vengeance - a Interquel of sorts for the Captain America movie, detailing some backstory for each of the main characters via flashbacks
- Fury's Big Week - chronicling the events of Iron Man 2, The Incredible Hulk and Thor (as well as the Marvel One-Shots) from SHIELD's perspective and leading directly into The Avengers.
- Aborted Arc: Either this or the logical conclusion of Season 2 of Loki having the TVA hunt Kang variants but Jonathan Majors' Role Ending Misdemeanors saw the end of much foreshadowed Kang arc, instead replacing him with Doctor Doom as the new Big Bad.
- Adaptation Distillation: Takes elements from both the 616 and Ultimate universes. For example, The Avengers are being formed by SHIELD, who are headed by a Nick Fury portrayed by Samuel L. Jackson whilst one of his Lieutenants is Maria Hill and the team's first major crisis involves Loki, who was the initial reason the team formed in the Marvel Universe, and the Chitauri, an Alien Invasion from Ultimate Marvel.
- Adaptation Dye Job: The Power Stone is purple instead of red, the Reality Stone is red instead of yellow, the Mind Stone is yellow instead of blue, the Space Stone is blue instead of purple, the Time Stone is green instead of orange, and the Soul Stone is orange instead of green. The colour scheme eventually made its into the comics, with the Infinity Gems being renamed the Infinity Stones.
- Adaptation Name Change: The Infinity Gems are now the Infinity Stones.
- Adaptational Villainy: Though there are still some Token Heroic Orcs, the Kree Empire loses any sympathetic traits it had, now being A Nazi by Any Other Name.
- Adaptational Wimp: The Infinity Stones. Though to be fair, this is generally shown to be the result of the Infinity Stones being so much more dangerous to handle than the Infinity Gems and using them at their full potential risks Explosive Overclocking. Though the Stones do have two moments of Adaptational Badass over the Gems. While the Gems lost any power if they left their universe, the Stones can still affect an Alternate Timeline and, while unable to affect an Alternate Universe, they retain full power over anything from their own reality in the new one.
- The Space Stone is unaffected by this, but the Tesseract is. In the comics, the Cosmic Cube was on par with the Infinity Gems, though still below the completed Gauntlet, but is here merely 1/6th of the Gauntlet.
- Scarlet Witch was always powerful in the comics but there was no way she could touch an Infinity Gem. Here, she manages to shatter the Mind Stone. Though in fairness, this is due to being enhanced by the same stone and thus her energy signature qualifies for the Stones' Takes One to Kill One.
- The Power Stone is just an endless battery, not bestowing any form of Nigh Invulnerability upon its users as the Power Gem did.
- The Reality Stone's powers only work in the immediate area and the changes aren't permanent. The Reality Gem could not only affect permanent changes but the user needed the other five to have some hope of controlling it. By contrast, the Stone needs the other five to be really useful.
- The Time Stone needs intense concentration for minor changes and just to make sure it doesn't Ret-Gone its user. The Time Gem could take even a vague subconscious desire and deliver exactly what the user wanted.
- The Soul Gem had mastery over all life in the universe. The Soul Stone can only bring back those who'd been Snapped away by Thanos.
- All for Nothing: Team Cap's crusade in Captain America: Civil War. Their actions did nothing to stop the passing of the Sokovia Accords and media set post Endgame makes clear that the Accords are still active. Though Team Cap was pardoned for their crimes as thanks for helping defeat Thanos, Falcon had to play by the Accords when he resumed work for the US Air Force. While the Accords were eventually repealed, it wasn't due to the Team Cap's actions.
- All There in the Manual: The scene with Tony Stark at the end of The Incredible Hulk gains new context thanks to an extra on the Thor DVD (See the entry for Batman Gambit).
- Marvel has also published a few tie-in comics, explaining events that happen between each film.
- Always Chaotic Evil: The Kree.
- Anachronic Order:
- Though The Incredible Hulk was released before Iron Man 2, Iron Man 2's main story is wrapping up just as the Hulk is duelling Abomination in Harlem (as indicated by a TV report in the background). Likewise, Hulk also makes mention of Thor defeating the Destroyer in New Mexico.
- Though released after the 2016 set Civil War, Guardians Vol. 2 takes place in 2014, a few months after the first Guardians.
- Ragnarok takes place, at the earliest, a year after Civil War despite it being released before Black Panther, which takes place a few weeks after Civil War.
- Black Widow, the first film of Phase Four, takes place during Phase Three (sometime after Civil War).
- The Netflix shows are an odd lot. They were released over the course of five years but take place over four. For example, Daredevil was released three years after The Avengers despite it taking place two years after. Likewise, the final Netflix seasons all took place before Infinity War but were released after.
- Bad Present: The post-apocalyptic world left behind by the Snap.
- Batman Gambit: The short film The Consultant included on the Thor DVD features Agents Coulson & Sitwell get out of the WSC's request that the Abomination be placed on the Avengers instead of the Hulk by having General Ross refuse the request. They send Tony Stark, in the hopes he'll piss Ross off & get him to refuse to release Blonsky. It works.
- Bigger Bad:
- Thanos. Every notable event in the first three Phases is tied to either him, his Infinity Stones. Even in Endgame and onwards, the fallout from his actions are felt. Movies that aren't linked to Thanos in one way or another are few and far-between.
- Ultron in Phase 3, though posthumously. The fallout of his actions is felt greatly in Civil War, Homecoming and even Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D..
- Kang the Conqueror in Phases 4 and 5, the Time Variance Authority having been created with the explicit goal of ensuring that no conquering variants of Victor Timely. He was to be the Big Bad of the fifth and sixth Avengers movies before Jonathan Majors' Role Ending Misdemeanor caused the arc to be scuttled.
- Breakout Villain:
- Loki. He appears in the first three Thor movies, and in three of the four Avengers movies. He even got his own Disney+ show.
- The Hand. Originally introduced as minor villains in Daredevil, they quickly became the Big Bads for the entire Netflix portion of the MCU.
- Roxxon. They are the only villains (the only characters at all) that appear in the "Cinematic" and "Netflix" and "ABC/Hulu/Freeform" parts of the MCU, essentially linking the three halves of the MCU with their presence.
- The Cameo: Often, and it helps to establish a connected universe (such as Tony Stark appearing in Incredible Hulk and Nick Fury's brief scenes in Thor and Captain America.
- Falcon appeared in Ant-Man, investigating when Scott tripped the security of the Avengers compound.
- Early-Bird Cameo: Often done to hype the next movie in the queue or at least a future one: Nick Fury in Iron Man, Thor's hammer in Iron Man 2, Hawkeye and the Tesseract in Thor, and Thanos in The Avengers.
- Creator Cameo: Plus, as is standard procedure for Marvel productions, Stan Lee always makes a cameo. J. Michael Straczynski also appears in Thor as he served as a script consultant.
- Lou Ferrigno makes another Hulk-related cameo, and in the same film, Bill Bixby makes a pseudo-cameo when Bruce is watching "The Courtship of Eddie's Father."
- Canon Foreigner: SHIELD Agent Phillip Coulson. Became a Canon Immigrant as of the Battle Scars miniseries, which came right before the Avengers movie.
- Cash Cow Franchise
- Character Shilling: As the two faces of the saga, Iron Man and Captain America were often touted during the Infinity Saga when they weren't on-screen.
- Comic Book Movies Don't Use Codenames: Most characters don't have them. Iron Monger, Abomination, Black Widow, War Machine, Whiplash, Hawkeye, Red Skull... all of their codenames have been referenced only a few times or not at all.
- Subverted with Thor and Doctor Strange (those aren't codenames) and with Luke Cage (the only superhero who gets constantly referred to by his codename, he is almost never referred to as "Carl Lucas").
- Averted with Steve Rogers/Captain America. He's usually referred to as "Cap".
- Composite Character: For the sake of pragmatism, the Infinity Stones take on a few roles.
- The Space Stone is introduced as the Tesseract, a live action version of the Cosmic Cube. It later gives Carol her powers, taking on the role of the Psyche-Magnetron.
- The Mind Stone doubles as Vision's Solar Gem.
- The Eye of Agamotto is but the container for the Time Stone.
- Continuity Overlap: See below.
- Continuity Snarl: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. made the bold move to acknowledge Thanos' attack on Earth in late Season 5 but Season 6 noticeably didn't feature half the population reduced to dust [2]. At this point, Season 6 onwards has to be taken as an Alternate Universe, presumably one where they got the Gauntlet off Thanos on Titan.
- Depending on the Writer:
- The most prominent character example has to be Captain America. Joss Whedon's Cap downplayed his Fish Out of Temporal Water tendencies in favour of the man embracing the "Captain America" identity, leaning on the other Avengers as support and accepting that the 1940s are past and he shouldn't waste his second chance at life by pining for what's gone. Under the pen of the Russo brothers, he preferred to be "Steve Rogers" instead of "Captain America", never let go of his pining for his native time and outright said in Captain America: Civil War that he didn't feel as attached to the Avengers as he believed Iron Man did, despite the two verbally agreeing to the opposite stance in Avengers: Age of Ultron, being willing to fracture them for the Winter Soldier/Bucky Barnes' sake.
- Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow. Whedon wrote her as an Aloof Ally who found kinship with Bruce Banner/Hulk (seeing him as a similar tortured spirit and monster) and Clint Barton/Hawkeye (with whom she's Platonic Life Partners). Under the Russos' pen, Widow was Platonic Life Partners with Steve Rogers and was more willing to emote around her teammates.
- Clint Barton/Hawkeye. In the Whedon helmed The Avengers and Avengers: Age of Ultron, Hawkeye was, not unlike Widow, a more detached ally, being an emotionally calm Deadpan Snarker who was The Heart of the team. In the Russos' films, he was a lot more Hot-Blooded, itching for any fight that could be offered.
- Tony Stark is a Pop-Cultured Badass with a specialty for the media of The Eighties and The Nineties. But does he prefer films, music or video games?
- The Dreaded:
- The Avengers:
- With the exception of Tony Stark, everyone, even Bruce Banner, treats The Incredible Hulk as a threat comparable to that of a nuclear bomb.
- The Stinger of the movie shows that humans have reached this status among the Chitauri by beating the crap out of their invasion force in little time before nuking their mothership. And according to Thor, the Chitauri have this reputation.
- The Asgardians to S.H.I.E.L.D. They know that nothing on Earth can hope to match these Physical Gods. An Asgardian vendetta levelled a small town. What would happen if the conquering army came through a portal?
- The titular villain of Captain America: The Winter Soldier is enough to unnerve the normally unflappable Black Widow. The only other being who can make that claim is the Hulk.
- Thanos is the most terrifying being the galaxy. The Kree are wary of him with Gamora and Nebula regarding their adoptive father as a bigger threat than a sentient planet. Korath, an elite officer of the Kree Empire, outright said that the Mad Titan was the most powerful being in the universe, being doubtful that Ronan could match Thanos even when augmented by the Power Stone.
- Ultron scared everyone on Earth so much that the United Nations banned any further research into Ridiculously-Human Robots.
- The criminals in Spider-Man: Homecoming operate covertly for a number of reasons. One of them is their great fear of Iron Man, whom they know could descend on them any day and wipe out their whole operation in minutes.
- Captain Marvel becomes this to the Kree after she unlocks her full power.
- The Avengers:
- Early Installment Weirdness: Phase One films showed S.H.I.E.L.D. as being The Men in Black while later films would make clear that everyone knows about them, if not the specifics of what they get up to.
- Extremely Short Timespan:
- Most of Phase 1 takes place almost at the same time even though they were all made years apart. Iron Man 2 contains references to The Incredible Hulk and Thor that indicate all three films happened at roughly the same time, and the original Iron Man was only six months earlier. (Captain America: The First Avenger, on the other hand, took place mainly 70 years ago during WWII; and we aren't told when the modern-day bits are in relation to the other films - although SHIELD's world map in Iron Man 2 includes a marking at what would be about the right spot for where Cap was found, meaning the final scenes of that film also probably happen at about the same time). To balance it out, The Avengers takes place at least a year later.
- The Avengers tie-in comic Fury's Big Week puts more detail into the timeline by showing the events of Iron Man 2, Thor and The Incredible Hulk all happened the same week. Tony and Rhodey's fight took place the same day Bruce Banner crossed the border into the United States, which was also the same day Agent Coulson reported electro-magnetic disturbances in New Mexico to Nick Fury. Thor and Mjolnir arrived in New Mexico the day after the Stark Expo battle, while Hulk's fight at Culver University took place on the same day as Tony and Fury's conversation at the end of Iron Man 2, which was also the same day Thor got his powers back (and possibly the same day Cap was discovered).
- This is the default answer for Superman Stays Out of Gotham in Phase 2 onwards. The movies take place over such a short time span that most other heroes have no time to respond.
- Fantastic Racism: Post-Blip, the people who survived Thanos' Badass Finger-Snap seem to have some disdain for those who were Snapped away, viewing them as being given preferential treatment at the expense of those who were forced to keep the world running for those five years.
- Genre Roulette: Though collectively under the "superhero" genre, each hero's movies skew towards their own genre. Iron Man is Science Fiction, The Incredible Hulk is a Monster Movie, Thor is Fantasy, and Captain America: The First Avenger is more of a War Movie. The Avengers, throwing everybody together, falls under Science Fantasy.
- Gilligan Cut: From the Marvel One-Shot The Consultant.
Agent Coulson: "Stop it. I am not calling the consultant." |
- Cut to [a clip of] the The Stinger of The Incredible Hulk Tony Stark - not Iron Man - was the consultant; hired as such at the end of Iron Man 2.
- Government Agency of Fiction: S.H.I.E.L.D. in all the movies, and before their time, there was the Strategic Scientific Reserve, which is implied to be the OSS to S.H.I.E.L.D.'s CIA.
- Hero of Another Story: Many of the movies tease that there are other superheroes out there, Tony Stark pops up in The Incredible Hulk, Nick Fury has appeared at least by name in every film so far, Hawkeye as an Agent of SHIELD in Thor, etc.
- Captain America: The First Avenger features a blink and you'll miss it appearance by the original Human Torch as a statue at Stark's expo (doubles as a Mythology Gag).
- Hey, It's That Guy!: A twofer — For all of the well known actors appearing in the films, and for the various cameo appearances in the films by characters from other entries in the universe.
- Live Action Adaptation: Obviously.
- MacGuffin:
- The Infinity Stones in the Infinity Saga.
- Vibranium.
- Stark/Iron Man technology is heavily desired by many villainous parties.
- Mythology Gag: Bound to be several considering their comic book origins. A few in particular come to mind:
- Tony considers making the Mk II armor completely gold, but then decides it's "a little ostentatious" before throwing the red in.
- A student being interviewed about the Hulk's rampage is named Jack McGee after the reporter from the 70s TV series. His friend is named Jim Wilson, an old side character from the comics.
- A billboard in New Mexico advertises a "Journey Into Mystery," the title of the series Thor debuted in.
- Agent Coulson gets gas from Roxxon Oil in "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Thor's Hammer."
- The Multiverse: Introduced in Doctor Strange with it being said that the Masters of the Mystic Arts draw power from it and Dormammu being a Multiversal Conqueror. Following it being fleshed out in Loki, it forms the basis of the next Phases 4, 5 and 6, the Multiverse Saga
- Normal Fish in a Tiny Pond: Super soldiers. Against Muggles and Badass Normals, they're unstoppable. Against someone like Iron Man, Spider-Man or Black Panther, they're barely an annoyance. From their brief one-on-one moments, it's clear that Iron Man is completely out of Captain America's league.
- Nothing Is the Same Anymore:
- S.H.I.E.L.D. rightly pegs Captain Marvel and the Kree's arrival as this. After years of terrorists and Ancient Conspiracies, S.H.I.E.L.D. is now undeniably exposed to the existence of aliens, some far more advanced than Earth and hostile.
- Thanos' Badass Finger-Snap on a universal scale. Now there will always be a divide between those who were and weren't snapped.
- Outside Context Villain: S.H.I.E.L.D. was prepped to fight terrorists. Then alien warlords and conquerors began coming down. Widow lampshades this in The Avengers. Tony furiously lampshades however that no one but him thought to take steps to safeguard Earth against other aliens even after The Avengers, ensuring that this trope persisted.
- Passing the Torch: In Avengers: Endgame, Thor passes Asgard's crown to Valkyrie and Cap gives his shield to Sam. Starting in Spider-Man: Far From Home, the old guard begin to pass on their mantles and responsibilities to a new generation.
- Phlebotinum Du Jour: The entire Verse invokes three versions:
- Genetic Engineering Is the New Nuke: Captain America and the Super Serum which made him who he is has been coveted ever since World War II, with many sides failing to reproduce it in any functional capacity. Cap himself, The Hulk, The Red Skull, and The Abomination are all byproducts of this form of phlebotinum.
- I Love Nuclear Power: Gamma radiation is the specific shtick of the Hulk franchise, but other heroes have some radiation involved too (Captain America's origin involved "Vita-Rays", Thor's hammer can cause electromagnetic disturbances), and all Tesseract and Arc-Reactor (see below) based-technology emits gamma radiation and other types.
- Imported Alien Phlebotinum: Asgardian tech, specifically the Tesseract. Besides all the Asgardian gear in Thor and the use of the Tesseract in Captain America and The Avengers, it's also implied that Iron Man's Arc Reactor was reverse-engineered from the Tesseract by Howard Stark.
- Public Domain Character: The gods and monsters of Norse mythology are the most prominent but other mythical characters pop up, such as the ancient gods of Egypt and Greece.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: SHIELD claims to be this. How true it is depends on the agent and the day.
- Reality Ensues:
- There was a seven decade Time Skip between Captain America: The First Avenger and Iron Man. The various powers who had access to the technology to make more Super Soldiers kept trying to.
- After the fall of SHIELD and the Avengers becoming an NGO Superpower, the actual world governments took steps to reign them in and hold them accountable, passing the Sokovia Accords. And unsurprisingly, the Accords are, like any sweeping law, divisive. Some people approve of them, some say they don't go far enough, some view them as Necessarily Evil and some want them revoked or abolished outright.
- Team Cap's own crusade against the Accords accomplished... nothing. The Accords were passed because the people felt that the Avengers were unaccountable. Having half their number suddenly go rogue only proved to the skeptics why the Accords were necessary. While the Accords were eventually repealed, that wasn't due to Team Cap going rogue.
- Half of Earth's population disappeared for five years. When they came back, it created a mass refugee crisis, as their lodgings were sold to others in the Time Skip, the returned found their credit destroyed and students had to retake the school year they were Snapped away in. And when a body is established to reestablish the world to its pre-Snap state, groups who preferred life during the Blip, or feel that their needs are being ignored in favour of the returned, rise up in protest.
- Reed Richards Is Useless:
- Discussed in the Iron Man movie. Tony Stark's power cell is stated as being able to generate 3 gigajoules per second of energy — which is, of course, 3 gigawatts of power generation. This is about as much power as produced by the largest man-made nuclear reactor and about 15 times the power of a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier (and two and a half times the power required to travel through time). The movie makes it clear that the Arc Reactor is incredibly valuable, and Obadiah Stane wants to use it for profit, but Tony is adamant that the technology stays in his hands and his alone, because he's seen what happens when his technology ends up in unsupervised hands.
- The second film averts this trope though - in the opening sequence shows Ivan Vanko building the first Whiplash suit, and various newspaper clippings are shown that mention, among other things, new technological advances developed by Stark Industries made available to the general public. Tony Stark's claims that he has privatized world peace and created the most peaceful time in human history further cements this aversion.
- Additionally, the real reason for Justin Hammer's entire plan, which included breaking an Evil Genius out of jail to develop his Hammer Drones is to secure a defense contract.
- The Iron Man anime, based heavily off the continuity of the films, averts this; the plot begins with Tony going to Japan to build what he hopes will be the first of countless arc reactor power plants around the world, to help with the energy crisis.
- In The Avengers, Tony shows that he is preparing to spread his Arc Reactor technology around the globe, but on his terms. It is also implied that his releasing of the Arc Reactor in the War Machine suit is what helps S.H.I.E.L.D. develop all those advanced toys that they use in the film. Nick Fury also mentions that S.H.I.E.L.D. plans to use the Tessaract to bring clean, sustainable energy to the entire world, though both Stark and Bruce Banner become suspicious that S.H.I.E.L.D. didn't call in Stark, the world expert on clean energy. S.H.I.E.L.D. is actually developing Tesseract-based weaponry to fight extraterrestrial enemies with power comparable to the Asgard.
- Discussed in Avengers: Age of Ultron where Ultron is almost personally insulted that the best usage that Howard Stark could think of for his vibranium was to make it into a frisbee. Helen Cho even comments that Ultron is using vibranium in a medically feasible way that never even occurred to S.H.I.E.L.D. In Ultron's view, this trope is not only typical of humans (which he highlights by the fact that they never thought to open the Scepter holding the Mind Stone) but why he's the superior successor.
- Black Panther as always. As Killmonger, and later T'Challa himself, call out the Wakandan kings for, Wakanda's advanced technology could help the world enormously but they choose to horde it all away.
- In Cracked's After Hours, the quartet, during Why Captain America is the Worst Avenger, discuss this trope. They note that Tony Stark isn't useless; as he builds impressive technology for Spider-Man and War Machine; but Cap's traditionalist attitudes make Tony largely useless to the Avengers.
- Hank Pym is probably the most useless scientist in the MCU. As he himself says, the Pym particle could revolutionize the world yet he keeps it to himself, not trusting anyone with its use. While it could be weaponized, there are also a lot of humanitarian things it could do for the world. As Endgame shows, when Scott gives Tony all of Hank's notes, had Hank shared the technology, it could have been used for so much more than Pym ever thought possible. Though thankfully Hope didn't inherit this trait.
- Running Gag:
- As with all Marvel productions, Marvel Comics co-creator Stan Lee being featured in most of the films prior to his 2018 death in a blink and you'll miss it Creator Cameo.
- It's not a good idea for Asgardians like Thor and Loki to boast how powerful they are. They're not even going to finish the sentence.
- Throughout Phase 2, people seem to lose limbs.
- Simultaneous Arcs:
- Iron Man 2, The Incredible Hulk, and Thor all take place over the course of one week, with S.H.I.E.L.D. scrambling to have someone at each site. The last arcs of the first two take place at roughly the mid-point of the latter.
- The first act of Black Widow overlaps with the third of Captain America: Civil War. The rest of Black Widow takes place concurrently with Black Panther.
- Per Word of God, the climax of Eternals and the last episode of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier take place at the same time.
- Smug Snake: Loki straddles the line between this and Magnificent Bastard. While he's far from incompetent, he is nowhere near as good as he thinks he is and ultimately, his arrogance is what leads to his downfall.
- Spy Catsuit: Black Widow and Maria Hill; probably goes for all the female SHIELD agents. Hawkeye seems to have a variation of one as well. All of the bridge crew of the helicarrier also wear them. This is true for all Black Widows, as of her solo film.
- The Stinger: Most of the movies have one.
- Superhero: *ahem*
- Super Registration Act: The Sokovia Accords. Passed in 2016, they were repealed sometime during or before 2025.
- Super Soldier: About half of the superhuman origins in this 'verse have their roots in trying to either bioengineer better soldiers or just give them better equipment; most obviously Captain America but also Iron Monger, Hulk, Abomination, the Hammer drones, and Red Skull. Most of the rest are tied to Asgardian tech, specifically the Tesseract (see Imported Alien Phlebotinum above).
- Super Weight:
- Type -1: Steve Rogers pre-treatment
- Type 0: Agent Coulson, Thunderbolt Ross, Howard Stark, Tony Stark
- Type 1: Black Widow, Hawkeye, Thor (human), Nick Fury, Maria Hill, the Howling Commandos, SSR soldiers, Emil Blonsky (pre serum)
- Type 2: Captain America, Red Skull, Emil Blonsky (after serum), anyone armed with HYDRA weaponry, Whiplash (first suit)
- Type 3: Most Asgardians, Loki (during Thor), Frost Giants, Chitauri soldiers
- Type 4: Iron Man, War Machine, Obadiah Stane (Iron Monger suit), Whiplash (second suit), Hammeroids, Hulk, the Abomination, Thor, Odin, Loki (during The Avengers), the Destroyer, Heimdall, Leviathans
- Type 5: The Bifrost.
- Type 6: The Infinity Stones.
- Type 7: The TVA and Kang the Conqueror.
- Superman Stays Out of Gotham:
- If Thor was on Earth in the Infinity Saga, it's because so was something alien. By and large, he sticks to space heroics and defending Asgardian territories. Even Lady Sif doesn't hang out with Team Coulson for very long.
- Phase 1 justifies it. Iron Man 2, The Incredible Hulk, and Thor all took place at the same time, preventing any hero from helping the other.
- In Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Nick Fury, Sam, Steve and Natasha simply cannot contact the rest of the Avengers and ask them for help because HYDRA has pretty much taken over S.H.I.E.L.D. Even discounting that, Tony didn't have any suits at the time, Banner, as mentioned in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., is in isolation and it's unlikely that any of them knew how to reach Thor.
- In Doctor Strange, Wong says that the Masters of the Mystic Arts handle the magical threats to the world while the Avengers deal with the physical ones. True to form, no other heroes shows up during the Battle of Hong Kong. Though the whole thing happens so fast, and involves rewinding time, that there's no realistic way that the other heroes could have gotten there in time from Upstate New York.
- In Spider-Man: Homecoming, Peter feels that the weapons gang is an Avengers level threat but Tony disagrees, instead calling the FBI to handle it.
- Neither Captain Marvel nor Avengers: Endgame properly explain why Fury didn't call Carol back during the events of the prior films. Though the latter does justify Carol not coming back of her own accord by stating that she protects a lot of planets who don't have local Avengers.
- Discussed in Spider-Man: Far From Home where Peter, feeling out of his depth, asks Fury to call Captain Marvel (whose name Peter is not allowed to invoke), Thor (who is off-world), or Doctor Strange (who is unavailable). Justified in The Stinger with The Reveal that "Nick Fury" is actually Talos who has literally no idea how to justify this and is simply dodging the question whichever way he can. He even says that he doesn't know where the Avengers are.
- This Is Gonna Suck: Numerous scenes throughout the movies, but the biggest by far being the post credit scene for Thor.
- It Got Worse: The stinger for The Avengers.
- "Guys, I'm bringing the party to you."
- Thor Ragnarok does this as well.
- Time Skip: Following Thanos' death in Avengers: Endgame, the action jumps forward five years.
- Truer to the Text: Captain America: The First Avenger is significantly more faithful to the source material than Captain America (1990 film) was, to say nothing of the 1979 films starring Reb Brown.
- The Verse: The MCU is designated Earth-199999 in the overall Marvel Multiverse.
- Vile Villain, Saccharine Show: Several examples; most notably Iron Monger, Ronan the Accuser, Yellowjacket, Ego the Living Planet, Hela, and Mysterio. Green Goblin is an interesting case; while in his home series he fit well with the tone, in the more light-hearted MCU he qualifies due to arriving warts and all.
- Villain Show: Loki.
- Villains Act, Heroes React: As Tony Stark is aware of and furiously tries to avert. He, quite rightfully, calls Cap out on his Head-in-The-Sand Management in preparing for another Alien Invasion in the opening of Avengers: Endgame.
- Wham! Line: The Stinger from Iron Man. Whilst there had been talk of Marvel wanting to make an Avengers movie at some point, this was the moment that it became a reality.
Nick Fury: I'm here to talk to you about the Avenger Initiative. |
- And the second big Wham! Line of the MCU; not so much for what's being said as who it's said to:
The Other: To challenge them is to court death... [cue Thanos] |
- Where Does He Get All Those Wonderful Toys?: Averted. Everyone with gadgets has a good explanation for where they got them. More often than not, these weapons are built by a member of the Stark family or designed by S.H.I.E.L.D..
- To the point when the Wrong Genre Savvy S.H.I.E.L.D. agents suspect the same of the Asgardian Destroyer in Thor.
Agent Cale: Is this one of Stark's? |
- World of Badass: Hell yeah.
- World of Ham: From a billionaire superhero who built his suit in a cave with a box of scraps to some major Ham-to-Ham Combat between Norse gods, there's plenty of ham to offer.
- World of Snark: With Joss Whedon as head writer. Did you expect anything less? Even Captain America in Winter Soldier and the characters from the Darker and Edgier Daredevil series get a few quips in. Subverted with T'Challa, who is The Comically Serious.
- You Wouldn't Like Me When I'm Angry: Played straight until Avengers: Endgame, which introduced Professor Hulk. And even then, it still isn't wise to piss off Professor Hulk.