I have 242 days until the November 3, 2017 release of Thor: Ragnarök. I am watching the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe in chronological order leading up to its release.
So if you ever asked yourself the question, “Is it possible to overdose on the MCU?” Let me assure you the answer is most definitely yes.
I took a somewhat brief hiatus to watch all 7 seasons of The Golden Girls. How is that relevant? Well, if they were a S.H.I.E.L.D. team, here’s how it would break down:
Dorothy is large and in charge, our sexagenarian lady Coulson
Sophia is May, slaying her opponents with zingers over fists
Say what you will about James Bond riding a motorcycle off a cliff and skydiving chute-less to catch a falling single-engine plane. As far as movie openings go, Winter Soldier is definitely up there in my top 10 of all time:
I’m probably not the only one who rather considers Winter Soldier more like Avengers 1.5 than Captain America 2. But semantics aside, this was always one of my favorite Marvel movies.
We know it’s been about 2 years since the Battle of New York which I am assuming took place very shortly after the Capsicle was defrosted. So our Captain Rogers has been dealing with the 21st century for some time now, keeping track of meaningful events in his little black book. I think my favorite is Rocky (Rocky II?) because we all know Rocky II was the superior film.
Cap and Romanoff are tasked with rescuing hostages off a S.H.I.E.L.D. vessel taken by Algerian pirates in the Indian Ocean. Cap finds out Romanoff had another mission of which he was unaware. This pisses him off and he tells Director Fury as much. But then shit goes down and Fury and SHIELD become compromised. This leads to one of my favorite scenes in the entire MCU.
Now it’s up to Steve to save the world despite no longer knowing who he can trust. He learns from Romanoff of an assassin she once came across called the Winter Soldier. Our dynamic duo, using a thumb drive Fury gave to Steve, go in search of this mysterious foe which causes them to become targets for Hydra. It doesn’t take long for the Winter Soldier to find them and Steve realizes it’s none other than his presumed-dead childhood pal Bucky Barnes who hasn't aged a day! Bucky starts to have flashbacks of his former life but Hydra quickly puts a stop to that and resets his brain….awww.
So the deal is Fury had these new model helicarriers built that will be used to prevent terrorist attacks by targeting terrorists before they can commit their terrorist acts. This is not cool in Steve’s book. Hydra wants to use them to kill, well, anyone who’s a threat to Hydra which is pretty much anyone not already part of Hydra. This, also, is not cool.
Director Fury: For once we’re way ahead of the curve.
Captain Rogers: By holding a gun to everyone on Earth and calling it protection.
Director Fury: You know, I read those SSR files. “Greatest Generation”? You guys did some nasty stuff.
Captain Rogers: Yeah, we compromised. Sometimes in ways that made us not sleep so well. But we did it so that people could be free. This isn’t freedom. This is fear.
Having been infiltrated by Hydra at even its highest level (RIP Agent Sitwell), Cap realizes S.H.I.E.L.D. is too far gone and must be brought down along with the helicarriers. Who shows up there to stop him but the Winter Soldier! Cap, always the consummate believer, chooses not to fight his friend and in return Bucky punches Steve’s lights out causing him to fall from the helicarrier into the water below. In the end something must have clicked and Bucky rescues his incapacitated buddy from the water.
Cap recovers in the hospital as S.H.I.E.L.D. falls putting everyone we know and love out of work. Captain Hill goes to work for STARK Industries, Agent 13 joins the CIA, Romanoff mouths off to the DoD and Fury makes his “death” look permanent. RIP, S.H.I.E.L.D.
So what will our favorite dream team of Agents do next??
Next Up: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 1 Episodes 17-22
We re-join the team as they’re cleaning up Malekith’s mess at Greenwich University - love the continuity! Unfortunately for them it’s bad timing that Thor is on vacay because they suddenly find themselves up against an Asgardian with a stick that turns people damn mean. Coulson starts doubting how magical Tahiti really is and finally things start to pick up!
We’re getting deep into Clairvoyant territory now. Someone who is always a step ahead of the dream team is calling the shots. S/He seems to know everything except how Coulson was brought back from the dead. Let’s shoot Skye* and see if we can’t figure it out, shall we?
*Spoiler alert: Skye doesn’t die. A moment of silence for my soul.
Eventually we find out the source of Coulson’s miraculous recovery in Tahiti is probably alien. Seems like as good a time as any to add yet another loose thread to the mix.
But seriously folks, how the hell dumb is Grant Ward and how did he even get his badge?! All beauty and no brains. Gotta love it.
I finally started to enjoy the show and picked up on little name drops here and there that probably would have gone right by me had I not been watching everything in order up to this point. It definitely makes things that much more interesting.
What you’re doing is against protocol so if you endanger an operation or if anyone gets hurt, I’ll reassign you to Barrow, Alaska and you’ll spend the rest of your years pulling the night shift guarding Blonsky’s cryo-cell. ~ Agent Phil Coulson
Things start to get a little convoluted as in we have no idea who to trust anymore. May seems to be playing for two teams at best and at worst for another team entirely. Agent Hand wants to kill everyone on the team except Coulson...cuz....why? Can we just kill Ward and call it a day?
What I learned:
Skye is an 0-8-4 who may or may not have superhuman abilities beyond being annoying as hell
We know it’s been about 2 years since Thor first graced Earth with his godly presence, but what we don’t know is how long it’s been since Thor fought in the Battle of New York and forgot to give his main squeeze a heads up he was in town.
Jane: Where were you?
Thor: Where were you? Heimdall could not see you.
Jane: I was right here where you left me. I was waiting, and then I was crying, and then I went out looking for you. You said you were coming back!
Thor: I know, I know. But the Bifrost was destroyed. The Nine Realms erupted into chaos; wars were raging, marauders were pillaging. I had to put an end to the slaughter.
Jane: As excuses go, it’s not… terrible.
Being that the film opens up with Loki’s sentencing for his crimes against us poor Midgardians, it seems like The Dark World begins immediately after The Avengers. However according to The Man Himself (Kevin Feige), The Dark World probably takes place about a year later. I mean the Bifrost has been repaired and Thor has managed to restore order to the Nine Realms. It’s just really hard to tell because he hasn’t changed a bit.
A little back story: Back in the days of yore, Thor’s granddad totally pwnd a Dark Elf named Malekith and foiled his plan of unleashing this shit called the Aether all over the Nine Realms and plunging the universe into total evil darkness. Thor’s pawpaw thought he buried the Aether where no one would find it.
But during a glitch in the Matrix, Jane Foster was transported to another world and accidentally found the Aether -- which was like dayummm a new host! -- and it attached itself to her. While she was away from Earth, Heimdall told Thor he could no longer see Jane so Thor boogied on down to Earth to see what was what.
Realizing quickly that something was definitely weird with Jane, he brings her back to Asgard for treatment. Malekith tracks the Aether there and busts in to steal it. Frigga turns out to be quite the badass queen.
Spoiler alert: Thor arrives just as Malekith puts an end to Frigga for not telling him where she has hidden Jane. Malekith escapes Asgard with some pretty nasty Mjölnir-inflicted injuries. Thor comes up with a plan to use Jane as bait to lure Malekith out of hiding, release the Aether and destroy them both.
To get to Svartheim, against Odin’s very strict orders, Thor needs Loki’s help to find one of the secret portals that are popping up all across the Nine Realms thanks to the impending Convergence. It’s kind of a dumb plan and it kinda doesn’t even work. Malekith gets the Aether and Loki, sorta, like, dies. Thor and Jane are now trapped on Svartheim until they conveniently stumble upon a portal that leads them straight to Jane’s car in London. Thor is so lucky man he should play the lottery!
Long story LONGER, Malekith has to get to Greenwich to unleash the Aether because that’s the exact center of where the Nine Realms will align and the fastest way to unleash this shit everywhere. Thor and Malekith battle across multiple worlds as they pop in and out through portals across the Nine Realms. Jane and Selvig figure out how to create portals with their fancy astrophysicist equipment and eventually send Malekith back to his own world where sadly for him he’s crushed by his own ship. Payback’s a bitch!
Thor and Jane and Selvig and Darcy and her intern Ian are all safe and Earth is safe and the Nine Realms are safe. Thor goes back to Asgard to figure some stuff out with Odin, being that he committed treason and all leaving Asgard with Jane. He tells Odin he doesn’t want to be king but he’ll always protect Asgard and the Nine Realms. Odin’s like sure kid, no problem! You can even keep the hammer. Thanks for your service!
But wait, what??
What I learned:
I’m not really sure how this ties in with the rest of the MCU. There were no other Avengers* and no S.H.I.E.L.D.
Lady Sif and Volstagg bring the Aether to the Collector on Knowhere, setting up Guardians of the Galaxy.
Do we know if Odin is alive or dead?? (Let’s just pretend we haven’t read a whole lot about Ragnarok)
Next Up: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 1 Episodes 8-16
*Chris Evans does have a hilarious Captain America cameo.
There are like 100 episodes of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. so let’s break them up according to the timeline. First up: Episodes 1-7.
First off can I just say
I tried watching AoS about a year ago and just couldn’t get into it. But I realized now that you really just have to power through about the first 10-12 episodes before things start to get interesting.
Skye: I don’t even know where we’re going
Agent Coulson: Peru. That’s where the 0-8-4 was reported.
Skye: And an 0-8-4 is...?
Agent Coulson: An object of unknown origin. Team goes in, determines if it’s useful or if it poses a threat. The last one turned out to be pretty interesting.
Skye: And what was the last one?
Agent Coulson: A hammer.
Also having watched everything leading up to it in chronological order, some of it made more sense this time around and I understood better what was happening which definitely helped.
Agent Blake: I don’t know what happened to you in New York, if you really flat-lined or if that’s just what they tell us when we reach level 7. But, whatever did happen doesn’t give you license to disobey a direct order from HQ. You keep pulling stunts like that, someone might decide to take this little dream team away from you.
Agent Coulson: I’d like to see them try.
Agent Blake: That doesn’t sound like the Phil Coulson I used to know.
Coulson. No, I suppose it doesn’t. Get used to it.
What I learned:
Agent Coulson is alive! Shocker!
Skye is in her infancy and is therefore an infant and is therefore by transitive property intolerable
Upon first viewing I found Fitz-Simmons rather annoying but they grew on me quickly
Ming-Na is a freakin badass
Ward is freakin hot but there’s nothing going on upstairs
Best of all the One Shots hands down. MF’ing brilliant.
Jackson: Trevor, you told me that when you got this role that you had researched it thoroughly.
Trevor: Yeah, but when an actor tells you he’s done the research it means he’s switched on his computer, googled his own name and had a quick wank!
Oh and PS:
His name’s Trevor. What is that? It’s like if Bin Laden and Benny Hill had a baby.
I can’t say more because it’s just TOO good and there are some pretty bad ass spoilers. Do yourself a favor and watch it.
Ok straight out of the gate my brain done blow’d up. In Iron Man, Dr. Yinsen tells Tony they met at a technical conference in Bern.
2008:
2013 (aka 1999):
How does Marvel make this shit happen???
But I digress. Back to the present. It’s been 6 months since the Avengers defeated the Chitauri in the Battle of New York. Tony’s a hot mess. The kind of hot mess who gives his address out to the world at large inviting a terrorist, the Mandarin, to help relocate his sweet Mailbu beach pad to the bottom of the Pacific.
Maya: You don’t remember. Why am I not surprised?
Tony: Don’t take it personally. I don’t remember what I had for breakfast.
J.A.R.V.I.S.: Gluten free waffles, sir.
Tony: That’s right.
Having lost, well, everything, it seems like Tony has maybe finally hit his bottom. But nobody knows how to rebound quite like Tony Stark. While holed up in rural Tennessee with a busted suit, he learns of the Mandarin’s home base, only to find he is not a terrorist at all but a hired British actor. RECORD SCRATCH! The man behind the curtain is really Aldrich Killian who Tony also met, and blew off, in Switzerland back in ‘99. For 15 years Killian has been perfecting Extremis, a super-soldier-esque serum with some pretty explosive side effects.
In order to get Tony to help him fix the flaws within Extremis, Killian kidnaps and injects Pepper with the serum: fix the flaws or Pepper likely blows up.
During the battle with Killian, Pepper falls into a pit of fire presumably to her death. But wait, what? The Extremis allows Pepper to survive, and she rises from the flames angry as shit. She kills Killian and boom -- a Merry Christmas to all. Tony decides it’s time for a fresh start and he has the shrapnel removed from his body and no longer requires the miniature arc reactor to keep him from dying.
What I learned:
Tony’s ex-address was 10880 Malibu Point, 90265
The Mandarin’s hostage is an accountant for Roxxon!
The windows on Air Force One are apparently not bullet proof
Immediately following the Battle of New York, Benny and Claire (Bonnie and Clyde anyone?) are sitting in their car trying to get up the nerve to rob a bank. Their secret weapon? A discarded Chitauri gun (which was labeled by S.H.I.E.L.D. as Item 47) the couple found and managed to restore.
After successfully robbing their first bank, they continue on their spree. Eventually they hole up in a motel and count their booty, enough now for them to live the rest of their lives. Unfortunately their crime spree put them smack dab on S.H.I.E.L.D.’s radar.
Agent Sitwell tracks them down to the motel but rather than killing them, he brings them into S.H.I.E.L.D. where he hires Benny to help reverse engineer the Chitarui hardware they recovered after New York. Claire is hired on as Agent Blake’s assistant, much to his dismay.
What I learned:
I’m not sure I learned anything, actually. I will have to see if any of this plays out further in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
I’m not sure how much time has passed since the events of Nick Fury’s busy week, but I’m going to assume it would take Tony at least a year to build his monument to himself, Stark Tower. So let’s go with that.
Loki shows up and immediately turns Agent Barton and Dr. Selvig to the dark side and starts killing people. 80 people in 2 days, to be exact. Time for shit to get real.
There was an idea....called the Avengers Initiative. The idea was to bring together a group of remarkable people to see if they could become something more. To see if they could work together when we needed them to, to fight the battles that we never could. ~ S.H.I.E.L.D. Director Nick Fury
So Loki comes all the way to Earth because he wants to rule it, allegedly. In exchange for stealing and handing the Tesseract over to Thanos, Thanos has agreed to lend his Chitauri army to Loki in order to destroy the very Earth he hopes to rule. But the Avengers defeat Loki and the Chitauri, Thor takes the Tesseract back to Asgard and Loki becomes a ward of the Asgardian State. Am I getting this right? I have no idea.
Don't get me wrong, I frackin LOVE this movie. The problem is for me it generated more questions than it answered.
Instead of what I learned, let’s look at what I didn’t learn:
Seriously WTF, Loki?! What happened to him after the end of Thor? How did he get to Earth in the end credits scene where he first begins influencing Dr. Selvig?
In the Marvel One Shot: The Consultant, Agent Coulson specifically tells Agent Sitwell that the Council did not reject the Avengers Initiative. But then by the start of The Avengers (possibly a year later), the Initiative has been scrapped. Where, when, why and by whom?
How did Thor get to Earth? Loki asks him, “How much dark energy did the All-Father have to muster to conjure you here?” Is there Dark Magic on Asgard?
Why did the Chitauri want to destroy earth? Or I guess, more aptly, why does Thanos? Or Loki?
What was Loki’s ultimate end-game? If Earth were to be destroyed, what would he actually gain?
Why does Thanos want/need the Tesseract?
Maybe once I start watching Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. some of this stuff will start to make sense. But for now, I can’t figure it out.
Tony: Tony Stark not, not.... recommended? That doesn’t make any sense. How can you approve me but not approve me? I got a new ticker, I’m trying to do right by Pepper, I’m in a stable-ish relationship...
Director Fury: Which leads us to believe at this juncture we’d only like to use you as a consultant.
So the above comes at the end of Iron Man 2 where it has been decided (by Agent Romanoff’s assessment) that Tony Stark is not recommended for the Avengers Initiative in spite of his alter-ego Iron Man’s approval for the program. Director Fury instead brings Tony on as a consultant.
Now at the end of The Incredible Hulk, I always assumed Tony had gone into the bar to try and get the Hulk as part of the Avenger Initiative. But as we learn in the Marvel One Shot: The Consultant, that is hardly the case. Turns out he was after Blonsky.
Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige talked to the Huffington Post in 2012 about how they nearly painted themselves into a corner with The Incredible Hulk’s end-credits scene and The Consultant got them out of it. Call me stupid, but I didn’t realize they were even in the corner to begin with!
The basic plot is the World Security Council has decided they want Blonsky/Abomination to be part of the Avengers Initiative, something Director Fury is ardently against. Unable to disobey a direct order, Agents Coulson and Sitwell come up with a plan to sabotage the meeting with General Ross in order to ensure his unwillingness to give up Blonsky to S.H.I.E.L.D. Who better to send in than someone who will truly annoy him? Someone arrogant and abrasive with an utter disdain for authority. Someone who will offend the General to his very core.
Sound like anyone we know?
In the end, their plan worked. The General refused to give up Blonsky and Tony Stark became the proud new owner of a soon-to-be demolished dive bar.
Other than backing Marvel out of a corner I didn’t even know they were in, I’m not sure what else The Consultant accomplished. Though it did seem Agent Coulson was really enjoying his pancakes.
This was the toughest movie to place in the timeline.
Some chronologies place The Incredible Hulk between Iron Man 1 & 2, others place it after both Iron Men and yet others place it after Thor. In the spirit of full disclosure, I watched it after Iron Man 2. But then after watching the two Marvel One Shots A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Thor’s Hammer and The Consultant, I have found it really does fit best after Thor.
In the end though, it barely even matters. There is enough empirical evidence to conclude that Iron Man 2, Thor and The Incredible Hulk are all happening simultaneously thus the order is relatively unimportant.
From Iron Man 2:
Tony: What do you want from me?
Fury: What do we want from you? Nuh uh uh. What do YOU want from ME? YOU have become a problem, a problem I have to deal with! Contrary to your belief you are not the center of my universe. I have bigger problems than you in the Southwest region to deal with!
Also check out Tony Stark watching the newscast about Bruce Banner hulking out at Culver University:
Perhaps this is old news to everyone else, but for me it like LIT-RIL-LY Blew. My. Mind.
So finally, here we are. And after all that, I have to say The Incredible Hulk is probably my least favorite of the MCU films. There isn’t a whole lot (in my general unfamiliarity with Marvel Universe) that moves the story forward other than giving Mark Ruffalo one of my favorite MCU lines ever coming up in The Avengers.
Mostly all I got out of it was the idea that instead of learning to control hulking out to begin with, Banner learns better how to control the Hulk so he can be put to good use.
I will say this was another cameo that really tickled me.
What I learned:
Toronto does not, and cannot, double for Harlem ever
When Tony Stark walked into the bar in the end credits scene, my first thought when I saw the movie in the theatre was “Holy shit, they’re gonna make a movie with the Hulk and Iron Man???? Yeah, I was so clueless.
After being banished from his home realm of Asgard, Thor meets Jane Foster and Erik Selvig, super smart scientist people who are studying weird electromagnetic northern lights phenomena in a small New Mexico town. New Mexico, you say? Where Agent Coulson was sent halfway through Iron Man 2?? Seriously how did I miss that the first time around?
Meanwhile back on Asgard, Loki schemes to steal the throne from his adoptive brother who is languishing back on Earth as a mere mortal without his beloved Mjölnir.
Once Thor finally comes to realize who he is and what it takes to be a true leader, he is magically restored to his god-warrior status and saves Puente Antiguo alongside his Asgardian pals who came down to Earth to rescue him.
Agent Coulson: Donald? I don't think you've been completely honest with me.
Thor: Know this, Son of Coul. You and I, we fight for the same cause: the protection of this world. From this day forward, you can count me in as your ally, if you return the items you have taken from Jane.
Jane Foster: Stolen.
Agent Coulson: Borrowed.
Thor returns to Asgard to deal with Loki and, in the process, destroys the bifrost which is (we’re told) his only bridge to Earth and Jane Foster. Loki drops off into a spatial abyss only to show up back on Earth in the end credits scene where he begins plotting against the soon-to-be assembled Avengers. Can someone please explain that to me?!
What I learned:
First appearance of Hawkeye and Agent Sitwell
Dr. Selvig mentions he knew a scientist who was a pioneer in gamma radiation. S.H.I.E.L.D. showed up and he was never heard from again. Presumably Dr. Banner?
We begin Iron Man 2 six months after Iron Man. Tony testifies at a Senate Hearing as the government attempts to confiscate and weaponize the Iron Man suit.
I am Iron Man. The suit and I are one. To turn over the Iron Man suit would be to turn over myself which is tantamount to indentured servitude, or prostitution, depending on what state you’re in. ~ Tony Stark
Someone even posted Tony’s testimony on YouTube complete with typo.
After concluding his miniature arc reactor is both keeping him alive and killing him at the same time, he goes on a birthday bender (RIP DJ AM) and destroys his sweet Malibu beach pad. Fury steps in and drops a serious truth bomb - his father Howard loved him and oh beeteedubs he also co-founded S.H.I.E.L.D. Now go finish what he started and fix yo bleedin’ heart, son!
“Sir, I'm going to have to ask you to exit the donut!”
Fun Fact: Midway through the movie, Fury sends Agent Coulson to New Mexico.
Tony: I’m busy, what do you want?
Agent Coulson: Nothing. Goodbye. I’ve been reassigned. Director Fury wants me in New Mexico.
Tony: Fantastic. Land of enchantment.
Agent Coulson: So I’m told.
Later the end credits scene set up Thor quite nicely.
What I learned:
First appearance of Agent Romanoff and War Machine
To my knowledge this is the first time we learn of Tony’s aversion to being handed things
Howard Stark has been dead for “almost 20 years”. His 1991 death places the events of the film in present day 2010.
Tony’s new element seems to be Tesseract based
Next Up: Marvel One-Shot: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Thor’s Hammer
