Every Phase Of The MCU Explained

with over a decade and over 27 feature films multiple television series across three platforms and countless tie-ins and cross-promotions it's fair to say the marvel cinematic universe has grown pretty complex isn't it nice of them to break it down into easy to understand phases from its humble beginnings assembling the avengers during phase 1 to its current cross-platform phase 4 expanding into the multiverse there's a lot to keep track of where does one face truly end and another begin when did the phases actually start the whole phase system is the brainchild of marvel studios one true king kevin feige after all and he clearly knows what he's doing i'm chris goodmakers with screenrant and today i'll be breaking down the phases of the marvel cinematic universe in around 15 minutes wow i should probably get started spoilers for the whole of the mcu marvel's phase one began in 2008 with the cinematic release of iron man it was a massive global success and kicked off the biggest continuing franchise in film history the earnest series has finally been dethroned sorry but kids love superheroes now not low intellect blue-collar janitors who do impressions i'll never understand this generation the whole phase idea wasn't actually used at first because phase one was the least planned iron man was just a movie released under paramount distribution yes disney didn't have its hands in the endless cookie jar just yet for a brief and wonderful moment in time captain kirk and tony stark were under the same banner i weep for the shared universe we never had the famous end credit scene wasn't even supposed to go anywhere director john favreau included samuel l jackson as his comic counterpart mostly as a lark the director of zethora a space adventure was more interested in the meta easter egg potential this easter egg was furthered when stark himself showed up in the incredible hulk phase one continued after that with iron man 2 thor and captain america the first avenger or as i call it captain america the first one to use a subtitle phase one at its core is simple and clean it's about meeting the main avengers and then seeing them meet and work together for the first time it was an incredibly ambitious idea each hero gets their own film to introduce their whole deal hawkeye and black widow have to share because there's not enough to go around but iron man gets two because he's papa marvel's special little boy finally phase one concludes bombastically with the release of 2012's mega hit the avengers a clean title for a clean phase done right wrong during this period marvel was conducting regular dvd releases of their hit films remember dvd releases well back then studios actually tried to encourage you to own physical copies of their films it's clearly better just to continuously charge a subscription for a service that can remove any movie at any time for no reason part of that incentive was the marvel one shots these shorts told fun little stories tangentially related to the main films during this time three shorts were attached to physical releases the first is titled the consultant and expands on the ending of the incredible hulk it was attached to thor's home release originally a part of the dvd for captain america the second short a funny thing happened on the way to thor's hammer features phil coulson stopping a gas station robbery while driving to be in the first thor movie finally attached to the avengers dvd was the short item 47 the story of a couple who finds a discarded chitari weapon and then uses it to rob banks it was the last piece of fictional media attached to the first wave of mcu films this makes it the true end of the inaugural run of stories phase 2 is now upon audiences everywhere and while it may seem just as simple as phase 1 things start to get a little complex you see marvel has officially started flirting with something that will only lead to tears my tears later in this video phase 2 was officially the start of cross-platform interconnectivity the second wave of the mcu begins appropriately with iron man 3. the first round began with tony stark so it's fitting that the next one does the third and final entry in the iron man specific films dealt with the fallout of the avengers in many ways not only was tony suffering from post-alien invasion ptsd the film itself cooled critics feelings towards an extended marvel universe you're all wrong though the mandarin twist rules so the next thing in phase two is thor the dark world right it's complicated wrong again because between the release of iron man 3 and thor 2 was the premiere of the first mcu television series marvel's agents of shield two possessives and one title bold move feige the first season of the abc series took place concurrently with the release of the phase two films often crossing over with the major events of the movies despite the series later being shuffled out of continuity at the time it was very much billed as a part of the mcu phase two continued with the aforementioned thor turn off the dark and then captain america winter soldier the second wave was about expanding the world of the mcu the films began to fully introduce secondary avengers like falcon and the winter soldier don't forget about those marvel 1 shots either the physical releases for iron man 3 and thor 2 gave us agent carter and all hail the king agent carter served as a sort of pilot for the eventual show marvel's agent carter the series also premiered at the start of 2015 putting it smack in phase two as well all hail the king followed up with the few living iron man villains it also existed to assure fans that the actual mandarin existed and wasn't just a shirtless guy pierce these are the final one shots as of this moment as dvd extras were becoming a thing of the past the best was yet to come for phase two however because the guardians of the galaxy were on their way to cinemas everywhere guardians introduced us to the titular heroes as well as gave us our first proper look at overarching villain thanos sure we saw his creepy smile at the end of the avengers but now he has lines and was played by jonah hex himself after james gunn gave us one of marvel's best films yet joss whedon gave us one of its most disappointing avengers age of ultron introduced us all to critical characters like vision scarlet witch and tony stark's fascistic paranoia while it was underwhelming it did bring an appropriate end to the second phase except it didn't while the first phase ends on an avengers film the second ends on a little tale about a man in his ants ants ants ant-man is the end of the second phase of the mcu feige himself described the movie as more of an epilogue to phase two but that still makes it a part of it kevin regardless of how it's classified ant-man rounds out our completed list of phase two meet why why are you looking at me like that you forgot about netflix netflix okay so during this period while also running the network shows like marvel's agents of shield and marvel's agent carter netflix entered into a deal to produce and host exclusive series i'm going to keep this quick but daredevil premiered in april 2015 between ultron and ant-man if we take ant-man as the definitive cut-off date then only the first season counts for phase two even matt murdock can see that the rest of the netflix shows however are a part of phase three while the third wave appears to begin with captain america civil war this is false phase three began with the premiere of jessica jones on netflix in november of 2015. i'm gonna forgo exact release orders for individual titles in the interest of time from now on call me ricky bobby because i only care if you're first or last so phase three begins perhaps the most important phase of the mcu a lot of things culminated during this wave firstly tony and steve's long-running rivalry comes to a head with captain america civil war the third entry in the captain america series also gave fans something that had been sorely missing from the mcu spider-man yes the wall crawler was finally amongst his peers and better yet his recasting means that i don't have to retroactively include the amazing spider-man films in the previous phases yay me phase 3 continued with the introduction of many new heroes doctor strange was next introducing reality bending and magic to the mcu then the lovable misfits returned in guardians of the galaxy vol 2. the wall crawler finally got his own film with spider-man homecoming his own mcu film he's already had five before this the god of thunder's world came to an end in more ways than one with thor ragnarok and finally black panther kitty cat roared its way to the top of the box office with six feature films released before another avengers film this wave already contained the same amount of movies as the last two during this time we can also head back to the land of tv and streaming because while agent carter ended criminally early with two seasons agents of shield and the various netflix series were going strong luke cage and iron fist joined the roster and they all got their own much more disappointing team up with the defenders finally there were also three online shorts released around this time officially introducing thor's roommate still waiting on that disney plus series marvel then came the bombshell entry in the franchise avengers infinity war everyone you love is dead not really though you would think this would be the end of phase three it's already one film longer than any phase before it and this is a pretty big moment in the avengers lives but if the last phase was good enough to end on an ant-man film this one is too ant-man and the wasp gave us a nice epilogue and was a fun and exciting adventure man that paul rudd he's so ding dang charming you know what i'm actually really vibing on this phase right now it's been the best one so far yeah let's keep this train rolling come on what's next oh yeah okay i guess i asked for it captain marvel sure was a marvel movie and now we have some context on who nick fury was paging you know what we can't leave it like that let's go out on a real high note and kick thanos end game was truly the end of many things the end of the big purple walking chin that had been menacing the mcu since the beginning the end of the original avengers lineup most importantly it was also the end of tony stark who after creating the mcu so long ago gave his life [Music] saving saving his friends and excuse me audiences were sad at the loss of tony stark even the retirement of steve rogers left them understandably melancholy what they needed was a fun bright romp that simultaneously address the grief left over from endgame well that plus the grief of the cancellation of the netflix marvel shows remember them help us out spider-man you're our only hope spider-man far from home gave us all a sense of closure on the third phase of the mcu this wave was the largest and most ambitious yet with some of the highest highs and lowest lows here we are the ongoing phase four while the first new piece of mcu content was the premiere of juan division as the first disney plus exclusive series the first event was an end marvel's agents of shield had managed to make its way across two full phases despite how much its canon had been disowned in that time congrats agents of shield you lasted longer than better marvel shows just by keeping your head down on basic cable okay so phase four is huge so let's get going wandavision was the first to disney plus it started great but ended with the same old tricks falcon and winter soldier crowned a new sentinel of liberty and gave the world dancing zemo loki broke the timeline and my will to see anything other than reptile versions of the whole mcu black widow finally came to cinemas and gave us a film about the underrepresented avenger too bad she was already dead the eternals underwhelmed and hawkeye rescued vincent tinafrio's wilson fisk from netflix cancellation tis a dark round few return the mcu also began to fully embrace the multiverse with what if the animated series told stories of alternate universes and as of the new doctor strange looks to be very important to continuity then came spider-man no way home looking to fix the damage to his public image peter parker enlists doctor strange to help and ends up cracking open the multiverse out comes the cast of the sam raimi and mark webb spider-man films wow now the spider-man movies we all grew up with were an official part of the marvel cinematic multiverse awesome wait does that actually mean the old movies are included in phase one but they came out before marvel's phase one began in 2002 with the cinematic release of spider-man it was a massive global success and kicked off the biggest continuing franchise in film history it was followed by two sequels and then a reboot with its own sequel in the meantime iron man came out also the two venom films are in phase three and four respectively now welcome to the team tom hardy okay back to phase four so what's next with this current wave of marvel films and tv shows moon knight has just been released but isn't out yet as of this recording the series promises a darker and more psychological take on the mcu and oscar isaac looks to stun with his performance as mark spector then after that we have doctor strange in the multiverse of madness we should tell him the truth is that professor x marvel's phase one began in 2000 with the cinematic release of x-men it was a massive global success and kicked off the biggest continuing franchise in film history it was followed by just so many sequels and spin-offs and then iron man came out then after that there were more x-men movies that came out they fit into various phases i'm too tired to figure out then the whole series was canceled and ended on a terrible movie that took way too long to be released okay let's shuffle this back to phase 4. yes multiverse of madness looks to further split open the coffers of marvel's back catalog perhaps when we see it in theaters other old marvel heroes will appear maybe this even means that all marvel films exist in the marvel cinematic multiverse wait marvel's phase one began in 1986 with the cinematic release of howard the duck it was a massive failure ruined many careers and forced george lucas to sell pixar it was the first marvel film and kicked off decades of terrible adaptations then x-men came out wait i was born in 1986 [Music] marvel phase one began in 1986 with my birth i am the beginning of the mcu i am the worlds of marvel made manifest with glorious purpose and divine okay you're okay take a nice slow drink all right that got a little away from me there let's finish with marvel phase four shall we so what's left for the phase that is seemingly never ending well film wise we have thor love and thunder which will give us both a new thor and we'll see the return of ragnarok director taika watiti then you have guardians 3 ant-man 3 fantastic four and the all ladies team-up film the marvels don't cancel that disney plus subscription because you can also look forward to series and specials like she-hulk secret invasion a guardians of the galaxy holiday special okay sure welcome to phase four which is now just the rest of marvel and all marvel that's ever been it's hard to know what comes next with phase 5 because there's still so much left of the current wave whatever it is i'm sure we can expect it to be a lot if marvel wants my advice which they definitely do not i would tell them to scale back the recent explosions of films shows miniseries and specials is a lot to keep track of its complexity even ripples back to the past further complicating its multiverse so please marvel can we just go back to five simple films about characters we like followed by a big sugary dessert of a team up only for the sake of my sanity oh god i forgot shang chi

Channel: Screen Rant

Views: 81,109

Keywords: marvel timeline, mcu phase 5, mcu phases, mcu timeline breakdown, screen rant, screenrant

Id: XpzLTID381w

Length: 17min 47sec (1067 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 02 2022