As you must know, upcoming this Thursday, is Infinity War and I know it seems a bit late coming, but I'm going to (as best as I can) sum up the MCU phase one (Marvel cinematic universe first six films) for those who aren't up to date. But first...
Spoiler warning! I recommend you watch these films before reading but if you're in a rush as you've booked Infinity War tickets then read on! This is aimed as a recap!
Iron man
The first film, Iron man was released in 2008. It cast
Robert Downey Jr as millionaire playboy Tony Stark, from New York who sells
weaponry for money. One day he gets attacked by terrorists (ironically using
his weapons) and held hostage. They replace his hear with an Arc Reactor as
they want him alive to build them a missile. Instead (unbeknown to them), he
creates the first Iron Man suit (mk 1) and busts out where he's being held
hostage and escapes home. He then modifies the suit to make it more humanoid
(with more functional weapons). The terrorist group also try to re-create the
suit. Tony finds this out. The terrorist leader is revealed as his well known
friend Obadiah who has an even bigger Iron Man suit and we see them battle
until Obadiah dies in the end. Tony goes home and reveals to the world he is in
fact Iron Man, sending the media to go wild.
Seven-time PhD holder, nuclear physicist (and big, green,
raging beast), Bruce Banner (Edward Norton) is living in the shadows as no-one
knows that he is the infamous hulk. The Hulk is a beast that Bruce forms into
when he is angry due to a gamma radiation exposure years back. Since then he
has been trying to find an antidote to cure it although, some others have
different plans. War Mongers would like to use his power by making their own
Hulk. Bruce is blackmailed by threatening his love for the secret to his power.
The War Mongers think they get all his Hulk-capabilites, making 'The
Abomination' but Bruce Banner still carries the hulk inside so we see an epic
showdown of the two hulks fighting to the death. Bruce Banner wins ....
We join Tony Stark again in the sequel of Iron Man as others
try to recreate his tech, failing miserably. One man, Justin Hammer, succeeds
and creates an army of remote-controlled Iron Men recruiting Whiplash - an
enemy of Iron Man. One day Tony gets drunk and is acting foolishly wearing the
suit. His friend, James Rhodey (later to be called War Machine), steals another
of Tony's suits to stop him before he does something stupid. James then goes
away and uses the suit to help the military. We are later introduced to Black
Widow (Scarlet Johansson) and Nick Fury (Samuel L Jackson), sent by S.H.I.E.L.D
who notice a weird pattern on Tony's chest, showing the Arc reactor is giving
him a disease, motivating him to create a triangle shaped arc reactor to cure
himself. Eventually, Iron Man and War Machine join forces to fight Whiplash and
Jimmy's army in a showdown and surprise, surprise... they win.
The fourth film in the MCU is about the Norse god of Thunder
Thor (Chris Hemsworth) who is son to the King of Asgard, Odin and is about to
take over the throne. The rivals of Asgard, the Frost Giants, from Jotunheim,
disturb the ceremony in an attempt to steal the Tesseract (the Space Gem). To
enact revenge Thor leads a small group including his brother Loki, Lady Sif and
the Warriors Three to Jotunhiem. They battle and are saved by Odin. He had
given strict orders to Thor not to battle and as punishment banished Thor to
Mid-guard (Earth) where he is separated from his mighty hammer (limiting his
abilities). Only a man/woman who is worthy of Asgards throne can wield it. He
is then found by Scientists Jane Foster, Darcy and Prof. Erik Selvig in a
storm. They investigate his weird entrance whilst S.H.I.E.L.D investigate why
no-one can lift Thor's hammer. Thor eventually finds the hammer but realises
for the first time he can no longer wield it. Loki appears to tell his brother he can never return because Odin died
and his mother forbids it (Loki, god of Mischief is, of course, lying). Loki
wants the throne of Asgard, therefore he sends a metallic giant called the
destroyer to earth to kill Thor. It almost succeeds but in the nick of time
Thor is seen as worthy again and the hammer flies to him in his moment of need
and he destroys the destroyer. Then he confronts Loki, destroying the bi-frost,
which can get people from realm to realm to stop Loki from sending the Frost
Giants to Asgard. Loki jumps off the bi-frost and is not to be seen until
Avengers. But now Thor can no longer return to Earth to see Jane (who has become
his girlfriend).
The last Avenger in phase one - yet known as the first
Avenger - is Steve Rogers (Chris Evans). This film is set in WWII and little
Steve wants to join the army but is not physically inclined to. He is later
accepted into the army by Dr Abraham Erkine who sees he is good on the inside.
Howard Stark (Tony Stark's dad) creates a formula to make Steve strong. Steve
goes along with it and becomes muscly Captain America who then tries to find
Red Skull of HYDRA who went through the same process as Steve but got a Red
Skull out of it (hence the creative name!). Cap and his army friends, including
his best friend Bucky, go on a mission to find Red Skull, Bucky sadly dies. Cap
goes into a one-on-one fight with Red Skull for the Tesseract on a HYDRA plane
mid-flight (to stop him having the ability to make powerful weapons). The plane
has bombs and was meant to bomb America but Cap flies it into the North
Atlantic, freezing himself in the process and is later discovered. The
Tesseract plummets deep in the sea. When he wakes from his deep freeze he finds
out the war is well and truly over and he has in fact been asleep for 70 years!
Finally, the first team up in the MCU happens. Nick Fury of
S.H.I.E.L.D came up with an idea to form a team of the world's mightiest heroes
consisting of Iron Man, Captain America, Bruce Banner (now Mark Ruffolo), Black
Widow and Hawkeye (who is briefly in Thor).
Falling from the
Bifrost, Loki emerges in S.H.I.E.L.D HQ with the Scepter (Mind Gem). The
Scepter can hypnotise people to follow the wielder, Hawkeye and Prof Erik
Solvig are two of his victims and they escape HQ. Nick Fury uses Agent Carson
to get Tony; Black Widow to get Banner; and he sets off to enlist Cap, to
defeat Loki.They join and find Loki in Germany. They them take him back on
their jet but get put on hold by the thunder as Thor appears trying to capture
his brother himself to take him home. Tony suits up and stops Thor but then Cap
breaks them up after battling. They convince Thor to let them take Loki and
they all return to S.H.I.E.L.D. Tony and Banner investigate the scepter with
Loki held hostage. Loki starts to cause division within the team with his mind
tricks and as Hawkeye (still under Loki's spell) attacks S.H.I.E.L.D, Loki
manages to break out. In the process he throws Thor from the plane into the
middle of nowhere, getting Bruce angry (we all know what happens when he gets
angry), he also falls from the plane and turns back to Banner. At the start of
this film we saw mad Titan, Thanos give Loki the Scepter. Loki then gets Prof
Erik Solvig (also still under his spell) to open a wormhole which allows
Thanos's army into Earth. The army attack NY but the Avengers protect by
fighting a huge battle, defeating the army and re-capturing Loki, sending him
back to Asgard with Thor. They go their separate ways but all get blamed for
the NY damage (even though they saved the Earth!).
