With Phase 3, the longest-running film grouping of Disney and Marvel Studios’ MCU franchise coming to an end, the time’s com to take stock on its overall narrative. After all, it pioneered the “shared universe†concept for the big screen, with how plot threads from separate movies came together eventually.
But the more movies arrived, the more confusion also arose due to these films not premiering in strictly chronological order. How much time passed between Tony Stark meeting kid Peter Parker in Iron Man 2, and recruiting him in Captain America: Civil War? A Disney-Marvel sourcebook hopes to answer that.
Marvel Stud10s: The First Ten Years from Titan Books is a retrospective on the film studio that changed how franchise filmmaking was done forever. It also includes a handy timeline of when the events of the MCU films occurred. We have that list, with the years on the left being the time of occurrence, and the years in parentheses after each movie title being their respective premiere dates in cinemas.
- 1943-1945: Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)
- 2010: Iron Man (2008)
- 2011: Iron Man 2 (2010), The Incredible Hulk (2008), Thor (2011)
- 2012: The Avengers (2012), Iron Man 3 (2013)
- 2013: Thor: The Dark World (2013)
- 2014: Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014), Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017)
- 2015: Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), Ant-Man (2015)
- 2016: Captain America: Civil War (2016), Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
- 2016 through to 2017: Doctor Strange (2016)
- 2017: Black Panther (2018), Thor: Ragnarok (2017), Avengers: Infinity War (2018)
Not included is Ant-Man and the Wasp, as the book was apparently published before that film arrived, but judging from its mid-credits scene it happened concurrently with Avengers: Infinity War. Furthemore, the timeline doesn’t include the MCU-related TV series from ABC, Netflix, and other platforms.