The Avengers: Age of Ultron and the Marvel Cinematic Universe

IF YOU’RE heading off to see the year’s biggest movie, Avengers: Age of Ultron, there’s something you need to know first.

Read this before you see The Avengers

AVENGERS: Age of Ultron will hit cinemas today, and it’s set to be one of the year’s biggest movies.

Last time around, The Avengers made more than $US1.5 billion at the global box office. So the studio bosses are expecting big things. But more than larger-than-life heroes, epic fight scenes and witticisms (we hope) from writer, director and all-round pop culture god Joss Whedon, Avengers: Age of Ultron is also just the latest chapter in the mega franchise that is Marvel.

But with so many characters in so many superhero movies and TV shows, it all gets a bit confusing, especially if you’re not a fervent comic book devotee, which most of us aren’t.

So here’s your guide to the whole Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) — the official name for everything in the Marvel screen world — to help you figure out where everything fits in. It’ll make Avengers: Age of Ultron so much better if you get how it all works.

Some minor spoilers follow (but not for Avengers: Age of Ultron).

MARVEL CINEMATIC UNIVERSE

With superhero franchises and comic book adaptations making big money, there’s been a tsunami of them on our screens in recent years. There are two major names in this game — Marvel and DC.

Everything in the MCU is part of the same shared world, like how the different CSI shows are all part of the same world. Think of it as one big crossover.

The world is falling down around Cap and Nick Fury.

The main superheroes in the MCU are Tony Stark/Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr), the Hulk/Bruce Banner (Edward Norton and Mark Ruffulo), Captain America/Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) and Thor (Chris Hemsworth and his considerable muscles), who have all headlined their own movies. These guys also make up The Avengers superheroes.

The Avengers team also contains characters such as Black Widow/Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson) and Hawkeye/Clint Barton (Jeremy Renner) who have appeared in a number of MCU movies but haven’t starred in their own.

Then there are the S.H.I.E.L.D. (the save-the-world organisation) characters Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), Agent Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg) and Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders) who have popped up in various MCU properties.

Others movies in the MCU, but whose main characters don’t appear in Avengers flicks include Guardians of the Galaxy and Ant-Man (to be released in July with Paul Rudd in the lead).

There are also a raft of TV shows in the MCU including Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Agent Carter and the very excellent Daredevil. There are four more shows to be released on Netflix over the next couple of years.

Black Widow, kicking some arse.

The likes of Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman aren’t part of the Marvel franchise — these guys belong to DC.

HOW THEY FIT TOGETHER

Being in the same universe means all these characters exist in the same world and what

happens in one movie or TV show will have an effect on the rest of the franchise.

Obviously, the heroes of the separate movies come together in Avengers series. They also pop in each other’s movies. For example, Hawkeye was in Thor before he turned up in Avengers while Black Widow first appeared in Iron Man 2 but has also been in the two Avengers movies and Captain America 2. Hulk appeared in a post-credits scene in Iron Man 3 while Captain America (sort of) popped up in Thor: The Dark World. Nick Fury kind of flits between most of the movies and shows.

Even The Guardians of the Galaxy, where most of the action happens in space, has its connections to the rest of the franchise. An alien supervillain, Thanos, who has appeared in Guardians and The Avengers while an alien race, the Kree, was introduced in Guardians and has since become important to the events in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Guardians of the Galaxy was a surprise hit for Marvel.

Unfortunately, the connections between the properties can also work against them. Captain America: The Winter Soldier’s plot was a game changer for the MCU when it was revealed S.H.I.E.L.D. had been infiltrated by their enemies, Hydra. This meant that for a big chunk of its first season, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. was essentially treading water and waiting for Captain America: Winter Soldier to be released before it could move on with its story.

Agent Carter was an eight-episode miniseries that took place in the 1940s, immediately after the events of the first Captain America movie, and follows Peggy Carter, Captain America’s fellow officer and love interest. The show also featured Howard Stark (Iron Man’s father). Peggy Carter also turned up in a flashback sequence in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D while both her and Howard Stark will appear in the upcoming Ant-Man.

The big skirmish at the end of The Avengers, the Battle of New York, has been referenced in pretty much every MCU film or show since including Daredevil.

Daredevil is the first of five shows Marvel has developed with Netflix.

Daredevil, by far the darkest instalment of the MCU so far, is the first of five TV shows that Marvel has developed with Netflix. The next three — A.K.A. Jessica Jones, Luke Cage and Iron Fist — will introduce three more heroes before the four are united in The Defenders series.

See, it’s all connected.

THE GRAND PLAN

Marvel has very concrete plans and strategies about how all of its movies and shows will play out and fit together. When there’s so much money at stake (the movies that have been released so far have grossed more than $US7 billion globally), it pays to be organised.

It all kicked off in 2008 with the first Iron Man movie. Phase One was designed to introduce the various superheroes and also includes The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2, Thor, Captain America: The First Avenger and The Avengers.

Phase Two includes Iron Man 3, Thor: The Dark World, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Guardians of the Galaxy, Avengers: Age of Ultron and Ant-Man.

Phase Three will be the busiest with 10 films slated and lasts until 2019. It will begin with Captain America: Civil War and continue with Doctor Strange, Guardians of the Galaxy 2, the untitled Spider-Man movie, Thor: Ragnarok, Avengers: Infinity War Part 1, Black Panther, Captain Marvel, Avengers: Infinity War Part 2 and Inhumans.

The Peggy Carter character has appeared in two Captain America movies, Agent Carter, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and will also be in the upcoming Ant-Man flick.

Phase Three will introduce a bunch of characters we’ve yet to meet. The new kids on the block include Doctor Strange, a neurosurgeon/sorcerer who will be played by Benedict Cumberbatch and Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman), who will first appear in the third Captain America

movie before getting his own headliner. There’s also Captain Marvel/Carol Danvers who, in the comics, has superhuman strength and can fly.

It will culminate with the Inhumans movie. The Inhumans were first introduced in the MCU in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Because the mutants can’t exist inside the MCU (see below), fans on the internet have theorised that Inhumans could be the MCU’s way of explaining superpowered people who didn’t come to their powers through science or because they’re an alien like Thor.

While movies have only been announced until 2019, Marvel boss Kevin Feige has said that it has movies planned until at least 2021 – they just haven’t told us yet.

THE MARVEL CHARACTERS THAT AREN’T

Because of a series of licensing deals that precedes 2005, when Marvel Entertainment (which is now owned by Disney) decided to embark on its own movies and TV shows, many of the most famous Marvel superheroes aren’t part of the MCU.

The most prominent of these is The X-Men. The X-Men franchise is owned by 20th Century Fox and no mention of the X-Men, the X-Men characters or mutants can be made in the MCU.

The only exceptions to this are the Maximoff twins, Quicksilver (Evan Peters in X-Men and Aaron Taylor-Johnson in MCU) and Scarlett Witch (Elizabeth Olsen), who can appear in the MCU because they are in both the X-Men and The Avengers comic books.

Scarlet Witch can appear in both the MCU and Fox’s X-Men series.

The Spider-Man rights are owned by Sony Pictures and that studio has made two series of the Spider-Man franchise since 2002. However, earlier this year, Marvel and Sony announced they will co-produce a Spidey film to be released in 2017 that will exist within the MCU.

The other significant Marvel characters not in the MCU are the Fantastic Four, whose rights are also owned by Fox. A big budget adaptation was released in 2005 with Chris Evans (who is now Captain America) and Jessica Alba while a sequel came out in 2007. However, the franchise has been rebooted again, to be released this year with a new cast.

It should also be noted there are now two characters in the MCU that have had outings in recent movies that don’t belong to the MCU. Daredevil will also be familiar to audiences from the 2003 movie starring Ben Affleck. There was also Ang Lee’s Hulk with Eric Bana in 2003. Neither of these films are part the MCU — same comic book characters, different world. The MCU versions of these stories have also been rebooted.

So there you have it. While this is only the tip of the MCU gargantuan iceberg, we hope it’s been illuminating. Especially as Disney will have you watching pretty much nothing else but Marvel franchises for the next few years.

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is being used to tie a few things together in the MCU.

Behind the scenes of the Avengers promo tour