To say our household is a Marvel household, you only have to look at the serious discussions we have around the dinner table.1 The most recent discussion was:
What it would take to see see the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe in the fewest movies possible?
We realized that before we decide the moviews we needed to set the order of all the Marvel Cinematic Universe(MCU) movies that are currently available all the way through next summer's Avengers 4 movie.
After a few discussions on long walks with the dog, we set the MCU order as:
- Captain America: The First Avenger
- Iron Man
- Iron Man 2
- Thor
- The Avengers
- Iron Man 3
- Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol 1
- Captain America: The Winter Soldier
- Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2
- The Avengers: Age of Ultron
- Ant-Man
- Captain America: Civil War
- Doctor Strange
- Black Panther
- Spider-Man: Homecoming
- Ant-Man and the Wasp
- Thor: Ragnarok
- Avengers: Infinity War
- Captain Marvel
- Avengers 4
As you look at that list, I can just hear someone typing in the comments below, 'Umm, what happened to The Incredible Hulk and Thor 3?'. Just like Star Wars -The Phantom Menace and Indiana Jones - The Crystal Skull, we've decided to delete Hulk and Thor 3 from our movie timeline.
Core MCU Storyline
So the next next order of business was to figure out what was critical and what was fluff. This was probably the most heated discussion since we debated whether or not Captain Rex fell under Order 66 while watching the Star Wars - The Clone Wars series.2
- Captain America: The First Avenger
- Iron Man
- The Avengers
- Captain America: The Winter Soldier
- The Avengers: Age of Ultron
- Captain America: Civil War
- Black Panther
- Avengers: Infinity War
- Avengers 4
Looking at the timeline graphically, we see all the movies we didn't list as supporting films to the core MCU storyline.
This should help you get your cousin Bob up to speed in the MCU as he finally gives up the fantasy that the DC movie universe will ever catch up.