Camera person: Abhay Sharma
Video editor: Kunal Mehra
If you haven’t been following Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) movies since ‘Iron Man’ came out in 2008, catching up with all of them before heading to watch Avengers: Infinity War could be a tedious task.
The early reviews for Marvel’s most-ambitious project are already in. So, before you head to the theatres, here is a quick guide to refresh your memory about whatever has happened in the past 18 Marvel movies released in the last ten years.
Iron Man
Billionaire genius playboy Tony Stark gets abducted by terrorists. After getting kidnapped he gets bored in a cave and creates the Iron Man suit to escape. He comes back to New York, builds a better suit and defeats his company’s evil manager Obadiah Stane… and tells everyone he’s Iron Man, and we are like, “Kya? Ye kaisa superhero hai.”
The Incredible Hulk
Dr Bruce Banner is introduced, who has this condition that everytime he gets angry he turns into the HULK! After breaking a lot of things and causing too much destruction, he goes into hiding to avoid breaking more things and causing more destruction.
Iron Man 2
We meet Black Widow, Tony’s dad Howard Stark, and Elon Musk in a cameo. (WHAAT??) Iron Man defeats Ivan Vanko fighting beside his buddy Col James Rhodes who is now in the War Machine suit.
Thor
MCU goes inter-galactic to Bappi Lahiri’s dream city Asgard, where everything is golden. Thor, the god of thunder, gets his powers ripped by his dad Odin because he is an arrogant brat and is sent to Earth to be more humble.
Thor’s brother Loki turns out to be adopted. In the end, Thor gets his powers back, becomes more responsible and Loki dies. (Except he doesn’t).
Captain America: The First Avenger
Now we are in 1940s. Small dude Steve Rogers goes through a procedure and turns into a hunk called Captain America. He is sent to Germany to fight Hydra along with his best bud, Bucky.
Hydra – the ISIS of the Nazis – has something called as the tesseract. In the end, Bucky dies, Tesseract gets lost in the ocean, Captain America crash-lands into an iceberg and goes into hibernation. He wakes up 75 years later in modern day New York and is recruited by Nick Fury to join the Avengers.
The Avengers
Loki arrives on Earth to steal the tesseract (which is actually an infinity stone) and rule the planet. Nick Fury assembles all the Avengers to stop Loki. They fight making a mess out of New York and Thor takes the tesseract and Loki back to Asgard. We get a glimpse of Thanos – the bad guy who is behind all of this.
Iron Man 3
Now in the phase two of Marvel movies, Tony Stark suffers from PTSD after the New York battle and makes lots of new suits. He faces a global terrorist, The Mandarin, and saves the president without calling the Avengers for backup.
Thor: The Dark World
Nothing great happens in this dull except we see a new infinity stone called the Ether – which is basically red, in liquid form and powerful.
Captain America: Winter Soldier
Remember Captain’s friend Bucky? He is not dead. Remember that rogue organisation called Hydra? That’s not dead either. Captain America, along with Black Widow, fights Hydra yet again... and helps his brainwashed friend-turned-assassin Bucky return to a normal life.
Guardians of The Galaxy
Bunch of misfits called the Guardians of the Galaxy team up to take on evil Ronan: The Accuser, who is trying to destroy planets with the help of an infinity stone called the Orb.
In the end, the Orb is safely secured with inter-galactic force the Nova Corps. Also big baddy Thanos gets some screen time in this movie.
Avengers: Age of Ultron
Tony Stark does a boo boo and creates sinister artificial intelligence called Ultron, which decides that the only way to save Earth is by ending humanity.
With the help of the mind stone from Loki's sceptre, Tony Stark’s tech, and Thor’s lightning, a new avenger Vision is created.
Avengers defeat Ultron, Hulk flies off into space in a jet and Captain leads the new Avenger recruits.
Captain America: Civil War
The government wants to control the Avengers. Captain America is not ok with this, but Iron Man is. So... the Avengers split.
There’s an epic showdown. Tony finds out his father Howard Stark was killed by Bucky and Captain America knew all along. After a messy fight with Iron Man, Captain America goes into hiding to Black Panther’s home country... Wakanda.
Doctor Strange
In this trippy inter-dimensional adventure, we meet Dr Stephen Strange who learns the mystic arts in Himalayas. Doctor also controls something called the Eye of Agamoto – which is an infinity stone called the Time Stone.
Guardians of The Galaxy Vol 2
Back in space, the guardians have a little adventure in this fun movie as they unravel history of Peter Quill’s true parentage.
Spiderman: Homecoming
Tony Stark’s mentors teenager Pater Parker as he struggles to be Spiderman and survive high school.
Thor: Ragnarok
Back in Asgard, Thor’s long-lost sister Hella returns and destroys his hammer. On a wasteland planet, Thor meets Hulk, the badass Valkyrie and teams up with them and Loki to take on Hella.
Thor evacuates all of Asgard, the planet is destroyed, Loki presumably steals the tesseract, again, and they head to Earth.
Black Panther
We are formally introduced to King T’chala and his country Wakanda – an African nation which has hidden its advanced technology, which comes from a rare metal Vibranium.
After getting his throne back from Killmonger, King T’chala opens Wakanda to the rest of the world.
Congratulations! You have completed your refresher course of the franchise, which has grossed over $14 billion just from movie tickets and has no plans of slowing down.
After splitting in Civil War the heroes are going to come together in Avengers:Infinity War and fight against the Mad Titan Thanos and his Black Order. And yes, some of them will die.
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