THE AGE OF HEROES BEGINS

Tony Stark — genius, arms manufacturer, heir to Stark Industries — is ambushed in Afghanistan by terrorists armed with his own weapons. Shrapnel lodges near his heart. A fellow captive, Ho Yinsen, builds an electromagnet to keep it out; Stark builds a miniaturised arc reactor, then a suit of armour, and escapes. Yinsen dies covering him.

Stark shuts down weapons manufacturing. His business partner and father's old colleague Obadiah Stane — who arranged the ambush — tries to kill him for it. Stark wins.

Then he does the thing that starts everything: at a press conference, instead of reading the cover story, he says "I am Iron Man." No secret identity. The modern superhero era begins with a public admission.

Post-credits: Nick Fury appears in Stark's living room. "You've become part of a bigger universe. You just don't know it yet."

Concurrent with Iron Man. Bruce Banner has been on the run for five years since a gamma experiment — commissioned by General Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross, ostensibly a radiation-resistance study, actually a super-soldier programme — turned him into the Hulk.

Ross hunts him relentlessly, partly because Banner is dating his daughter Betty. Ross's chosen operative, Emil Blonsky, receives a serum derivative and demands more, eventually becoming the Abomination. Banner contacts a scientist he knows only as "Mr Blue" — Samuel Sterns — for a cure; Sterns is instead fascinated, and gets Banner's blood in an open head wound during the finale, causing his skull to deform.

This film sat ignored for seventeen years. Then Captain America: Brave New World picked up every single thread: Ross, Sterns, Betty, and Blonsky.

Who is Thaddeus Ross, and where does he keep turning up? Career military, obsessed with recreating the super-soldier programme. His full appearance list:

• The Incredible Hulk (film, 2008) — commissions the experiment that creates the Hulk, hunts Banner, creates the Abomination via Blonsky
• Captain America: Civil War (film, 2016) — now Secretary of State; the man who presents the Sokovia Accords
• Avengers: Infinity War (film) — brief video appearance
• Avengers: Endgame (film) — attends Tony Stark's funeral
• Black Widow (film) — brief
• Captain America: Brave New World (film, 2025) — President of the United States, recast from William Hurt (who died in 2022) to Harrison Ford, and this is the only film where he becomes Red Hulk

Is he still the villain of The Incredible Hulk? No — the 2025 arc is redemption, and he ends it imprisoned by choice and reconciled with his daughter. More on that in Part Nine.

These, plus The Incredible Hulk, all occur within roughly a week of each other — fan-nicknamed "Fury's Big Week."

Iron Man 2: The arc reactor is poisoning Stark. Ivan Vanko, son of a Stark Industries defector, attacks him; rival contractor Justin Hammer backs Vanko. Stark synthesises a new element from his father's old research, cures himself, and — crucially — is assessed by S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Natasha Romanoff and judged unsuitable for the Avengers. He's recommended as a consultant only.

His friend James "Rhodey" Rhodes takes a suit and becomes War Machine.

Thor: Thor's arrogance restarts a war with the Frost Giants. Odin banishes him to Earth, stripped of power. He lands in New Mexico, meets astrophysicist Jane Foster, learns humility, and earns Mjolnir back. Meanwhile Loki discovers he was adopted — taken as an infant from Jotunheim — and, in a spiral of resentment, seizes the throne and tries to destroy his birth people to prove his worth. He loses, and lets go of the Bifröst into the void.

Loki does not die. He falls into the hands of Thanos, who gives him an army and the Mind Stone.

Loki arrives on Earth, steals the Tesseract from S.H.I.E.L.D., and enslaves several minds with the scepter — including Clint Barton (Hawkeye) and Erik Selvig. In response, Fury activates the Avengers Initiative.

The team — Stark, Rogers (thawed from the ice a year earlier), Thor, Banner, Romanoff, Barton — spend most of the film failing to cooperate. Agent Phil Coulson is killed by Loki, and Fury uses his death (and some doctored trading cards) to bond them.

Loki opens a portal over Manhattan and a Chitauri army pours through. The Battle of New York is the founding public event of the superhero age. The World Security Council fires a nuclear missile at Manhattan; Stark carries it through the portal into space, sees the fleet on the other side, and nearly dies. He survives, but the vision of what's out there gives him post-traumatic anxiety and an obsession with pre-emptive defence that drives his behaviour for the next six years.

Post-credits: the first appearance of Thanos.

Standing at the end of Phase One: Six Avengers. Public superheroes. Loki in Asgardian custody. Tesseract on Asgard. Scepter (Mind Stone) confiscated by S.H.I.E.L.D. — and quietly retained by HYDRA agents inside it.