As the Marvel Cinematic Universe comes to the end of phase four in its installments of incredibly entertaining and visually appealing movies, “Avengers: Infinity War” takes the stage. The culmination of 10 years’ worth of superhero movies, “Avengers: Infinity War” features dozens of main characters and starkly contrasts tone and plot lines of every Marvel movie installment before it.
However, before seeing the movie, one must be well-versed in Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) knowledge. The characters simply appear on screen and become part of the movie without any introduction, due to the fact that every MCU movie released in the past 10 years provides the introduction and background knowledge needed to fully understand and appreciate this movie.
MCU began its reign over box-office records with “Iron Man”, starring Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man, in 2008. According to Box Office Mojo, “Iron Man” became the first film of 2008 to make more than $300 million dollars; the movie also holds the spot for 4th biggest opening for a superhero film. The installments of the action-packed movies continued, with introductory films for Captain America, Hulk, Thor, and many other mighty superheroes. Every single MCU movie adds to the Marvel Universe that Marvel Studios is sharing with its audiences. From Thor to Black Panther, all the characters are part of a conglomerate of superheroes and villains that constitute the magnificent universe in which viewers of the MCU movies can spend their time.
The first step in being able to understand Avengers: Infinity War is watching all the previous MCU movies in the order in which they were released, beginning with “Iron Man” and ending with Ryan Coogler’s “Black Panther”.
Knowledge about the Infinity Stones is the next step. In the Marvel Universe, after the Big Bang which created the universe, 6 stones split off of the explosion and landed in various places around the universe: The Space Stone (blue), the Reality Stone (red), the Power Stone (purple), the Mind Stone (yellow), the Time Stone (green) and the Soul Stone. All the stones, except for the Soul Stone have been featured at some point in the MCU. The Soul Stone has been missing from every movie; its location and possessor has been a point of great debate within the Marvel Fandom.
Upon watching the aforementioned movies and learning about the infinity stones, buy tickets to Avengers: Infinity War. According to Toronto Sun, Kevin Feige, President of Marvel Studios and producer of “Avengers: Infinity War” tells fans to be prepared for one of “the biggest and most unique adventure films that have ever been made”.
