The Entire MCU Timeline Explained

With dozens of films and TV shows spread out over the last fifteen years, the Marvel Cinematic Universe is the biggest franchise in the pop culture landscape — and it doesn't seem like it's going to be stopping any time soon. The massive scope of this cinematic world has allowed Marvel Studios to create a sprawling, interconnected universe built on a shared continuity, and with recent movies and TV series introducing a multiverse on top of the shared universe, things will just keep getting more complicated — and fun.

For the most part, the events of the films and TV series happen in the same order as the movies themselves, but there are a few exceptions. If you want a good look at when everything happened in the MCU, read on. We'll be examining the multiple movies, short films, Netflix series, Disney+ shows, and more to offer you a complete timeline of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

As far as the heroes and villains of Earth are concerned, the MCU doesn't start with Tony Stark getting kidnapped in 2008, Carol Danvers being taken to Hala in the '90s, or even with Steve Rogers volunteering for the Super Soldier program in the '40s. The actual beginning happens in 5000 BC when ten immortal Eternals — Sersi, Ikaris, Ajak, Kingo, Sprite, Phastos, Makkari, Thena, Druig, and Gilgamesh — arrive on Earth to take out the Deviants on our planet.

For thousands of years, the Eternals protect emerging humankind, largely through epic super battles with giant monsters. By 1521, the Eternals finally manage to defeat all the Deviants on Earth — or so they think. Lacking any real direction now that their main reason for coming to the planet is gone, they scatter and get jobs as teachers, Bollywood film stars, and South American cult leaders.

Since the Celestials instructed the Eternals not to interfere in humanity unless Deviants were involved, other god-like beings get the chance to descend onto Earth and have their time to shine. These include the Asgardians, vastly powerful alien beings who visit our planet many times and give rise to Norse mythology. Still, the most exciting stuff those guys do happens off-world in the realm of Asgard.

This mythological time scale begins millennia ago, as we find out in "Thor: The Dark World," when the Dark Elf Malekith the Accursed lays siege to Asgard using a weapon known as the Aether — actually an Infinity Stone that controls reality — to revert the universe to a state of perpetual darkness. Malekith is stopped by Bor, the father of Odin. In 2988 BC, Bor vanquishes Malekith, causing the Dark Elves to go into a state of hibernation for the next 5000 years. Bor then buries the Aether on a distant world.

While we don't know exactly when it happens, the next chronological event that we see from our characters is Odin's conquest of the Nine Realms alongside his first child, Hela, Goddess of Death. During this era, the magic warhammer Mjolnir is forged in the heart of a dying star, and used by Hela. Thanks to her bloodthirsty ruthlessness and ambition, Odin turns against her, and in the battle that follows, Hela slaughters the Valkyrior. The sole surviving Valkyrie flees from Asgard, spending the next few thousand years drunk and depressed. Eventually, she winds up on Sakaar, a cosmic garbage dump that an immortal being called the Grandmaster builds into an interstellar gladiatorial arena. Hela is then imprisoned in another dimension by Odin, who (literally) covers up all traces of her existence.

Sometime after that (but still far enough back that people were writing about it in the 13th century), Odin and Frigga have a son, Thor. Shortly thereafter, Odin defeats the frost giant Laufey and adopts his son, Loki, as his own. Not too long after this, during their youth, Loki turns into a snake because he knows Thor loves snakes, and then tries to stab him.

Over 5,000 years before the present day, a faction of the militaristic alien race called the Kree arrives on Earth and conducts experiments on humans, creating the early Inhumans. One of these Inhumans, known as "Hive," drives the Kree from the Earth and establishes a cult of personality that regards him as a god. After being banished, his followers work to restore him while destabilizing Earth society. Over time, this society becomes the terrorist organization Hydra.

Moving to just about a thousand years before the present day, the warlord Xu Wenwu makes a fantastic discovery of his own when he comes across 10 otherworldly rings that grant him immortality and the strength of a god. Using the rings to establish his Ten Rings criminal organization, Wenwu conquers kingdoms and topples governments, amassing an incredible power structure that influences the direction of the world.

Over in Eastern Europe, the demonic entity Chthon writes The Darkhold, an ancient book of dark spells, on a castle at the top of Mount Wundagore. The original text is then copied onto a more portable book that falls into the hands of several dark magic users, including the witch Morgan le Fay. Elsewhere, a Celtic woman trains in the mystic arts to protect the Earth against magical threats. After drawing power from the Dark Dimension, she becomes functionally immortal and takes on the name "The Ancient One."

While things are pretty quiet for the MCU between 1945 and 1995, there are a few notable exceptions. Peggy Carter continues to work for the SSR, first in New York in 1946, and then in Los Angeles alongside Howard Stark in 1947. Although Hydra is believed to have been destroyed, it actually secretly infiltrates the U.S. government, quietly influencing historical events. Around this same time, the Soviet Union produces the first graduates of its brutal Red Room facility, where orphaned girls are trained as spies and assassins in a program codenamed Black Widow.

During the 1950s, Korean War veteran Isaiah Bradley and several other African American soldiers are unknowingly subjected to a new version of the Super Soldier Serum. Isaiah gains superhuman abilities and is sent on secret missions, including one where he battles a still-brainwashed Bucky Barnes (aka the Winter Soldier) and learns his identity. Isaiah subsequently goes AWOL to save his fellow soldiers from a POW camp. In the aftermath, all the soldiers except Isaiah die from the serum's side effects. Isaiah is imprisoned for thirty years so CIA and HYDRA scientists can experiment on him and try to replicate the serum in his blood. Eventually, a nurse takes pity on Isaiah and has him declared dead, allowing Isaiah to return to Baltimore, Maryland and live with his family.

Sometime after this — presumably around '48 or '49 — Steve Rogers travels back in time from 2023 to reunite with Peggy. She continues to work in military intelligence for the next few decades with Stark, whose defense contracts turn Stark Industries into the world's leading arms manufacturer. By 1970, both of them are working out of SSR Headquarters at Camp Lehigh, along with a few other notable figures. Arnim Zola, who worked with the Red Skull back in the '40s, is stationed here, and although his body dies in the '70s, his brain is transferred into a computer databank that continues Hydra's infiltration of the government. Also, Hank Pym is working here, assisted by Bill Foster in his experiments with the size-changing "Pym Particles" that will allow him and his wife Janet Van Dyne to become the original Ant-Man and Wasp.

While all of this is happening on Earth, things continue to develop in space. Thanos, an incredibly powerful alien from the planet Titan who's obsessed with balance, begins to seek out the Infinity Stones. Along the way, he lays waste to half of the population of entire planets, occasionally taking young survivors and training them as soldiers.

Assuming that most of the more humanoid characters are the same age as the people portraying them, Thanos' two most notable adoptions happen in the late '80s or early '90s. The alien Gamora is taken in as a young girl after Thanos kills half of the population of her home planet. Throughout her childhood, Thanos pits her against her adopted sister, Nebula. Every time they spar, Gamora wins, and Thanos systematically replaces pieces of Nebula's body with cybernetic parts in order to make her a more efficient killer. This creates a lot of resentment in Nebula, not only against Thanos but also toward Gamora, which will greatly affect their later relationship.

In 1991, the Soviet government sends the Winter Soldier to assassinate Howard and Maria Stark. This leaves their brilliant slacker son, Tony Stark, in charge of Stark Industries, along with Obadiah Stane as CEO. They continue to manufacture weapons using Tony's deadly designs, selling them to all sides of virtually every global conflict, with Obadiah making a profit from secret arms deals with terrorist groups.

In 1992, King T'Chaka of Wakanda goes to Oakland, California, to investigate arms deals involving stolen vibranium. The culprit is his brother, N'Jobu, who is killed in the altercation. N'Jobu's American-born son N'Jadaka, aka Erik Stevens, witnesses the whole thing and grows up craving revenge. He joins the Navy Seals and becomes the standout member of a black-ops unit, earning the moniker Erik Killmonger.

Around the same time, nine-year-old Matt Murdock is blinded by a drum of toxic waste while trying to save a man from being hit by a truck. The chemicals heighten his other senses to superhuman levels, allowing him to move and fight better than before. After his father is killed by mobsters, an orphaned Matt is mentored by the blind warrior Stick, who trains him to use his senses as weapons. Stick later abandons the boy, but Matt continues training and studying, eventually becoming both a gifted fighter and law student.

Meanwhile, Russian super-soldier Alexei Shostakov and Black Widow weapons designer Melina Vostokoff go deep undercover in Ohio, posing as an all-American family with their "daughters" — 7-year-old Natasha Romanoff and 3-year-old Yelena Belova. While Alexi and Melina work to steal a SHIELD (actually Hydra) project on unlocking free will, Natasha and Yelena experience some semblance of a normal childhood even if their family photos are all shot on the same day and their Christmas gifts don't contain anything.

In 1996, Xu Wenwu — having used his Ten Rings organization to secretly conquer or influence practically everything on Earth — turns his attention to the mystical realm of Ta Lo. After finding a magical forest near the village entrance, he meets and falls in love with the village guardian, Ying Li. The two marry and have two children — Shang-Chi and Xialing. For a time, Wenwu reforms, but when his wife is murdered by his rivals, he recreates the Ten Rings and trains his son Shang-Chi to be a living weapon.

Around this same time in Chicago, Illinois, young Marc Spector and his little brother, Randall, are exploring a cave when it suddenly floods, drowning Randall. Marc's mother Wendy blames him for the accident and a traumatized Marc manifests the alternate personality of "Steven Grant" to help him cope with his mother's verbal and physical abuse.

In 1999, Tony Stark meets bio-engineers Maya Hansen and Aldrich Killian at a conference in Bern, Switzerland. He's very rude to Aldrich, who remembers that as a sore point for about 14 years. Throughout all this, Hydra continues its secret infiltration of SHIELD and all levels of the United States government. The same year, 10-year-old twins Wanda and Pietro Maximoff are watching American sitcoms during an air raid in Sokovia when a Stark Industries mortar shell hits their building, killing their parents. The trauma activates Wanda's dormant "hex" powers and she's able to keep a second shell from exploding for two days while the twins lay trapped under the rubble.

Six months after revealing his identity publicly, Tony Stark is called to testify before Congress, because they are justifiably concerned about a private citizen building a suit of armor that can vaporize a tank. To create their own version, they turn to rival weapons manufacturer Justin Hammer. After Tony's friend, Colonel James Rhodes, delivers a prototype Iron Man suit, Hammer and Russian scientist Ivan Vanko reverse-engineer them into an army (and navy, and air force, and marine corps) of drones. Stark also gets a new personal assistant, who is revealed to be SHIELD agent and Red Room defector Natasha Romanoff, the Black Widow. Stark and Rhodes, in a militarized armor codenamed War Machine, defeat Vanko and Hammer.

Over at the Ten Rings compound, a now 14-year-old Shang-Chi has become the Master of Kung Fu, having been taught every possible way to kill a man over the last seven years. Assigned to assassinate the man responsible for his mother's murder, Shang-Chi completes his mission but is badly traumatized. Unwilling to return to his father, Shang-Chi cleverly adopts the name Shaun and starts going to high school in San Francisco. There he meets his best friend Katy, a skilled driver.

Meanwhile, a now-adult Marc Spector leaves home to join the United States Marine Corps but gets discharged because of his DID. With few options, Marc becomes a mercenary and works for his former commanding officer Raul Bushman. In addition to doing some jobs for the CIA, Marc is ordered by Bushman to execute some archeologists at an Egyptian dig site. Instead, Marc tries to save the scientists, but gets shot. Dying, Spector is approached by the Egyptian God of the Moon Khonshu who offers to save Spector if he will become his avatar and punish evildoers on Earth. Seeing himself as little more than a killer thanks to his childhood abuse, Spector agrees and is transformed into the supernatural vigilante Moon Knight.

While all this is happening on Earth, there's other stuff going on in the Golden Realm of Asgard. Loki tricks Thor into antagonizing the Frost Giants of Jotunheim against Odin's orders. As a consequence, Odin exiles Thor to Earth and enchants his hammer, Mjolnir, so that only someone worthy of Thor's power can lift it. It lands in New Mexico, where Agent Coulson discovers it, and after a bunch of hicks try to yank it out of the ground with pickup trucks, SHIELD constructs a temporary facility around it. Thor eventually proves himself worthy, regains his hammer, and stops Loki from staging a coup in Asgard.

In 2011, a team of Russian oil drillers discovers the crashed Hydra plane in the arctic and alerts SHIELD. Captain America is thawed out and revived, and after realizing that he's in the 21st century, he joins up with Nick Fury's Avengers Initiative. It turns out he was just in time!

While the Battle of New York comes with its fair share of trauma, it also leaves some people inspired. After seeing Clint Barton unknowingly saving her life while battling aliens with a bow and arrow, 10-year-old Kate Bishop decides to take up archery and learn martial arts to protect her family against future threats. She turns out to be a gifted, if extremely reckless, prodigy who often damages public property with her trick shots.

Loki's scepter falls into the hands of Hydra scientists who try to create their own superhumans by exposing volunteers to the energies of the Mind Stone within the staff. Two of these volunteers are a now-adult Wanda and Pietro Maximoff who gain psionic abilities and superhuman speed. The Mind Stone also enhances Wanda's Chaos Magic abilities, turning her into the Scarlet Witch.

In 2013, Tony Stark, overwhelmed by the concept of his universe suddenly expanding to include gods, aliens, and other unknowable cosmic forces, deals with his post-traumatic stress by building dozens of new Iron Man suits. This unfortunately coincides with the return of Aldrich Killian. Killian has been experimenting with Maya Hansen's regenerative "Extremis" treatment, which has the unfortunate tendency to cause its subjects to explode.

To cover his operations, Killian appropriates Wenwu's Ten Rings and creates a fictional terrorist based on Wenwu called the Mandarin, hiring an actor named Trevor Slattery to play him in threatening videos. The plot is uncovered and stopped by Tony and Rhodey. In the aftermath, Killian is killed by Pepper Potts and Slattery gets sent to federal prison where he's later abducted by the real Ten Rings for impersonating Wenwu. Although Wenwu is intent on killing this strange man who named himself after a chicken dish, he has a change of heart after seeing how good Slattery is at performing Shakespeare and decides to make him his jester.

Around this time, Phil Coulson resurfaces and begins recruiting some additional members into his own agents of SHIELD. They have their own adventures, including many involving the Inhumans and Ghost Rider, but like the good secret agents they are, a lot of this flies beneath the radar of most major MCU events.

Oh, also, Malekith comes back and Thor fights him, and Loki becomes the latest in a long line of presumed deaths that actually aren't. He stashes Odin in a retirement home in New York and then takes his identity, ruling over Asgard and putting on critically acclaimed plays.

In 2015, an electrical engineer named Scott Lang gets out of prison and stumbles onto Hank Pym's old size-changing equipment. Under the guidance of Pym and his daughter Hope, Lang becomes the second Ant-Man, and helps to keep the Pym Particles from falling into the hands of an evil arms dealer Darren Cross. When Darren dons his own size-changing suit and becomes the villainous Yellowjacket, Lang goes subatomic and damages Yellowjacket's suit so badly that the bad guy seemingly shrinks into oblivion. Actually, Cross journeys to the Quantum Realm where he's found by Kang and rebuilt as the evil Mr. Potato Head "M.O.D.O.K." (Mechanized Organism Designed Only for Killing).

Somewhere around this time, it's likely that a kid named Peter Parker is bitten by a radioactive spider, tries to capitalize on his powers by becoming famous as Spider-Man, and fails to stop a robber that later murders his Uncle Ben. None of this is covered in the MCU, but you may have seen five other movies about it.

The following year sees Helmut Zemo's plan to destroy the Avengers reach fruition. As the world responds to the destruction of Sokovia by trying to install new governmental oversight over the Avengers, Zemo furthers the wedge between Captain America and Iron Man by revealing Bucky killed Tony Stark's parents. He also frames Bucky for the assassination of King T'Chaka of Wakanda, leading the king's son T'Challa to take over leadership of the country as well as the identity and powers of the Black Panther. In the end, the Avengers break up and Bucky gets treatment in Wakanda after T'Challa realizes they were all being manipulated by Zemo.

Fleeing the U.S. after the rest of Cap's team is imprisoned, Natasha Romanoff spends some time in Norway watching James Bond films. Unfortunately, her vacation is cut short when she's attacked by Taskmaster, an assassin who can mimic any fighting style. Later, she discovers Taskmaster is the brainwashed daughter of all still-alive General Dreykov, who has restarted a crueler version of the Red Room that brainwashes new Black Widows and robs them of free will.

One of those Black Widows turns out to be Natasha's sister Yelena. Freed of her programming by another Widow, Yelena sends the brainwashing antidote to Natasha, drawing her into the fight. Together, Yelena and Natasha work to reunite with their former "parents," Alexi and Melina and really kill Dreykov this time. Although the dysfunctional deep cover family has more than its share of issues, they manage to pull together and take down the Red Room. In the end, Yelena gets to work liberating Black Widows around the world while Natasha goes to break her other family, the Avengers, out of jail.

In the absence of the Avengers, Tony Stark begins to mentor Peter Parker. As Spider-Man, Peter battles the evil arms dealer known as the Vulture, who turns out to be Adrian Toomes, his homecoming date's dad. The Vulture is defeated, arrested, and sent to prison, but not before he figures out Spider-Man's real identity. Also, Tony Stark finally proposes to Pepper Potts.

Lest you think Peter is the only superpowered teenager in the MCU, over in New Orleans teenagers Tandy Bowen and Tyrone Johnson acquire powers of light and darkness and become the vigilantes Cloak and Dagger. Meanwhile, on the West Coast, privileged teenager Alex Wilder and his friends learn their parents are all supervillains who control a powerful criminal organization called the Pride. The kids go on the run, learn many of them have superpowers or connections to advanced technology, and even run afoul of dangerous artifacts like the Darkhold. Sadly, it looks like Peter won't be meeting any of these young heroes as their worlds are only slightly connected to the MCU.

Meanwhile, Marc Spector marries Layla El-Faouly, the daughter of one of the archeologists he failed to save the night he became Moon Knight. The two go on many adventures together, but when Spector learns Khonshu may use Layla as his new avatar, he sends divorce papers to her, hoping to create some distance between them and keep her safe.

In Asgard, Thor returns from a two year journey spent looking for Infinity Stones in various realms only to discover Loki's been posing as Odin this entire time. When they find the real Odin, he's at the end of his life, and his death allows Hela to escape her millennia of imprisonment. She destroys Mjolnir, blasts the two brothers into space, and takes over Asgard. Thor winds up on Sakaar, where he recruits Hulk and Valkyrie for a mission to overthrow Hela, which goes about as well as it can for a plan that ends with the complete destruction of Asgard via fire giant.

In Wakanda, T'Challa's rule is challenged by his cousin Erik Killmonger, who teams up with evil arms dealer Ulysses Klaue — there are a lot of evil arms dealers in these movies — and then betrays him in order to gain favor with Wakandans who know Klaue as a vibranium smuggler. Erik nearly kills T'Challa, usurps his position as the Black Panther, and destroys all of Wakanda's heart-shaped herbs to secure his power base. However, T'Challa returns and, aided by his girlfriend Nakia, general Okoye, and sister Shuri, regains control of his country. Later, he secretly fathers a son with Nakia who decides to raise their child in Haiti, away from the Black Panther's enemies.

Hawkeye loses his entire family in the snap, causing him to go rogue, adapting a new hairstyle and anti-hero identity as the merciless Ronin, who hunts down and ruthlessly kills criminals around the world. One of these criminals is William Lopez, the father of fighting prodigy Maya. After seeing her dad die, Maya swears vengeance on Ronin, not knowing that her dad's boss — Kingpin — wanted William dead.

After Ant-Man returns from the Quantum Realm (where, for him, only a few hours have passed), the heroes realize that the solution to the problem is, of course, time travel. With the help of Iron Man and the now-smart Hulk, the heroes travel back to various key points in the timeline (including 1970, 2012, and 2014) to gather up the Infinity Stones of those eras, along with Mjolnir, circa 2013.

Unfortunately, the Avengers also inadvertently bring the Thanos of 2014 forward to 2023, along with his minions. This includes an alternate Gamora with no memory of her time with the Guardians. Fortunately, the Hulk uses a rebuilt Infinity Gauntlet to wish everyone back to life, and virtually every hero in the entire MCU takes Thanos on at once. The final blows are dealt both by and to Iron Man, who dies on the battlefield.

After gathering for a funeral, Steve Rogers hops into the timestream to return everything to where it should be, returning after living a full life with Peggy Carter in an alternate past to bequeath his shield to Sam Wilson, naming him the new Captain America.

In the mainstream MCU, the effects of Hulk's reverse snap are being felt on both a cosmic and street level. People like Yelena Belova snap back to existence, only to discover that five years have passed and their loved ones are now gone. Reestablishing their lives proves difficult since different people live in their homes and billions are still legally dead. While support networks form, entire nations are also forcing out recent immigrants due to the sudden rise in population.

Believing life was better during the Blip when half of all life was gone, some people react to these changes violently. Anarchist Karli Morgenthau forms a terrorist group, the Flag Smashers, to attack governments threatening her One World vision and even augments her team with a new version of the Super Soldier Serum. This puts her in the sights of Sam Wilson, who rejects Steve Rogers' request that he become the new Captain America. After working with Bucky Barnes and seeing how Steve's legacy can be tarnished by unworthy successors like the dangerously unhinged John Walker, Sam takes on the mantle of Captain America and works with the Winter Soldier to stop the Flag Smashers.

Taking advantage of the global chaos and recent super-powered debuts, a mysterious woman named Valentina Allegra de Fontaine begins recruiting enhanced individuals — including Yelena Belova and John Walker — for an unknown project. Meanwhile, Peggy Carter's great-niece Sharon — a former SHIELD agent — goes rogue and takes over the criminal underworld of Madripoor, adopting the moniker the Power Broker. Sam also meets an elderly Isaiah Bradley and learns his history. Although Isaiah is skeptical about the idea of a "Black Captain America," Sam arranges for an exhibit of Isaiah's service to be displayed at the Smithsonian so everyone will know about the United States' first African American super soldier.

The sudden rise in sentient life on Earth also jump-starts the Emergence, which threatens to destroy the entire planet when a new Celestial is born. Alerted by the cosmic event and a few remaining Deviants, the Eternals reunite. Where before they have always stood by and allowed planets to be destroyed, a few now have enough love for humanity to try and save the Earth. Sersi draws enough power from her teammates to halt the birth of the Celestial Tiamut, and the Celestial Arishem uses the Eternals' memories to determine if Earth should be spared.

While all this is going on, one rogue Avenger is unknowingly creating her own brand of chaos in the small town of Westview, New Jersey. Unable to cope with the loss of Vision, whom Thanos killed by ripping the Mind Stone out of his head, Wanda Maximoff manifests powerful reality-warping abilities. Drawing from her childhood love of American sitcoms, Wanda warps Westview into an idyllic town where she lives a suburban life with a new version of Vision. She even gives birth to twin boys who quickly mature in a single episode.

To maintain this illusion, Wanda inadvertently mind-controls the real-life citizens of Westview into becoming her personal puppets. Her activities attract the attention of the new intelligence agency SWORD and Agatha Harkness. While Wanda eventually comes to her senses and tries to free Westview, Agatha goads Wanda into a battle. Wanda comes out on top, although she has to sacrifice her happy life with her husband and children. The two boys fade into memory as the illusory town disappears, and though Vision manages to survive the town's destruction, he is essentially factory-reset to a blank White Vision. Embracing her new role as "The Scarlet Witch," Wanda begins studying Agatha's Darkhold and starts dreaming of alternate realities where her sons are still alive.

Wanda's reality-warping abilities also permanently alter one woman — SWORD agent Monica Rambeau. The adult daughter of Carol Danvers' best friend Maria, Monica attempts to help Wanda with her grief and is exposed multiple times to Wanda's "hex" energies. This rewrites Monica's cells, giving her the power to absorb energy and become intangible. After hearing of her performance in Westview, Nick Fury invites Monica to join him on a mission in outer space.

A now-teenage America Chavez is being pursued by demonic agents that kill a variant Doctor Strange. America and Strange's corpse accidentally slip into the mainstream Marvel universe where our Doctor Strange discovers Wanda Maximoff — now corrupted by the Darkhold — wants to steal America's multiverse-traveling powers so she can live in a world where her twin sons are alive. When Strange and the sorcerers of Kamar-Taj stand in her way, Wanda murders many sorcerers, forcing America and Strange to flee to Earth-838. There, Strange is arrested by this universe's Illuminati, a secret society that includes alternate versions of Baron Mordo, Black Bolt, Captain Carter, Captain Marvel, Professor Charles Xavier, and Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four.

Believing Strange to be the real threat to the multiverse (since their Doctor Strange nearly destroyed a universe with his Darkhold), the Illuminati fail to heed Strange's warnings of the Scarlet Witch. This becomes their undoing when Wanda travels to Earth-838 by possessing the body of her alternate self and slaughters the Illuminati. She then banishes Strange to another alternate world where Strange learns his variant is an arrogant jerk who brought about the end of his universe.

Using this world's Darkhold, Strange possesses the body of the dead Doctor Strange variant on his home world and battles Wanda. Fortunately, America is able to get Wanda to see the error of her ways by taking her back to Earth-838 where her sons are horrified by how evil she's become. Filled with remorse, Wanda collapses Darkhold Castle and destroys the Darkhold in all realities before seemingly killing herself.

Sometime later, Strange — now sporting a third eye thanks to his use of the Darkhold — encounters the Dark Dimension's sorceress Clea who tells him he started an incursion in her home reality. Strange and Clea then leap into the Dark Dimension, indicating that as the Marvel Cinematic Universe continues to expand, we won't be dealing with just one universe ... but several.

After months of adventuring with the Guardians of the Galaxy, Thor has recovered from the crippling depression for failing to prevent Thanos' snap. He learns the terrifying Gorr the God Butcher has been slaughtering gods across the cosmos with his ultra-powerful Necrosword. With the help of King Valkyrie and a new female Thor — revealed to be Thor's ex-girlfriend, Jane Foster — Thor defeats Gorr, but not without cost. Foster dies and travels to the Norse afterlife of Valhalla. Following her wishes, Thor takes in Gorr's superpowered daughter, who goes by the name Love. However, Thor's actions have earned him new mortal enemies in the Greek god Zeus and his son, Hercules, who vow revenge on Thor and the rest of Earth's heroes.

In New Jersey, a young Avengers superfan named Kamala Khan finds herself in a generations-old feud between an organization of Pakistani protectors known as the Order of the Red Daggers and a group of interdimensional invaders known as the Clandestines. Kamala discovers that she is a descendant of the Clandestines and therefore a super-powered mutant hybrid. With the help of her friends, and through a series of trials that allow her to master her newfound powers, Kamala expels the invading Clandestines and saves Earth, in the process settling on the moniker Ms. Marvel.

Meanwhile, the superhero community continues to grow. After a car accident causes attorney Jennifer Walters to absorb the gamma-irradiated blood of her cousin, Bruce Banner, she becomes a Hulk herself. Instead of fighting crime through vigilantism, Walters elects to use her new insider perspective to represent super-beings in court as She-Hulk: Attorney at Law. Working with the law firm of GLK&H in Los Angeles, She-Hulk handles cases involving the Abomination, Wong, Titania, and more.

In Wakanda, King T'Challa contracts a mysterious disease and becomes terminally ill. Shuri attempts to save his life by constructing an artificial heart-shaped herb to replace the ones Erik Killmonger destroyed. However, she doesn't have enough time and T'Challa dies. Blaming herself, Shuri grows depressed and refuses to continue her work with the heart-shaped herb, potentially ending the Black Panther line.

Back on Earth, Scott Lang attempts to retire from super heroics while promoting his memoir "Look Out for the Little Guy." This upsets his daughter Cassie who feels the world still needs heroes. She invents a "Quantum Satellite" which can send signals to the Quantum Realm and learn if people in the sub-atomic world need help. While testing it, the signal gets hijacked and Scott, Cassie, Hank, Janet, and Hope (along with a bunch of ants) are sucked through a portal into the Quantum Realm.

In the Quantum Realm, Janet comes face-to-face with her old demons when she learns Kang has turned the realm into his totalitarian kingdom. Scott and Cassie are captured by Kang and reunite with Darren Cross, now Kang's delusional minion M.O.D.O.K. After Kang forces Scott to steal back his power core so he can exit the Quantum Realm, Cassie escapes and teams up with a group of rebels to lead an uprising against Kang. They're aided by Janet, Hope, Hank, a reformed M.O.D.O.K, and Hank's team of hyper-evolved ants. In the end, Hope helps Scott destroy both the power core and Kang before they return to Earth. However, this isn't the end of Kang, as variants are now emerging from all over the multiverse.