In a multi-part series, Comic Book Film Editor William Gatevackes will be tracing the history of comic book movies from the earliest days of the film serials to today’s big blockbusters and beyond. Along with the history lesson, Bill will be covering some of the most prominent comic book films over the years and why they were so special. Today, we examine why original superheroes are the best choice for film comedies.

If the Batman TV series taught us anything, adapting a comic book in a humorous way is a dicey prospect. Comic book fans still wince whenever that series is mentioned because it dared to make a joke out of Batman in particular and comic books in general. We comic book aficionados are pretty sensitive when it comes to people not taking the medium we consider sacrosanct seriously.  We don’t want Jack Black playing Green Lantern. We don’t want Bat Credit Cards. And while we don’t mind humor where humor is appropriate (see The Avengers), we don’t want Hollywood to create a comedy out of something that was never intended to be funny.

This isn’t to say that there aren’t a lot of tropes and trademarks in comic books that lend themselves to comedy or parody. That’s where original heroes come in. When filmmakers use original concepts to point out the humor inherent in comic book conventions, not many comic fans get up in arms. If the film is good or bad, a hit or a flop, it doesn’t mean one of their beloved comic book properties is affected in any way.  And the hit to flop ratio typically favors the flop side of the equation with a lot of these comedies.

1994’s Blankman was a parody that took skewered look at the science-based superhero origin. Like Batman, Blankman lost a loved one to violent crime (his grandmother). He, like Batman and also Iron Man, is a technical genius with a skill for building gadgets and gizmos. However, unlike those heroes, he is not a suave millionaire who lives in a mansion, but rather a socially inept appliance repairman who lives in a crime-riddled inner city neighborhood. He doesn’t have hi-tech Batarangs, he has a boot on a stick attached to some rope. He doesn’t have a computerized suit of armor, he has a robot sidekick named J-5 he jury-rigged out of an old washing machine.

While there is humor in the concept and one part of the ads did make me chuckle (the part where Blankman telling his brother/sidekick that he is certain J-5 will come rescue them, then quickly cuts to the awkward robot unsuccessfully negotiating a flight of stairs, sure to be reduced to a pile of gears at the landing below), I have to admit that I never saw this film. Damon Wayans, who co-wrote the movie with J. F. Lawton, plays Blankman in the manner of a more ribald Jerry Lewis. Blankman was more supergeek than superhero, and in the most annoying way possible.

The horrible ex-boy/girlfriend is a film staple, in both comedies and dramas. There is a lot of humor to be mined from a relationship gone wrong, a reminder of a mistake that you made or a messy break up that you repeatedly have to pay for.  But what if your ex was a superhero? What if the aftermath of your break up comes with collateral damage and if your jilted ex-girlfriend says she will kill you, it’s well within her power to do so.

That’s the concept behind 2006’s My Super Ex-Girlfriend. Luke Wilson plays Matt, a man who enters a relationship with a woman named Jenny Johnson (Uma Thurman) after rescuing her purse from a purse-snatcher.  It doesn’t take long before Matt realizes that dating the possessive, clingy and passive aggressive Jenny was a mistake, and he breaks up with her. Big mistake, as Jenny is a crimefighter named G-Girl who has Superman-esque powers, a quick temper, and little or no impulse control. Jenny soon decides to devote every second she is not saving the world to making Matt’s life a living hell.

Your enjoyment of this film would probably depend on how willing you were to overlook the fact that Thurman’s character is composed of the worst qualities of every bad girlfriend stereotype there is. Thurman does do her best to try to make a real human being out of the bundle of neuroses, insecurities, and rage, but even at 95 minutes it gets to be too much. Jenny is less a woman scorned and more a shrewish harridan, and the film would have been much better if she was the former.

Not that it mattered. The film doubled its budget in worldwide grosses, so it might have not been that big of a flop in the long run. Its mixed reaction from the critics didn’t keep people away, although it didn’t do quite as well as our next film, which overcame mixed reviews two years later to earn over $624 million dollars worldwide at the box office.

Hancock was once a dark and gritty look at a Superman-like hero who balances his obligation to protect humanity with giving in to his basest instincts—watching porn, alcohol, the whole nine yards. That was when it was called Tonight, He Comes and before it went through the development hell that left us with the neutered result that made it to theaters. In Vincent Ngo’s original script, Hancock was a character that made Billy Bob Thornton’s character in Bad Santa look like George Bailey in It’s a Wonderful Life.  The original Hancock was a cop-killer and an attempted rapist, not the kind of character you’d expect Will Smith to play. As a matter of fact, it took even more creative editing to keep the watered down version from getting an R rating.

A miniscule amount of Ngo’s Hancock remains. The character is now a self-loathing, amnesiatic alcoholic whose superheroic deeds often come with multi-million dollar property damage. He is pretty much hated by the whole city of Los Angeles, and the city wants a word with him about all the damage he causes. A chance to improve his image comes when he saves the life of Ray (Jason Bateman), a public relations guru who offers work to improve his negative standing in the community as a sign of gratitude.

Being a comedy up to this point, logic dictates that the story should follow Hancock’s path to redemption.  Maybe a couple of positive PR opportunities Hancock screws up either through fate or his own arrogance. Perhaps a few dark secrets from Hancock’s past that Ray would have to deal with. But it would all lead to Hancock facing off against a threat that is a danger to his city and/or world, a threat he has no chance in overcoming, but he faces it anyway to save lives of the people that hate him. He is eventually victorious—at a cost—but ends up winning over the people who once hated him.

Predicatable, yes, and I am anything but a professional Hollywood screenwriter, but that would be better than what we actually received—a turgid 90 degree turn into melodrama.

Ray introduces Hancock to his wife, Mary (Charlize Theron), who, surprise, also has superpowers! Not only that, but comes from the same race of immortals that Hancock does! But wait, it gets better! It turns out that Mary is actually Hancock’s “wife.” Yes, she and Hancock are star-crossed lovers who must remain separate in order to save their lives. Because whenever they get near each other, they lose their invulnerability! That’s why Hancock has amnesia, because he was jumped by a racist in 1928 for daring to be seen in public by his white wife Mary (She left him so his powers would come back and he could heal. Although it seems he didn’t heal completely)!  Now, both of their lives are in danger!

I have no idea why Vince Gilligan, John August and whoever else reworked Ngo’s script tacked on this ending. Maybe they thought it would help humanize Hancock as a character. Or add a bit of social commentary into the mix. Or maybe they sincerely thought the new ending was great. They were wrong on all aspects. No plot points in the second half of the film are properly developed (especially the “becoming vulnerable while being close together” plot point. Don’t get me started on that one).  The second half has a tenuous connection to the first half of the film. So much so, that it’s like Hancock is two separate films awkwardly stitched together, with a garish piece of duct tape put over the seam to keep it together. Hancock could have been a better film, even if they didn’t follow Ngo’s original script to the letter. But as it stands, it is a disappointment. Well to me at least, it has done well enough to earn a sequel, that has been in the works for years.

Speaking of films that are stitched together from other films, let’s talk about Superhero Movie, a 2008 film that parodied the superhero genre.

The film uses Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man as the framework to hang their parody on. It focuses on Rick Riker (Drake Bell) who gains superpowers after being bitten by a genetically altered Dragonfly. He soon comes into conflict with Hourglass (Christopher McDonald), an industrialist who can siphon the life force from other humans to use to make himself stronger.

The film is a step above the typical modern-day parodies such as Meet the Spartans and Epic Movie (not that it’s a high bar to leap over) due to the involvement of Airplane’s David Zucker as a producer and the parody being based around an actual plot. But it pales in comparison to Zucker’s other parodies Airplane, Top Secret and Naked Gun.

If there is an “auteur” of the non-comic book superhero comedies, it is James Gunn. He has been involved in two films that employ a darkly comic look into the superhero archetype in a realistic setting, albeit in two very opposite ends of the spectrum.

In 2000, Gunn wrote The Specials, a film (directed by Superhero Movie’s Craig Mazin)which paints a more corporate world where superheroes are judged less by their abilities that their marketability.

In the film, the Specials are a lower tier super group. They get to fight the crappy villains, they get no movies made about them, and the only toy company who will make dolls of them doesn’t care enough about them to get their costumes, or even their genders, right. On the day their toy line is introduced, the team’s leader, The Strobe (Thomas Hayden Church) finds out his wife/teammate, Ms. Indestructable (Paget Brewster) is having an affair with the group’s most popular member, The Weevil (Rob Lowe). This causes the team to break up right on the cusp of their greatest (by default) achievement.

The film has a pretty good cast for its budget (@ $1 million). Gunn has a role in the film himself as The Strobe’s brother, Minute Man. The film had a brief life in the theaters before moving on to home video.

The Specials might be a cynical look at what the real world might really have to offer a superhero, but it was a cheery Saturday morning cartoon compared to Gunn’s 2010 film, Super, which Gunn wrote and directed.

Super is by far much darker than The Specials, as the black comedy is filled with a world people caught up in the spiral of drug addiction, female on male rape, and where deaths happen in a quick and gruesome fashion. If Gunn has one skill, it would be his ability to get great actors to work with him—at scale no less. This film features Rainn Wilson, Ellen Page, Kevin Bacon, Liv Tyler, Michael Rooker and Nathan Fillion in its cast. That’s a line up any director would love to have, and the cast raises Gunn’s film to a higher level.

Gunn, of course, is set to direct Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy. I am curious to see if Marvel lets him apply his cynical black humor to the property.

Finally, we have Defendor, a film similarly themed and similar in tone to Super.

The 2009 film is a twisted take on the Batman mythos (and also that of Rorschach of the Watchmen). When he was a kid, Arthur’s mother died after an extended period of drug abuse and prostitution. Arthur’s grandfather blamed his daughter’s death on the “captains of industry,” meaning that a society that favors the rich forced his economically poor daughter into her downward spiral. Young Arthur mistook his grandfather and thought he was saying one person, named Captain Industry, killed his mother. Arthur turned that a lifelong quest to bring his mother’s”killer” to justice through vigilantism.

Aided by a strong lead performance by Woody Harrelson, and with a underrated cast that featured Kat Dennings, Sandra Oh and Elias Koteas, the film did fairly well with critics. However, problems with U.S. distributor Sony caused the film to have only a limited theatrical release in the States.

Next, we finally get back into covering films actually adapted from comic books with a look at everyone’s favorite mutants.

If ComicBookMovie is correct, it appears that Jeremy Renner did not learn the lessons of Terrence Howard and Edward Norton and will now pay the price for it.

The website is quoting “Hollywood sources” in saying that the actor who played Clint Barton/Hawkeye in both Thor and The Avengers is being dropped by Marvel Studios, mainly due to negative comments he made about his role in the latter film.

Renner was candid in his feelings about the way his character was portrayed on screen in an interview with Total Film magazine:

“For 90 percent of the movie, I’m not the character I signed on to play. It’s kind of a vacancy. [He's] not even a bad guy, because there’s not really a consciousness to him. To take away who that character is and just have him be this robot, essentially, and have him be this minion for evil that Loki uses … I was limited, you know what I mean? I was a terminator in a way. Fun stunts. But is there any sort of emotional content or thought process? No.”

To be fair to Renner, he does have a point. On the other hand, Hawkeye pretty much serves the same purpose as Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow character, and since Johansson joined the Marvel family first, she gets to play the hero and they had to find something else for Renner to do. That being said, even in the 10% of the film where he WAS the character he signed on to play, he really didn’t make that much of an impression. His quiver had more personality than his Hawkeye did.

But regardless, Marvel has made a point not keeping any actor who is unhappy or unable to work the Marvel way. Terrence Howard was rumored to be difficult to work with during Iron Man. so his role as James Rhodes was minimized in the sequel and he was asked to take a substantial pay cut. He balked and was allowed to walk and Don Cheadle (who was rumored to be Marvel’s first choice originally) took his place. Edward Norton was supposedly so hands-on during The Incredible Hulk that rumor has it he even did script rewrites on set. This didn’t sit well with Marvel or Joss Whedon, so in The Avengers he was replaced with Mark Ruffalo (who was rumored to also be Marvel’s first choice for the role). Hugo Weaving has also been very vocal about  not being excited about his role as the Red Skull in Captain America: The First Avenger and has expressed not being interested in reprising his role in the future. Well, everyone from Toby Jones to Hayley Atwell to Dominic Cooper will be back for Captain America: The Winter Soldier, but not Weaving.

All of this makes the rumor very plausible. And all things considered, this might be the best thing for Renner. He has a burgeoning franchise in Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters(which made an inexplicable amount of money overseas), appears to be in line to take over the Mission Impossible franchise in the event Tom Cruise ever lets go of it, and while many view The Bourne Legacy as a disappointing entry into the franchise, it made enough money worldwide that he might be in the mix if they continue with it. While, at Marvel, his next appearance would have been in a similar, low-key capacity in The Avengers 2. Hawkeye wouldn’t be even considered for a solo film until 2016, and there are a lot of characters, concepts and ideas in development ahead of him.

The source also brings up the possibility of the character being recast and appearing on the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. TV series. If the role is recast, it will probably be with whoever Marvel’s first choice for the role was.

You got to hand it to the Film News Media. They gave Marvel a couple days to bask in the $174 million domestic opening for Iron Man 3 (which brings the worldwide gross to $711 million) before it started addressing the big humongous elephant in the room. The honeymoon is over, however, because Variety, The Hollywood Reporter and Deadline all had articles yesterday speculating on the future of Robert Downey Jr as Iron Man.

Iron Man 3 was the last film that Robert Downey Jr was contracted for, and negotiations are set to begin for at the very least Avengers 2 and 3, if not more Iron Mans as well. But Downey might not be just negotiating for himself. The actor, who supposedly got anywhere from $50 million to $80 million in back-end  money from gross points for The Avengers, might be fighting to get his co-stars in that film, some who made as little as $200,000 for their work, a little better payday.

The reclusive Ike Perlmutter….in 1985

While this might not seem like an unreasonable demand (after all, The Avengers made $1.5 billion worldwide), you have to consider that Marvel is run by the notoriously stingy Ike Perlmutter. Perlmutter’s frugality helped Marvel rise like a phoenix from its bankruptcy to become a vibrant company once again. But he did so by cutting expenses to the bone, including getting rid of everything he deems unnecessary, from booths at comic book conventions (which only came back when the Marvel films started gaining popularity) to extra bathrooms in Marvel offices (only one per gender).

In Downey’s favor is the fact that his three  films earned almost $850,000,000 more than any of the other solo Avengers movies combined, a fact that many pundits attest to Downey’s popularity here and overseas.

However, Marvel hasn’t been shy about replacing troublemakers, especially those clamoring for more money. The studio replaced Terrence Howard with Don Cheadle in Iron Man 2 when Howard asked for more money. And it was rumored that Edward Norton’s penchant for taking a hands-on approach with the script and directing of The Incredible Hulk made him expendable for The Avengers.

Add to this the fact that Downey will be turning 50 by the time Avengers 2 rolls around and 53 if Avengers 3 follows the same release pattern. You figure that Marvel isn’t going to want Downey to play Tony Stark for ever, and if you are going to replace him, why not now?

All this adds up to what sure will be one fascinating contract negotiation. It will probably have more action and excitement than Iron Man 3 (which isn’t saying much).

Developing.

Back in May, I couldn’t wait to write this column. I started this yearly recap of comic book films mainly as a counterpoint to the number of articles in the mainstream media bemoaning the fact that comic book films exist at all and the journalists who are trying to speed up them going out of favor.

So, when The Avengers broke big, setting all sorts of box office records and becoming not only the highest grossing film of the year, but also the third highest grossing film of all time, I thought 2012 was going to turn out to be one of the best years for comic book films in their entire history.

And it was. But it was also one of the worst years as well.

In the early morning hours of Friday, July 20, James Eagan Holmes entered the crowded Theater 9 of the Century 16 multiplex in Aurora, Colorado. The theater was full of fans eager to be the first to see The Dark Knight Rises, the last film in Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy. They would become victims of one of the most violent crimes in recorded history. Holmes, dressed in armored clothing and carry numerous firearms with him, opened fire in that crowded theater. By the time shooting had stopped, 58 people would be injured, and 12 people would be killed.

It is impossible to talk about the year in film in any context without talking about the Aurora shootings. The joy of seeing a film in a crowded theaters full of your fellow fans is forever tainted. This type of exuberant film fan became prey that night.

Now, four months on, it is still easy to look back on that night and see only the darkest part of human nature. An evil man methodically came up with a way to kill as many people as he could. It doesn’t get more sinister than that.

But I found that when great darkness shows its face to the world, there is always a bright and shining light that rises up to greet it. It’s natural to focus on Holmes and his despicable acts. But I also look towards the example of Matt McQuinn, who shielded the bodies of his girlfriend and brother with his own, sacrificing his life to save theirs. I look to Jarell Brooks, a young man who was wounded getting a woman and her two small children, people he didn’t know, to safety. I look to Emma Goos, who stayed in the theater to tend to the wounds of an injured victim while the shooting was going on. I look to All C’s Comics Collectibles, the Aurora comic shop that started the Aurora Rises charity to help benefit the victim’s and their families and I look to the numerous comic artists and writers that helped make that charity an ongoing endeavor  I also look to Christian Bale, who, on his own with no fanfare and publicists in tow, visited the Aurora area after to shootings to give his fans whatever comfort he could.

Yes, the Aurora shooting gave us a glimpse of the worst that humanity had to offer, but it also gave us a glimpse of the best that humanity has to offer as well. And while we filmgoers will never be free of the paranoia that night in July caused (especially when just two weeks ago a plot to do a similar shooting in Missouri during a showing of The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part 2 was, thankfully, stopped before it could be put into fruition), we should never let that fear stop us from doing the things we enjoy. We might never be able to stop bad things from happening, but we can always be there to help each other out when they do.

Now that I’ve said what I needed to say on that, let’s go back to the frivolous world of comic book films.

List taken from BoxOfficeMojo.com (http://boxofficemojo.com/yearly/chart/?yr=2012&p=.htm)

As of last night, comic book adaptations hold three of the top five spots on the yearly highest grossing films list. I’m sure Skyfall and the aforementioned Breaking Dawn, Part 2 might have some say if The Amazing Spider-Man stays in the Top 5, but even if it does fall out, we will have three comic book adaptations in the Top 10. And that has never happened. The closest we came to that was in 2008 when The Dark Knight and Iron Man were one and two and the original superhero comedy Hancock was number four. Add to that the fact that a sequel to another comic book adaptation, Men in Black 3, was #11 this year and you have a very good year for the comic book film.

Even Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, a film with a well-deserved 18% fresh over at Rotten Tomatoes and which debuted an underwhelming third in its opening weekend was able to make over $132 million worldwide against a $57 million dollar budget. Yes, I am a fan of comic book movies and even I am stunned by that fact. That’s why Nicolas Cage keeps on getting to make movies.

The only true flop of this year’s six comic book adaptations was Dredd, whose $30,931,946 worldwide take was considerably less than its $50 million budget. I can only assume that the Sylvester Stallone version killed just about any interest anybody might have had in the character, which was a shame. I found the film a faithful adaptation of the original source material which held up well as a film on its own.

As lucrative as this year was for the comic book film, it is a year in flux. The Avengers marked the end of the first phase of Marvel’s film slate, and Phase 2 begins next year with Iron Man 3 in May and Thor: The Dark World in November. It will be interesting if they can carry any Avengers momentum over into those releases, or will fans force the studio to prove itself all over again.

And The Dark Knight Rises closes the Nolan era on DC/Warners’ Batman property. They start anew with their Superman franchise with The Man of Steel in June. There’s a lot riding on this new take on the character, as Warners is looking to not only get a franchise to replace Nolan’s Batman films on their docket, but also potentially use the film as a springboard into their planned Justice League film and to bring other DC comic heroes to the big screen.

In addition to those three films, there are at least nine other comic book adaptations scheduled for next year, including Hugh Jackman returning as Logan in The Wolverine, sequels to Red, Kick-Ass,300 and Sin City, and properties from publishers such as Dark Horse, Boom! and other smaller companies. 2012 proved that people still are willing to go to see comic book films. However, odds are that not all of the films released next year will be great successes, so we can expect the mainstream doubters to start the chorus of the comic book films doom next year. But for now, let’s bask in the highs the comic book film rose to, and take a moment to contemplate the lowest lows they experienced this year.

Dear Warner Brothers,

Hi. How are you doing? Good I hope.

My name is Bill. I’m a comic book fan and have been for thirty years. I have been a film buff for almost as long. And I’ve been writing about both worlds for about as long as the Internet has been around, give or take a year or two.

I say this just to provide a little background to you. Because I have been meaning to speak with you in regards to your philosophy towards comic book films. And an article I read today compelled me to not wait any longer.

Over at Bleeding Cool, Rich Johnston relayed an experience from an anonymous comic store employee whose shop was visited by a “fan” who had a pronounced lack of knowledge of comic books, but an overwhelmingly odd knowledge of DC Comics films. This fan, no, wait, let’s call him what he likely was–a badly disguised marketing researcher, asked questions such as “what superhero films have had good Facebook pages?”, “Do you think comic fans would accept a superhero film without Nolan’s involvement, would him serving as a producer suffice?” “What do fans think of Aquaman? He’s lame isn’t he?”, “What is regarded as the strongest lineup of the Justice League and would work as a film?” The marketer closed his survey with an intriguing question: “What would fan reaction be to a Justice League movie with Frank Miller’s name attached?”

I don’t pretend to speak all fans or comics, films, or comic book films. I speak for myself and hopefully other fans agree with my opinion. And my reaction to this news is that it could quite possibly be the worst in a long line of bad decisions your studio has made in regards to its comic book properties.

Now, I understand that you’re in a difficult position. You once had the superhero film market all to yourself with first the Superman films then the Batman films. Then Marvel went from being a laughing stock to becoming the dominant producers of comic book films and you ended up playing catch up. Marvel has just had their most successful film to date with The Avengers and the DC Comics film slate is in a state of chaos. You are rebooting the Superman franchise for the second time in ten years. The Batman franchise is coming off a successful reboot by Christopher Nolan and is in a state of flux. Sure fire franchise starters such as Jonah Hex and Green Lantern ended up D.O.A. at the box office. Suddenly, playing catch up became being so far behind that there is a danger that it isn’t even a race anymore.

And, to be brutally honest, it’s all your fault. The list of failed attempts at rebooting the Superman franchise before you settled on Superman Returns is legendary for how bad the attempts were. I read the original script for Jonah Hex and while it might not have been a hit, it would have been closer to source material. But reading that script, it was easy to see what the studio mandated reshoots got us–Hex’s superpowers and the campy “weapons of mass destruction” plot line. I also read the Green Lantern script and thought it had the potential to be a fun film. Unfortunately, what we got was a film lacking a sense of awe and wonder.

Listen, I can see why you think Frank Miller might be an exciting choice for the Justice League movie, a film that needs some excitement because it meant to act as The Avengers in reverse (Instead of individual superhero films leading up to one big team up movie, you’re having one big team up movie that will hopefully lead to individual superhero films). Miller is a legendary comic book creator and has become a filmmaker as well. He even works with green screen techniques in his directing, which is quick, cheap and one of the reasons why you hired Zack Snyder to do Man of Steel.

But there is one flaw in the idea. the present day Frank Miller is just terrible at what he does. He just is. Now, I have nothing personal against Miller, despite how Wikipedia might make it look. I came in a bit after his storied run on Daredevil, but I was right on time for his Batman:The Dark Knight Returns. I consider that series to be the second best comic book story of all time. But since 2000, Frank Miller has become a case of diminishing returns. I don’t know if it’s because of the auteur syndrome (where creative individuals have been told that they were genius enough times that they figure anything they create is automatically genius so they stop trying) or something else, but Miller’s output in the new millennium–Dark Knight Strikes Back, All-Star Batman and Robin, the Boy Wonder, Holy Terror–has been awful.

I mean, have you seen The Spirit? Obviously not, because if you did, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Watch it. Okay, that might be asking too much. How about you just go on Rotten Tomatoes and read some the reviews for the film? No, that probably won’t work either. How about you take a look at the earnings for the film?  Money, you’ll pay attention to that. I’ll give you a hint: the reviews were as bad as the grosses–completely horrible.

The Spirit shows what happens when Miller is given free hand to write and direct a comic book film adaptation. He took one of the most quirky and iconic comic book characters in history, paid no respect to the original version, and married traces of the character to his fetishes (namely, film noir and hyper-sexualized femme fatales), a Calvin Klein ad, and force fed the concoction through a MacBook. The result is something the was as awful as you would expect it to be.

And this was a character created by his friend and mentor, Will Eisner! What would he do to the Justice League, a concept he has no emotional attachment to? Well, we do have some idea based on how Miller portrayed the team in All-Star Batman, The Dark Knight Returns and Dark Knight Strikes Again.  Superman will be an ineffectual wimp incapable of independent thought, preferring to be led around by weaker men. Green Arrow will be a raving lunatic hippie. Wonder Woman will be a man-hating harridan. Batman will be a psychotic bastard. And the rest of the League will be made up of either sociopaths or feeble weaklings. In other words, nothing like the casual fan remembers them as being and not the type of characters that would be appealing to everyday moviegoers.

What’s that you say? You’ll never let that happen? Gosh, the only worse thing I can think of other than a Frank Miller Justice League film is a Frank Miller Justice League film after heavy studio meddling.

That fact that you might be considering Miller for this job tells me something I’ve always suspected–you think there’s some hidden secret to doing a successful superhero movie, and, by gum, you’ll try everything until you find it. Jonah Hex doesn’t have powers? All Marvel’s film characters have powers. Let’s give him some. Iron Man was a cocky and arrogant who is unfazed by whatever life throws and wields a powerful weapon. That characterization would work exactly as well for Green Lantern! The Nolan Batman films were dark and gritty. So, making the Superman film dark and gritty would mean that it will be just as successful! Joss Whedon, a Hollywood director who wrote comic books, leads The Avengers to over a billion dollars in box office receipts? Man, then fans would really flip if we got Frank Miller, a comic writer who is a Hollywood director, to do Justice League!

You are right though. There is a proven method of doing a comic book movie right, but it’s no secret. You get a talented and proven director. You get a great cast of actors. You get a great story that respects the source material while standing on its own as a film. You work with the comic book company to make sure the films stay on point. You don’t interfere unless it is to make any of the four prior things happen.  It’s rather simple, but it’s not easy. You need to invest the time, do the due diligence, and trust the people you’ve hired when your only instinct is to overrule them and make unnecessary changes. But if you do that, your films might just be the quality of Marvel’s or Nolan’s.

Thanks for listening to me, Warners. I know I might have come on a bit too strong. After all, you were just pooling opinions. But I just think hiring Frank Miller for Justice League would annihilate any chance you have of ever competing with Marvel’s film output. I felt I had to say something, as a friend, before it was too late.

Stay in touch!

Bill Gatevackes.

In this day and age, if you are a form of media that covers another form of media, eventually you will come up with a list. Rolling Stone has put out special, oversized volumes about what songs, albums and guitarists are the best in their eyes. Entertainment Weekly can be counted on at least one issue a year feature a list of some kind, most recently it was the “50 Best Films You’ve Never Seen” and “25 Best Cult TV Shows From the Past 25 years.” And VH1 and E! have made it a staple of their programming.

The reason why they turn to list making is simple–because it’s popular. In a world full of opinionated people, any collated list  that represents the authoritative ranking of anything will get attention. People want their tastes validated. Or, they want to see how wrong these media outlets are. These lists sell copies.  They garner high ratings. They get shared on Facebook. They get linked to. And the more controversial the better, For example, take Sight and Sound‘s yearly poll’s swapping of Citizen Kane with Vertigo and the furor that kicked up.

But sometimes, it appears that there’s more that goes into constructing these lists than just picking the best or worst of a particular medium. Some lists seem to be compiled just to garner controversy. Yes, there will be “no brainer” items on the list, but there will also be notable omissions as well. There will be items included that seems to serve no other purpose than to make people angry. And even if you agree with every item put on and left off, you have the rankings themselves to quarrel over.

A sterling example of this are two lists that have appeared on Newsarama.com, one of the oldest comic book news sites on the Internet, over the last week. One was the “10 Best Comic Book-Based Movie PERFORMANCES Of All Time” and the “10 Worst Comic Book-Based Movie PERFORMANCES of All Time.” Both lists were compiled by the “Newsarama Staff,” and both are controversial in their own right. At best, the lists were sloppily compiled with mind-numbing gaps of logic, at worst, the list were compiled deliberately to anger comic book movie fans and generate controversy.

Here is Newsarama’s 10 Best List:

1. Heath Ledger, The Joker, The Dark Knight
2. Robert Downey, Jr, Tony Stark/Iron Man, Iron Man, Iron Man 2, & The Avengers
3. Gary Oldman, Commissioner Gordon, Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, The Dark Knight Rises
4. Hugh Jackman, Wolverine, X-Men, X2: X-Men United, X-Men: The Last Stand, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, X-Men First Class
5. J.K. Simmons, J. Jonah Jameson, Spider-Man, Spider-Man 2, Spider-Man 3
6. Tom Hiddleston, Loki, Thor & The Avengers
7. Chloe Grace Moretz, Hit-Girl, Kick-Ass
8. Andrew Garfield, Peter Parker/Spider-Man, The Amazing Spider-Man
9. Anne Hathaway, Selina Kyle, The Dark Knight Rises
10. Chris Evans, Jensen, The Losers

The lists are “best comic book-based performances” not “Best SUPERHERO comic book-based performances”: Granted, Newsarama focuses mostly on the mainstream superhero genre, and adding another word to the already gangly title would have made it even ganglier, but we have to take the titles of these articles to heart. That means, this should be the definitive list of ALL performances from ALL movies based an ALL kinds of comic books. Yet, there is no Paul Giamatti from American Splendor on this list. Nor is there Thora Birch or Steve Buscemi from Ghost World or Tom Hanks, Paul Newman or anyone else from Road to Perdition. 

I could go on. But what these titles are doing is advertising one thing and selling us another. And that is a recipe that is custom made to generate the kind of “you left XXX of the list” controversy that builds up links.

The Green Hornet? The Phantom? Comic Book-Based?: You’d think a news website with 10 years of independent coverage of the world of comic books would be able to tell what films were made from comic books and which ones weren’t. Baring that, you’d think they’d be able hire writers with an active connection to the Internet and the ability to access Google from it. Newsarama apparently is able to do neither.

The Green Hornet was based on a radio program that began in January1936. The Phantom was based on a comic strip that began in newspapers a few weeks after the Hornet made his first broadcast. . While both were adapted into comic books, neither originated there nor were their comics their most remembered incarnations. Calling The Green Hornet and The Phantom “comic book-based” would be like calling Star Wars and Star Trek comic book-based. And you can find far worse actors than Seth Rogen and Billy Zane in those franchises.

This might seem to be just a matter of semantics. But I believe it is indicative of the hap-hazard way these lists were constructed. Because you don’t have to look too hard to find two more bad performances in a film that was actually based on a comic book.

To Newsarama, “all time” means “within the last 12 years”: With the exception of The Phantom, the Schumacher Batman films, and the early Superman movies, all the films on the list were made after 2000. That means out of over 70 years of comic books being made into films, only a little over a decade of films were being seriously considered.

Yes, there have been a whole lot more comic book films to chose from in the last 12 years. But, as I realized doing my History of the Comic Book Film feature, the comic book film did not begin with X-Men. What? Newsarama couldn’t find a top ten worthy bad performance in Sheena, Red Sonja, Howard the Duck or in Dolph Lundgren’s Punisher? And on the good side, what about Brandon Lee’s Crow, Jack Nicholson’s Joker or Wesley Snipes’ Blade? The fact that there wasn’t one performance from the above that made either list is a disservice to what Newsarama was trying to create. It shows tunnel vision, something that handicaps any attempt at creating a comprehensive list.

Their selection process is dubious and abitrary at best:  They pay lip service to the quality work Chris Evans has done in a number of comic book films, yet make a point of telling us that they can pick only one performance of his for the list (and the pick his least well-known role at that). Yet, Hallie Berry gets slammed for playing both Storm and Catwoman. They lump the combined casts of two films as one entry, and two actors who had played the same role almost 20 years apart as another selection.

You get the feeling they were making up the rules as they went along. Or, rather, constructing the rules of selection so that it suited them best.

Take, for instance, this “ground rule” from the introduction to the worst list.

…it would be way too easy and frankly not all that much fun to pick-on a lower class of Hollywood actor in barely feature-quality train wrecks like Roger Corman’s Fantastic Four or the 1980s Captain America. So yes, Shaquille O’Neal, you get immunity this day.

Okay, I’m no fan of Shaquille O’Neal, and I’m sure he would want his being left off a list of bad actors argued, but the reason Newsarama left him of the list just doesn’t make sense. When Shaq made Steel, he had already made two feature films (Blue Chips and Kazaam). And Steel was a $16 million dollar film made by Warner Brothers, not some film made for $200 and a bag of potato chips in someone’s basement. Could Shaq be considered a “lower class of actor”? Probably. But so could Billy Zane, king of the B-movie. Maybe if Shaq had a small part in Titanic, then Newsarama would have considered him worthy of inclusion.

This is how they defend their position:

Well, Tobey’s Peter Parker was naive and earnest enough, but he just didn’t have Parker’s inner beauty.

Yes. Really.

Putting Christopher Reeve on the list of worst actors might have been done just to anger people: I’m trying not to believe that they’d do something so wrong just to generate site hits, but Newsarama is not making it easy by how they open their defense of their opinion:

Yes, we’re going there, and in advance, we’re genuinely sorry you’re upset.

Yes, they went there, but did they go there thinking their opinion would be controversial, or knowing it would be controversial and get a lot of reaction?

Listen, whenever you have a list like this, there will be items on it that butt up against conventional wisdom. But seldom has there ever been a case where something flew in the face of overwhelming public opinion like Newsarama is is doing here.

If you are going to “go there,” then you’d better have an incredibly strong argument to back up your position. Unfortunately, Newsarama doesn’t.

…Reeve just wasn’t that accomplished a film actor.

In defense of this position we could point to his lack of much of a post-Superman resume, but the truth is now 30-plus years later with a more critical eye we simply don’t find his portrayal of Superman and Clark Kent very much like any Superman or Clark Kent we know… or like, for that matter.

His Clark wasn’t mild-mannered, he was a cartoonish buffoon. His Superman far too earnest and eager-to-please for someone with the power of a god. In short, he was a mild-mannered Superman, frankly lacking in the charisma you’d expect from an actor playing a cultural icon. A more theatrical rather than natural actor, Reeve’s Superman was a caricature of a comic book Boy Scout superhero and not a fully developed character.

Where to begin. Hmmm.

I wonder who this editorial “we” is? Perhaps it is someone who  is 12 and has only known the John Byrne interpretation of Superman. But, the character was around for 50 years before Byrne revamped him. Back when the film was made, the comic book Superman was a more staid version of the one found in the film. The mental image the editorial “we” has of Superman is so contrary to what the character’s image really is that it makes it seem that this entry came from a website that wouldn’t know a comic book if it fell in their lap, not a “respected” comic book news site.

I’m so glad they didn’t use Reeve’s lack of a post-Superman career as their only defense for their position, because is a defense that could be swatted away with one word–typecasting. Typecasting is the reason why Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher had less than stellar careers after Star Wars, and why Harrison Ford’s post-Star Wars career is so extraordinary. It is what the cast of the Harry Potter films are struggling with now, and what the cast of Twilight is working hard to avoid. Once you become so associated with such an iconic character, it’s hard for Hollywood to see you in any other role. This was the reason for Reeve’s lackluster post-Superman career, not lack of talent.

But Reeve’s performance was pitch perfect as Superman. I don’t know what the editorial “we” was thinking, but Superman doesn’t stand “Sarcasm, Bullying and Badassery”, he stands for “Truth, Justice and the American Way.” Yes, Reeve’s Superman was earnest–and honest and forthright–but that IS Superman. And Reeve played him in such a way that he never was hokey or corny.

As for Clark Kent, Reeve played Kent as a role Superman was himself playing. Superman portrayed Kent as an awkward and bumbling fool so no one would see through the flimsy disguise and put two and two together. It’s a brilliant piece of acting, and if you aren’t able to pick that up, then you have no business talking about acting performances whatsoever.

I have to laugh at the  ”30-plus years later with a more critical eye” part. Like that is supposed to win us over, that they’re looking at the performance in a serious manner as an adult, and therefore, he is right. That might have held more water if Chris Sims and David Uzumeri didn’t take a similar look back on the first Superman back in March for rival comic book news site Comics Alliance.  They ripped the film to shreds, but still called Reeve’s performance, and these are direct quotes, “amazing” and “darn near perfect.” So much for that argument.

Taking this into consideration, it’s hard to not believe the trashing of Reeve was done purely to garner controversy. If so, at least it worked. Not only am I talking about it, but also many comic book professionals, the people Newsarama make a living covering, took umbrage with the list as well.

Creators like Amazing Spider-Man writer Dan Slott:

Marvel Comics editor Steve Wacker:

And legendary comic writer Mark Waid:

That tweet set off a Twitter war between Waid and Newsarama editor Lucas Siegel,which is not the behavior you expect from an editor who should be keeping a journalistic distance from one of people he would be covering, but it is the kind of behavior you’d expect if you want add more controversy to the already controversial matter.

Another sign that this whole thing might be hit bait is that they spun of the controversy to another article on the site, an OP/ED piece by frequent Newsarama contributor Vaneta Rogers , glorifying Reeve’s performance and giving yet another page full of ads for Newsarama from the controversial list.

I hope this isn’t the case, that Newsarama is manipulating the popularity of lists to gain hits for itself. Presenting honest, well-formed and well-thought out opinions is always something that should be striven for. But putting out incendiary opinions in a clumsy and hap hazard manner isn’t. And it looks like Newsarama did the latter and is trying to pass it off as the former.

Kevin Feige has been fond of noting that the films leading up to the release of The Avengers have only been “Phase One” of Marvel Studios’s overall plan for their cinematic superhero universe. And soon you will be able to own all of those movies on blu-ray in one big 10-disc box set.

The collection, titled Marvel Cinematic Universe - Phase One: Avengers Assembled, has been officially announced yet, but it does have a page over on Amazon where it is available for preorder. Full details won’t be available until July 15, but Amazon is listing that the box will include-

• Marvel’s The Avengers (Blu-ray 3D and Blu-ray)
• Captain America: The First Avenger (Blu-ray 3D and Blu-ray)
• Thor (Blu-ray 3D and Blu-ray)
• Iron Man 2 (Blu-ray)
• The Incredible Hulk (Blu-ray)
• Iron Man (Blu-ray)
• Bonus Disc – “The Phase One Archives” (Blu-ray)
• Collectible packaging with exclusive memorabilia from the Marvel Cinematic Universe

When this was first rumored a few weeks back, I have to admit that I was skeptical about it coming to pass considering that the distribution of the films was split between Paramount and Disney. Well, it appears that they have worked out some arrangement and have packed the set with some extra goodies that seem inticing enough that those of us who laready have a majority of the films on blu-ray may think about double-dipping.

No release date has been announced, though I wouldn’tr be surprised if it hit shelves the same day that The Avengers blu-ray does, September 25.

Via Comic Book Movie.

FACT!: The Avengers has just topped the box office charts for the third week in a row. It has made over $1 billion worldwide and almost half that ($457 million) in the U.S. alone. It currently stands as the fourth highest grossing film of all-time, and has a shot of overtaking Avatar for the top spot.

FACT!: Jack Kirby had a hand in creating many of the characters and concepts in the film–Captain America, Thor, Iron Man, Loki, Hulk, the Tesseract/Cosmic Cube, Nick Fury, S.H.I.E.L.D., and The Avengers as a team.

FACT!: Many people who have seen The Avengers have no idea who Jack Kirby is, let alone how much he contributed to the original comics the film was based on.

These three facts have come together to shed new light on an old and very polarizing issue in the world of comics–Marvel Comics’ history of poor treatment of Jack Kirby. Longtime Kirby supporters are using the new found exposure Kirby’s co-creations are getting on the silver screen to press once again that their idol gets the respect that he deserves. Comic creators such as Steve Bissette and James Sturm have advocating boycotts of Marvel products. Journalist David Brothers has wrote eloquently about his decision to give up on Marvel over this matter (and DC for their treatment of Alan Moore as well). Fans have started a petition to try and convince Marvel to give Kirby the credit and royalties they think he deserves. And comic creator Roger Langridge has vowed never to work for Marvel again.

Does Kirby deserve more respect? In the world of comic books, no, only because he already has respect in droves.  He was given the title “King” for a reason. Outside of the world of comics is a different story, because many casual fans might not know the depth of the contributions Kirby has made to Marvel Comics.

So, what did Jack Kirby do for Marvel? Well, he defined its look. He would provide up to 130 pages of artwork a month during the early years of Marvel, artwork that would appear in around 80% of the titles Marvel published at the time. His art style became the Marvel house are style, as Kirby was called on to train new artists joining the company, such as John Buscema, how to draw as dynamically as him.

And his look was diametrically different than anything else on comic book stands. Even though by then he was a 20-year veteran in the industry, his work on the Marvel books were fresh and original. Unlike DC’s house style where the characters looked porcelain and static, Kirby’s figures almost leaped off the page. His characters had character.

And the amount of intellectual property he a hand in creating is legendary.  However, how big a hand he had in their creation is a contentious point in this controversy.

Jack Kirby and Stan Lee (with George Perez and Roy Thomas) in a fictionalized version of their working relationship from Fantastic Four #176

Stan Lee is listed as a writer/editor on all those early Marvel books Kirby worked on. As such, when Marvel Comics became a media sensation in the 60s and 70s, they came to Stan Lee as the creative force behind the books. They looked no farther than the credits box and ran with the idea that Stan Lee was the auteur behind the comics and Jack Kirby was some guy hired to draw Lee’s genius words.

A bitter Kirby later in his life, after decades living in Lee’s shadow, would continually diminish Lee’s role in the partnership, including a notorious 1990 interview with the Comics Journal where Kirby took complete credit for Marvel’s output during that era. “Stan Lee and I never collaborated on anything!” Kirby said in that interview. ”I’ve never seen Stan Lee write anything. I used to write the stories just like I always did.”

While there are many that believe that Kirby was the sole creative influence behind the Marvel era of books, others believe a shared collaboration was closer to the truth. Lee has said in that he had a unique working relationship with Kirby in the sense that he didn’t have to write a full synopsis  of the plot for Kirby. All he had to do was call him on the phone, speak briefly about what he wanted–a sentence or a paragraph at most–and Kirby would run with it. Lee would come in later, add dialogue, and a masterpiece was born.

This is the version of the partnership that I subscribe to. It might not have been a 50/50 partnership between the two. It might have been 20% Lee/80% Kirby, with the scale sliding from issue to issue, story arc to story arc. But I believe it definitely wasn’t 100% Kirby or 100% Lee. That’s just not how the world of comic books usually work.

Cartoon taken from the blog of the Kirby Museum (http://kirbymuseum.org/blogs/dynamics/)

But Lee has often times become the focus of rage from Kirby supporters, a practice that becomes more and more unctuous as the years go by. Lee is an easy target, mainly due to genetics–first in the fact that he was the cousin of Marvel’s original publisher Martin Goodman, therefore allowing him an entry into the company and a meteoric rise to Editor-in-Chief during the 40s, second due to him outliving Kirby, meaning he is allowed to reap in the success of the partnership with cameos and media interviews and such. Lee has become the ipso facto face of Marvel Comics. If you are one that believes Kirby did everything and Lee contributed nothing, this would incense you. And you might feel justified in venting your animosity in Lee’s direction.

But Lee wasn’t the one at Marvel who promised Kirby (and Amazing Spider-Man artist Steve Ditko) that he would get a percentage of merchandise then never follow through. That was Martin Goodman. It wasn’t Lee that threatened to slash Kirby’s pay rate when he was doing the lion’s share of the work at Marvel. That was Goodman too. And Stan was in Hollywood by the time Marvel held Kirby’s artwork hostage in the late 1970′s to mid 1980s.

But even if you think Stan Lee willingly and maliciously lied about his involvement in the creation of the Marvel Universe just to keep Jack Kirby down, there has to be some point when the noble quest to gain a sense of justice for Jack by calling out your idol’s enemy turns into you bullying a frail 89-year-old man. Take for instance this snippet from an interview of Lee by Erik Larnick of Moviefone during a press junket for a documentary on Lee called With Great Power: The Stan Lee Story:

Fans of Jack Kirby are concerned that his name appears nowhere on the credits of “The Avengers.”  What’s your take on their concern? I don’t know how to answer that because in what way would his name appear?

His name isn’t mentioned anywhere in the film production as a co-creator. Well it’s mentioned in every comic book; it says “By Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.”

But it doesn’t appear for the film itself; and his fans feel he should get that recognition, with the movie exposing his work to a whole new audience.  I know, but you’re talking to the wrong guy because I have nothing to do with the credits on the movies. I’m credited as one of the executive producers because that’s in my contract. But Jack was not an executive producer. So I don’t know what he’d be credited as. Again I know nothing about that, I have nothing to do with the movie’s credits. You’d have to talk to whoever is the producer of the movie. Is there anything you want to ask me about the documentary because I thought that’s what I was supposed to be talking about.

Stan Lee and Jack Kirby back in 1975, along with comic book legends Gil Kane, Jim Steranko, Wil Eisner and Jerry Siegel.

This exchange compelled Heidi MacDonald over at The Beat, a journalist I admire and respect, to ask “Has the fan press suddenly GROWN a pair? Or have they just figured out that controversy sells?” I’d say the later. While it’s arguable that Moviefone, an offshoot of AOL, can be considered “fan press,” asking these questions is not an act of bravery, it’s an act of chicanery. This is not rightfully calling Lee on the carpet for supposed mistreatment of Kirby. This is ambushing an octogenarian with something specific he has no control over, and passing off his reply as him evading the question. And not to right any sort of wrongs either, but to gain site hits (which is why the snippet was released a week  before the actual article). The real kicker is that Kirby’s name is in the credits for The Avengers, something Larnick would have found out if he asked a studio flack or someone with more more than a ceremonial connection to the film.

If you are looking for an article that asks the questions Larnick was trying to ask, but does it in a more journalistic way–with a juicer pull quote–I recommend Alex Pappademas’ interview, most likely taken on the same press junket, over at Grantland.

Once again, I’m not saying that Jack Kirby deserves less credit than Stan Lee or vice versa. I’m saying that attacking the person the general public sees as “that cute old man with the funny cameos”  is no way to gain the mainstream respect Jack Kirby should rightfully have. If you are looking for fairness, you have to be fair first.

Welcome to our Marvel Cinematic Universe Timeline 2.0. In it, we have tried to construct as definitive as possible timeline for all of Marvel Studio’s interconnected films. In updating from our previous attempt, we’ve also incorporated a number of comics that Marvel have established as canon and once again tried to extrapolate where things fit in when concrete clues weren’t available.

While many historical dates have been derived from various documents and newspapers glimpsed in the films, the dates for the modern section all spread outward from the May 1-2, 2010 running of the Historic Grand Prix Of Monaco as seen in Iron Man 2 and are extrapolated from internal evidence and dialogue. The comic Fury’s Big Week collapses many of the events of Iron Man 2, The Incredible Hulk and Thor into a tighter time frame than I had envisioned in version 1.0.

Dating for The Avengers stems from the museum reception that Loki attacks where the banners in the background giving the dates of the exhibition as May 4 through October 11. I am speculating that the reception is an opening night affair. Some promotional shots featured computer screens with the visible date of 12/2/12. However,  in an email with one of the graphic designers who created the screens he stated that the date was just a placeholder and was removed for the film itself.

For further information on canonicity of sources and a key to sources used see the notes at the end. Where exact dating for sequences have proven to be impossible, I’ve gone with my best guess.

Going by the cosmology established by Marvel Comics for their fictional multiverse, the Marvel Cinematic Universe is designated Earth-1999999. (The main Marvel Comics universe is known as Earth-616 while their Ultimates universe is Earth-1610 and the Marvel Zombies universe is Earth-2149.)

The Time Line

965 AD – Armed with the powerful Casket of Ancient Winters, the frost giants of Jotunheim attempt to conquer Midgard/Earth. Their invasion point in Tonsberg, Norway becomes the site of an epic battle as Asgard’s ruler Odin leads an army to repeal the invasion. Odin and his forces push the frost giants back to Jotunheim where the AllFather discovers an abandoned frost giant infant whom he adopts, names Loki and raises as his own alongside his own son Thor. A truce is negotiated between Odin and the frost giant king Laufey.

1918

July 4 – Steve Rogers is born to a young couple in the Hell’s Kitchen section of New York City. His father dies of injuries from being mustard gassed during World War One, leaving his mother to raise the boy. CA:FA

1924

June – Steve Rogers’s mother dies of tuberculosis. Young Steve is placed in an Eighth Avenue orphanage. CA:FA, CA:FV#1

1930

Sept. – A teenage Steve Rogers meets James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes and the pair quickly become best friends. CA:FV#1

1934 – Howard Stark and Abram Erskine briefly meet at an engineering conference in Geneva. CA:FV#3

February – Johann Schmidt meets the newly appointed German Chancellor Adolph Hitler at the Deutsches Operhaus in Berlin where he tries to convince Hitler of his theory that the Norse myths may actually be true. Hitler is intrigued, but Ernest Kaufmann, head of the Sturmabteilung’s (SA) Special Weapons Division, sees Schmidt as a potential rival and threatens him to not approach Hitler again with his theories. One of Hitler’s inner circle, Heinrich Himmler, sees some value in what Schmidt has to offer and befriends him.

June 30 – The beginning of the three-day “Night Of The Long Knives” during which Hitler and the Nazi Party purged Germany of many political enemies including the SA. Himmler allows Schmidt to personally kill Kaufmann. -CA:FV#2

July 1 – Schmidt takes control of the SA’s Weapons Testing Ground at Kummersdorf, an estate near Luckenwalde, south of Berlin, crushing the armed resistance from SA members loyal to Kaufmann. Possessing no strong political convictions but a strong sense of self-preservation, scientist Armin Zola pledges to work for Schmidt. Schmidt stops Zola’s development of an armored exo-skeleton battle suit and redirects the scientist’s energies towards biological enhancement. – CA:FV#2

1935

September 14 – Spurred by rumors that Hitler was to announce draconian anti-Semetic laws, including the revocation of German citizenship for Jews, at the Nazi Party’s annual rally in Nuremberg the next day, biochemist Abraham Erskine attempts to flee Germany with his family. They are stopped at the Swiss boarder by Schmidt who wants Erskine’s work on ways to increase molecular density of cellular fibers through synthetic proteins. In order to ensure Erskine’s cooperation, Schmidt has Erskine’s wife Greta and his children Klaus and Marlene sent to the Dachau concentration camp. Zola is allowed to resume his work on exo-skeleton battle suits and various high-tech weaponry. – CA:FV#2

1937

April 26 – The Bombing of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War. While the Nazis were assisting the forces of Generalissimo Franco, Hydra uses the battle to test a prototype tank and exo-skeleton battle suit. (See also February, 1940.) – CA:FV#3

1940

February – Howard Stark demonstrates a prototype vibranium shield at famed Hollywood restaurant Ciro’s to an assemblage of high ranking military guests. Stark is approached by Col. Chester Phillips of Army Intelligence who shows him film footage of Hydra’s weapons testing at the Bombing of Guernica (See April 26, 1937).

Phillips extends to Stark an invitation to join the Strategic Science Reserve (SSR), authorized by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and who specifically asked for Stark to be recruited. At first, Stark declines but changes his mind after an encounter with a Hydra assassination team. – CA:FV#3

November – Schmidt tests Erskine’s formula on himself. The formula reacts with Schmidt on a base level, twisting and discoloring his face into a skull-like, red visage. Two days later, Erskine escapes his captivity with the help of the British Secret Intelligence known only as Agent 13. He is informed that his family had died in a typhoid epidemic that swept through the Dachau concentration camp in 1937 and that Schmidt had deliberately withheld that information from him in order to continue to manipulate him. Erskine is recruited by Howard Stark into the SSR. CA:FV#3

1941

December 7 – The Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor kills thousands of US naval personnel and plunges the country into the conflict that has been slowly sweeping across the globe.

Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes learn of the attack on Pearl Harbor from a radio report while attending an art class in Times Square. Steve wants to enlist into the armed forces immediately, but Barnes states that the rail thin and sickly Steve would never pass the physical. Barnes spends the next two and a half weeks helping Steve get into better physical condition through boxing training, weight lifting and running. CA:FV#1

December 24 – Barnes’ training of Steve fails to pay off as he is still classified by Army doctors as “4-F,” Unfit for Service, when he tries to enlist. Barnes is accepted into the Army and the two men part. (CA:FV#1) Steve will make four more attempts to enlist over the next 18 months.

1942

March – Schmidt traces the location of the Tesseract to Tonsberg, Norway and retrieves it, killing its guardian in the process.

1943

June 14 (Flag Day) – Steve Rogers makes his fifth attempt at enlisting, this time at a Paramus, NJ recruiting station. He is again rejected as 4F status. Later in the day he is reunited with Bucky Barnes, now a sergeant who has been assigned to the 107th Infantry, the same unit that Rogers’s father had fought in during World War One.

That evening the pair head out to the World Exposition in Flushing Meadows, NY. Expositions there include Dr. Phineas Horton’s Synthetic Man and Howard Stark demonstrating his flying car prototype which utilizes “gravitic reversion technology.” Steve makes another attempt at enlisting and meets Dr. Erskine of the Strategic Scientific Reserve (SSR), who sees Steve’s potential as a candidate for the Super Soldier experiment and certifies Steve 1A, fit for military duty. (CA:TFA 0:10:37)

June 15 – Rogers arrives at Camp Lehigh, New York along with a number of other potential candidates for the SSR’s Super Soldier experiment. Over a period of a week, Col. Phillips and Peggy Carter of the SSR put the candidates through a series of physical tests. Meanwhile, Schmidt and Zola perfect a way to transfer the energy contained in the Tesseract to batteries to power the number of various weapons designed by Zola.

 June 21 – Following a week of evaluation, Erskine picks Rodgers as the subject for the Super Soldier experiment based on his strength of character, knowing that the serum will react to that character. Phillips is not impressed with the choice.

June 22 – Steve Rogers undergoes Erskine’s Super Soldier treatment and undergoes a transformation that increased his strength and stamina. Heinz Kruger, an assassin sent by Schmidt, infiltrates the secret SSR laboratory in Brooklyn where the experiment is being held and kills Erskine. Kruger escapes but is captured by Rogers who is unable to stop Kruger from killing himself rather than be interrogated.

Schmidt separates HYDRA from Third Reich control.

June 23 – New York newspapers carry story of Rogers pursuit of Kruger through Brooklyn, but only identify him as a “Mystery Man.” (CA:TFA 0:47:33)

Rather than risk their only super soldier in combat, the military instead uses Rogers as a public relations tool, having him appear around the country at War Bond rallies and in comic books and a Saturday matinee serial. Wherever he makes an appearance, war bond sales spike. Meanwhile, President Roosevelt orders the SSR to concentrate its efforts on combating HYDRA.

Nov 2 -  The 107th Division goes up against some of Schmidt’s new weapons and sustains heavy casualties.

Nov 3 – Rodgers’ War Bond show has been turned into a USO Tour show and sent overseas, where it is met with derision from soldiers who have actually been through months of grueling combat. When Steve finds out about the casualties sustained by the 107th, he plans an impulsive rescue mission and is aided by Carter and Stark. Flying behind enemy lines into Austria, Steve parachutes near one of HYDRA’s bases, sneaks in and frees 400 captured Allied troops including Barnes, Timothy “Dum Dum” Dugan, Gabe Jones, Jim Morita, James Montgomery Falsworth and Jacques Dernier all of whom will go on to form the core members of the Howling Commandos.

Nov 4 – Rogers leads the freed soldiers back with numerous captured examples of  HYDRA weapons technology. Howard Stark designs and builds several prototypes of a gadget-laden new shield for Captain America, but Rogers instead takes a simple circular one made out of the world’s only known sample of vibranium.

1944-1945

Over the majority of the remainder of the war, Steve leads the Howling Commandos on several raids, taking out numerous HYDRA bases.

1945

During a daring raid to capture Hydra scientist Armin Zola, Bucky Barnes falls off a fast moving Alpine railroad car to his apparent death. Zola is captured in the raid and under interrogation informs tha Allies that Schmidt is preparing to a plan to attack major US cities. Rogers, the Howling Commandos and the Army attack Hydra’s last remaining base in the Alps. Schmidt escapes in his large flying wing, but Rogers manages to make it on board as well. The two fight and Schmidt is consumed by the power of the Teseract. Unable to safely land the flying wing with its explosive cargo, Rogers sacrifices his life by crashing the aircraft into the Arctic Ocean. Unexpectedly, the frozen climate interacted with the Super Soldier serum in his blood and placed Rogers in suspended animation.

May 8 – V-E Day. As victory in Europe is celebrated, the Howling Commandos gather for a somber drink to remember their fallen comrade,  Captain Steve Rogers.

Post-World War Two -

Howard Stark continues his work with the SSR and over time it restructures into what is now known as Strategic Homeland Intervention Enforcement and Logistics Division, SHIELD. While searching for Rogers and the crashed Hydra plane, Stark discovers the Tesseract on the floor of the Arctic Ocean.

Speculation – Due to the nature of their work, the SSR continued to remain classified and a cover story was arranged that Stark spent the war years contributing to the Manhattan Project. Did Stark’s study of the recovered Tesseract lead to an insight that allowed him to conceptualize the ARC reactor?

Work continued to replicate Erskine’s Super Soldier formula in what was now known as the Weapons Plus program. One serum developed by a Dr. Reinstein is cryogenically preserved when the program is ultimately discontinued. (IH 0:44:33)

1954 – Stark World Exposition

1963 – Anton Vanko defects to the US and begins work with Howard Stark in developing ARC Reactor technology. (Note – The dates for Anton Vanko’s defection and deportation are taken from Iron Man 2 dialogue. Close inspection of the old newspapers on computer displays and as props show that they place Vanko’s defection and deportation at 1966 and 1967. I’ve chose to ignore the props and go with the dialogue  as canon.)

1964 – Stark Expo held in conjunction with the World’s Fair at Flushing Meadows, Queens, NY

1967 – Stark has Anton Vanko deported as a spy. Vanko returns to Soviet Union but is sent to exile in Siberia for two decades. Presumably he is able to return to Moscow following Premier Gorbachev’s call for democratization in January 1987.

1969

December 18 – Bruce Banner born (IH 0:02:02)

1971

May 10 – Tony Stark born (The Iron Man novelization states that Tony Stark was born in 1973, but in order for young Tony to be the age we briefly see him in Iron Man 2 and to still not be old enough to assume of Stark Industries when Howard Stark dies in 1991, I have moved his birth year to here.)

1974 – Last Stark Expo until 2010. Howard Stark hides secret to perfecting ARC reactor in layout of the Expo for Tony to find. (IM2)

1975 – Tony Stark Builds his first circuit board.

1977 – Tony Stark builds his first engine.

1988 – Tony Stark graduates MIT at age 17 at top of class (IM)

1988 – 1991 -Bruce Banner meets Betty Ross while undergrads at Harvard. They begin dating and at one point volunteer for an experiment involving hallucinogenics.

1991

December 16 – Howard and Maria Stark die in car accident on Long Island. (IM)

Speculation – Was Howard Stark’s death orchestrated/ordered by Obadiah Stane in order to gain control of Stark Industries?

1992 – Tony Stark inherits Stark Industries becoming, at age 21, the youngest CEO of a Fortune 500 company. (IM) In addition to the company’s numerous military contracts, Stark Industries also does pioneering work in medical technology and in combating world hunger with their Intelli-Crops program. In the process he becomes somewhat of a media celebrity.

2002 – 2006 – In the wake of 9/11 attacks (Speculation), General Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross convinces military to revive the BioForce Enhancement Project, aka the “Super Soldier” program, as a subprogram of the Infantry Weapons Development Program. (IH 0:32:15, 0:32:36)

Dr. Bruce Banner joins the group at Culver University in Willowdale, VA in southwestern Virginia working on way to strengthen cellular resistance to radiation, possibly at insistence of girlfriend Dr. Elizabeth “Betty” Ross, daughter of General Ross.

Ross lies to the scientists on the project, informing them that their work will help protect soldiers from depleted uranium. (IHD)

2006

Unspecified Thursday in January – Under the threat of funding cuts, Banner volunteers to test process on himself resulting in the accident that turns him into Hulk. (IH, 0:02:04, partially obscured Washington Times newspaper dateline reading “Friday (Obstructed) 2006”; see also below February 7)

Gamma pulse combined with serum that Betty was developing triggers mutation. Later, gamma pulses somehow stored in Banner’s brain’s amigdala and released during high stress moments will trigger mutation.

Betty is injured and hospitalized. Ross admits to Banner that project is being developed as weapon, not just defense. Banner goes on the run. In the wake of the accident, the military closes the entire lab building for a year and shuts down the entire Bio Tech Force Enhancement project. General Ross secretly holds onto some material, Dr. Betty Ross also secretly holds onto project data, remaining at Culver University as a professor of cellular biology. Betty also ceases speaking with her father (IH 0:44:00), angry at his treatment of Banner.

February 7 – Banner tries to contact Betty one last time, but the email is intercepted by the military. She never receives it. (IH 0:02:41)

At some point during his run from the military, Banner travels through the Dakotas (IH 0:02:06) and towards Idaho where an encounter some State Troopers leads to violence.

May 27-28 – Banner spotted via satellite recon photo in Canada (IH 0:02:10) and Hulk sighted by locals along the US/Canada who mistake him for a “green Sasquatch.” (IH 0:02:27)

The military looses Banner, who eventually arrives in Eastern Nunavut near the Arctic Circle to commit suicide in a place where his body would not be found. The attempt fails.

October 21 – Last sighting of Banner for at least five months (IH 0:02:54, I’m placing Banner’s suicide attempt before this date, or even possibly at this date, as I’m sure that the Hulk’s rampage in the Arctic would have been detected by satellite.)

2007 – 2010

At some point, the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistic Division (SHIELD) is brought in to help Ross and his task force recover Banner. Ross requisitions some high tech weaponry he knows will be required to bring Banner/Hulk down. (IH 0:02:35) Stark Industries sells them Jeep-mounted sonic cannons. (IH 0:02:36) (Is the sonic cannon an off-shoot of the same technology behind the sonic weapon used by Stane to paralyze his Ten Rings collaborators?)

Banner wanders the world avoiding population centers, eventually heading to South America.

2009

May – Following the successful demonstration of the new Jericho missile weapons system outside of Kabul, Afghanistan, the military convoy escorting Stark is attacked by the Ten Rings terrorist group under the leadership of Raza, who were working at least in part on the part of Obadiah Stane. Stark is wounded by Stark Industries-manufactured weapons and is captured.

During his three months of capture, Stark is forced to build version of Jericho for the Ten Rings terrorist group. He instead builds an armored, exo-skeleton battle suit (Iron Man armor, MK I) and uses it to escape. Following his being found by the US military, Stark is taken to Germany where he is checked out by Army doctors and then subjected to debriefings from the CIA, NSA and others.

Late August – Upon his return to the US, Stark buys cheeseburgers and then pulls Stark International out of the weapons business, terminating all contracts with the military. SI stock prices tumble nearly 60 percent. Hammer Industries maneuvers itself to pick up many new contracts.

September – Stark continues to develop a more refined version of the armor he used to escape from the Ten Rings. Stane uses Stark’s change of heart concerning what business he is in as leverage for a takeover attempt. Besides boardroom maneuvering, Stane develops his own high tech battle armor using the remains of the MK I armor recovered by his Ten Rings confederates.

October 17 – Unspecified Hulk incident (See April 1, 2010). Presumably news of Stark’s announcement that he is Iron Man overshadowed any media coverage this may have received.

Soon after, Banner heads into the Rio De Janeiro favela known as Rocinha, to find a way to clandestinely contact Dr. Samuel Sterns, professor in Cellular Biology Department at NYC’s Grayburn College (IH 1:09:11) on the Upper East Side, for help in developing a cure. They communicate using codenames of “Mr. Blue” and “Mr. Green.” Sterns is noted for his work with trimethadiones, used in the treatment of epileptic conditions. (IHD)

Acting on a suggestion from Mr. Blue/Sterns, Banner starts to research Amazonia Tracheophytes (plants that have lignified tissues for conducting water, minerals, and photosynthetic products through the plant) for a lead on a cure. – (IH 0:02:16, IHD )

Banner also studies calming techniques at a nearby temple, gets a job at a soda bottling plant as a handyman and begins teaching himself Portuguese.

October 20 – At a benefit for the Firefighters Family Fund Stark is told by journalist, and former one-night fling, Christine that Stark weaponry has been used by the Ten Rings in Gulmira, Afghanistan. When Stark confronts Stane over this, Stane reveals that he is behind the attempt to remove Stark as head of the company.

October 21 – Stark tests his newly completed Mk III armor by driving Raza’s Ten Rings group out of the Afghan village of Gulmira.

October 24 – Under Stark’s direction, Pepper Potts uncovers proof of Stane’s collaboration with the Ten Rings. Stane and Stark eventually come to blows in their respective armors. Stane is killed. The conflict is seen by the public and the press name the mysterious hero “Iron Man.”

October 25 – At a press conference the day following his showdown with Stane, Stark rejects SHIELD’s constructed alibi for the events of the previous evening and admits to the world that he is Iron Man. That evening, SHIELD director Nick Fury approaches Stark about a project called the “Avengers Initiative.” Stark declines, Fury calls in Black Widow (IM, IMC2) to keep Stark under surveillance.

Anton Vanko dies in poverty in Moscow. His son Ivan vows revenge on Stark. He begins building his own portable ARC reactor to power an energized whip/body harness.

December 16– Iron Man named Time magazine’s Person Of The Year, narrowly beating out Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve. (IM2, In real life, Bernanke was named PotY in Time’s December 16^th issue.)

2010

As Tony Stark continues to operate as Iron Man, he manages to bring about a period of relative peace and is credited by some press as having stabilized East-West relations. Stark realizes that the paladium core of Stark’s ARC reactor is slowly poisoning him. He begins searching for a cure but keeps his condition a secret. (IM2)

March 25 – 158 Days since last “incident” – Banner has accident that leaves drop of blood in soda. (IH 0:32:12) Also, he sends sample of blood to Sterns who will conduct further experiments with it outside of the analysis that Banner needs.

April 22 – Stark Expo 2010 opens with plans to run for one year. (IM2, “Six Months Later”)

April 23 – Stark appears before the Senate Armed Services Committee’s Weaponized Suit Defense Program Hearings chaired by Pennsylvania Senator Stern. Stern pushes Stark to turn the Iron Man suit and technology over to the military but Stark refuses. Stern calls Justin Hammer, CEO of Hammer Industries and Lt. Col. Rhodes to testify against Stark. Stark testifies that although other countries, including North Korea and Iran are working to replicate the technology, they are years away from being able to do so. He also reveals that Hammer Industries have also had their share of lack-of-success, leading to the cancellation of Hammer Industries’ contacts with the Department of Defense. (IM2)

April 24 – CSPAN footage of Stark’s testimony from the previous day becomes overnight sensation with a YouTube posting of it managing nearly 1.9 million views in less than 24 hours. Hammer Industries stocks plummet while Stark Industuries jump to a 52 week high.

Perhaps spurred by concerns that the palladium poisoning he is suffering has reached 24% toxicity, Stark appoints Potts Chairman and CEO of Stark Industries. (IM2 0:20:44, Stark Expo website displaying “362 Days Left” to attend Expo)

An agent of the Ten Rings supplies Vanko assistance in infiltrating the Monaco Grand Prix.

April 25 – General Ross’s task force raids Rochina favela is search of Banner under the field command of Emil Blonski. Banner transforms into Hulk, defeats the raiding party and escapes. (IH 0:29:02 Days with out incidence counter moves from 190 days backwards.)

April 27 – Banner wakes up in Guatemala. Over the next 17 days, he will make his way from Chiapas, Mexico to Willowdale, VA and Culver University to see if any data still remains from his original experiment.

April 29 – Stark signs paperwork to transfer power to Potts, meets “Natalie Rushman” unaware that she is SHIELD agent Natasha Romanoff. Stark promotes her from the legal department to be his new personal assistant.

May 2 – Stark arrives at the Historic Grand Prix of Monaco and in a moment of spontaneity quips “What’s the point of having a car if you don’t drive it,” and replaces Team Stark’s regular driver DiFilipo in Race G. Ivan Vanko attacks Stark along the section of the Circuit de Monaco between turns 16 and 17 along the harbor. Switching into a portable, lightweight Iron Man armor (Mark V), Stark defeats Vanko.

Later that evening, Stark visits Vanko in prison before flying back to US with Potts.

May 3 – Senator Stern appears on several news channels to spin support for the military seizing the Iron Man armor technology.

May 5 – Hammer orchestrates Vanko’s escape from prison to have him work on Hammer Industries own weapons suit program.

May 6 – Media speculation continues about Stark’s fitness to continue as Iron Man. Rhodes tries to convince Stark to hand over the Iron Man technology to the US military, but Stark continues to refuse. (IM2, date on screen at 0:45:11)

May 7 – Hammer and Vanko arrive at the Hammer Industries facility in Queens, NY. Vanko begins revamping Hammer’s own battle suit prototypes into unmanned, remote-controlled drones.

May 10 – Tony Stark’s Birthday.

Romanoff reports to SHIELD on Stark’s condition. Within several hours, SHIELD scientists work up a possible antidote from lithium that would at least slow the advancement of Stark’s palladium poisoning. SHIELD scientists also first detect strange electromagnetic disturbances over New Mexico, the same ones that Jane Foster has already discovered and is observing. SHIELD agent Sitwell superstitiously facilitates Banner’s crossing over the Mexico/US boarder. (FBW #1)

Depressed over his inability to solve his palladium poisoning dilemma, Stark gets drunk which leads to a confrontation with Rhodes, who dons the Mark II Iron Man armor. The ensuing fight wrecks a portion of Stark’s Malibu home. Rhodes leaves with the Mk II suit. (IM2N pg 136 places the night of Stark’s party three days after Vanko’s arrival at Hammer’s Queens facility.)

May 11 – Rhodes delivers the Mk II suit to the military at Edwards Air Force Base. Stark goes for donuts and has a conversation with SHIELD director Nick Fury who injects him with the lithium compound developed by SHIELD scientists. Fury mentions a situation in the southwest but confines Stark to house arrest.

At Hammer Industries, Vanko continues revamping the battle suits in to unmanned, remote-controlled drones.

Physicist Jane Foster, working in the small town of Puente Antiguo, New Mexico, contacts her mentor Dr Erik Selvig about a series of electromagnetic flares which are causing gravitational lensing which could result in the creation of possible Einstein-Rosen Bridge (wormhole) in the nearby desert. (Note: Puente Antiguo is Spanish for “Ancient Bridge.”) Her message is intercepted by SHIELD. Selvig heads to New Mexico to help Foster with her work.

The Mk II suit is turned over to Justin Hammer for weapons upgrading on the order of General Meade, though not before Rhodes secretly removes the suit’s ARC reactor.

Tony visits Potts at Stark Industries, makes intuitive breakthrough on how to fix his palladium/ARC reactor problem through the creation of a new element theorized by his father and hidden in the layout of Stark Expo.

May 12 – In the midst of Thor’s coronation ceremony on Asgard, Odin senses a break-in in one of the palace treasure rooms. Theintruders are dealt with by the Destroyer although since they were frost giants attempting to steal back the Casket of Ancient Winters, Thor impulsively sees the attempted theft as an act of war.

Stark builds a small cyclotron to create the element his father had left clues about. (Some material donated by SHIELD from their stores at Project Pegasus.)

Banner arrives at Culver University and spies Betty.

Nick Fury reassigns Agent Coulson from his detail with Tony Stark to investigate the New Mexico atmospheric disturbances. Coulson leaves in the early afternoon from California for New Mexico.

7:00 pm – Hammer’s Stark Expo presentation is hijacked by Vanko, who uses drones to attack crowd and Stark. After receiving a call from Vanko, Stark skips over tests on new ARC reactor element in order to race across country and stop Vanko. Stark/Iron Man defeat Vanko’s drones with help from Rhodes in modified Mk II armor, SHIELD Agent Romanoff and Stark’s driver Happy Hogan. Vanko apparently killed in explosion that destroys the Oracle Pavilion. Hammer is arrested for his part in engineering Vanko’s escape.

While Romanoff is in Hammer Industries’ Brooklyn facility she hacks the company’s mainframe, steals what development files she can and then destroys the building. – FBW #2

Banner goes to old friend and pizzeria owner Stanley to hide out. He offers him the Pizza Shop’s upstairs spare bedroom. (IH 0:34:25)

At a SHIELD outpost on the outskirts of Roswell, NM, Coulson marshalls a taskforce heading for Puente Antiguo.

Thor, Loki, Sif and the Warriors Three head to Jotunheim to confront King Laufey of the frost giants over the incursion into Asgard. A battle breaks out but Odin’s arrival puts a quick end to it. Angered that Thor’s impulsiveness has nearly started a war between Asgard and the frost giants, Odin strips him of his power and enchants his hammer Mjolnir to only be able to be lifted by someone worthy enough to wield it. He then exiles Thor to Earth to learn to temper his feelings.

Jane Foster detects another possible Einstein-Rosen Bridge (wormhole) in the nearby desert. Racing to the site with her mentor Dr. Selvig and her assistant Darcy, they discover Thor. Thor is tasered by Darcy and taken to a local hospital.

May 13 – While driving overnight to Puente Antiguo in advance of the SHIELD taskforce, Coulson stops at a 24-hour Roxxon mini-mart and foils an armed robbery attempt – FTHWTH

Director Fury orders SHIELD Agent Clint Barton off of his vacation and to Puente Antguo to support Coulson. – FBW#2

A Punete Antiguo local discovers Thor’s hammer, Mjolnir, in a crater about 50 miles east of town. Unable to lift it, he calls several other people to give it a try. Coulson arrives in New Mexico. SHIELD quickly quarantines the area and erects a portable laboratory over the site to study the hammer.

Jane helps Thor escape from the hospital where he is being held. That evening they head towards the site of the SHIELD installation erected around Mjolnir. Thor is captured trying to sneak in.

In Asgard, Loki discovers his true heritage as a frost giant. Odin collapses into one of his periodic mystical comas known as the Odinsleep. Meanwhile, Sif and the Warriors Three begin to suspect that they were being manipulated by Loki.

Loki appears before Thor being held at the SHIELD installation and lies to him that Odin is dead. In the evening, Dr. Selvig goes to the installation and manages to get Coulson to release Thor into his custody. Later in the evening, Thor explains the concept of the Nine Worlds to Jane.

Banner poses as a pizza delivery man to get access to Culver University’s computer labs and research database. He decides to leave that evening but as he prepares to leave Stanley’s he is accidentally seen by Betty. She has him stay the night at the home she shares with new lover Dr. Leonard Sampson. Sampson informs the military of Banner’s whereabouts. Meanwhile, Blonski receives an unauthorized “low dose” injection of Super Soldier Serum from General Ross.

Concerned over what lengths General Ross will go to apprehend Banner, Fury orders Agent Romanoff to Virginia and Culver University to follow and observe Banner. – FBW # 2

May 14 – The Warriors Three and Sif head to Midgard to find Thor. Loki sends the Destroyer after them.

At Culver University, Betty walks Banner to bus station in the early morning. As they are crossing the campus, they are attacked by the military and Betty becomes aware of the true extent of Banner’s condition. Blonski seems to adapt well to Super Soldier upgrade, but still gets beaten by transformed Banner, getting nearly every bone in his body pulverized. Banner/Hulk escapes the military with an unconscious Betty to a cave deep in the Great Smoky Mountains.

News of the battle can not be contained and quickly spreads across cable news channels and the internet. Culver U. journalism student and campus newspaper reporter Jack McGee, who witnessed and captured the fight on cell phone video. McGee’s friend Jim Miller names the transformed Banner “the Hulk” in an interview with WHIH news. His remarks will be played repeatedly over the next several days. (IH 1:04:42, IM2 1:53:10)

Meanwhile, Stark has a debrief with SHIELD Director Fury. Stark is offered an advisory position with the Avengers Initiative on one condition.

SHIELD continues to monitor the Hulk incident, the situation in Puente Antiguo, New Mexico as well as several other hot spots in North America and Europe.

Thor and his fellow Asgardians fight the Destroyer. During the battle, Thor proves himself worthy of his godly heritage and his powers are restored, allowing him to turn back the Destroyer. Thor, Sif and the Warriors Three head back to Asgard where Thor reveals Loki’s plan to seize the throne of Asgard. Unfortunately, in the ensuing battle between the two, Thor is forced to destroy the Bifrost to prevent Loki from destroying Jotunheim and committing genocide against the frost giants. This action strands him in Asgard, unable to return to Midgard/Earth. Loki falls into space.

Barton and Coulson recover the remains of the Destroyer and transport it back to the SHIELD installation at Roswell. – FBW#3

Banner and Betty hide out in a motel outside of Ashwood, North Carolina in the foothlls of the Smokies. (IH 1:43:41 – Based on return address on package Banner receives from pawnshop. I am placing Ashwood here on the western side of the state for geogrpahical proximity to the Smokies. Although there is an actual Ashwood in North Carlona, it is on the eastern most side of the state along the Atlantic coast. Getting Betty and Bruce across the state some 400 to 500 miles in such a short time in order for them to procure the pickup truck is problematic.)

News of the previous day’s battle continues to spread. Within 36 to 40 hours of his on injuries, Blonski has recovered. (IH 1:07:30)

May 15 – Ross has meeting with taskforce staff. (IH 1:08:51, Ross states that Banner has been on the run “for five years” but I’m assuming that Ross is rounding up.)

SHIELD helps with search by adding the recently discovered “Mr. Blue” and “Mr. Green” code names to their email searches and quickly detect communication between Banner and Sterns.

Banner and Betty plan their trip to New York and Sterns. Betty pawns her mother’s necklace to finance purchase of beat-up pickup truck. They drive to NYC.

May 16– Banner and Betty arrive in NYC, bypassing roadblocks at the Holland Tunnel by bribing a boat owner to take them across the Hudson River, leaving them in lower Manhattan. They head uptown to meet with Sterns. Sterns and Banner try an experimental process to cure him, though it only succeeds in reversing the transformation, not ridding Banner of it completely.

The military captures Banner, but Blonsky forces Sterns to inject him with blood products Sterns had developed from Banner’s blood sample. Blonsky is driven insane and mutates into the Abomination. Sterns is infected with Banner’s blood through an open wound, possibly gaining his own mutation.

Banner convinces Ross to let him try and stop Blonsky. The two fight in Harlem, with the Hulk finally defeating Blonski before being allowed by Ross to flee.

Romanoff, who has followed Banner and Betty to New York City, discovers Stearns undergoing a mutation of his cerebral cortex in the ruins of his Grayburn College laboratory. He is taken into custody to be studied by SHIELD. – FBW#3

May 17 – Given the events of the past week, the World Security Council reverses its funding decision for SHIELD and increases the organization’s budget in order to expand their research on the Tesseract and to further fund the Avengers Initiative. The WSC insists that Blonski be made a part of the Avengers Initiative over Fury’s protests.

A few days later, impressed with his work on Einstein-Rosen bridges and other cutting edge theoretical physics, Nick Fury approaches Dr. Selvig to join SHIELD in an advisory capacity to study a powerful cube-like object in their possession. Fury is unaware that Selvig is under the control of Loki.

Troubled by the idea of Blonski on the Avengers team, Coulson and Sitwell conspire to send Tony Stark to discuss the prospect with General Ross. The following day, Tony Stark meets with Ross about “putting a team together.” However, Stark’s flippant attitude so enrages Ross that he refuses to release Blonski from Army custody to SHIELD. (TC)

June 16 – Banner has settled in a cabin deep in the woods of Bella Coola, British Columbia. He apparently is gaining control over the Hulk. SHIELD interferes with General Ross’s task force from discovering Banner’s whereabouts.

At some point Agent Romanoff is assigned to track bootleg Starktech stolen from Hammer Industries. He search leads her to Russia where she discovers that the 10 Rings had been buying components to build Stark Industries Jericho missiles through a number of fronts including billionaire industrialist Richard Frampton’s Sojourn Enterprises. Romanoff destroys the missiles and Frampton and a spy named Sophia who fashioned herself after Romanoff’s more bloody, pre-SHIELD career are killed. A:BWS

2011

April – Unspecified Hulk incident as referenced by Romanoff on May 2, 2012. Possibly incident on India/ Pakistan boarder when Banner encountered a group of bandits, transformed into the Hulk and stopped them from harming a local village. – A:TAA

May – Steve Rogers is found cyrogenically preserved in the crashed Hydra airship in the arctic by two snowmobilers who are part of a Russian oil expedition. SHIELD dispatches a recovery team and brings Rogers back to their Manhattan. Meanwhile, SHIELD scientists discover a way to channel Tesseract energy through the remains of the Asgardian Destroyer. Fury assigns Barton to security at Project PEGASUS and shares his concerns that Dr Selvig has been reportedly acting a bit oddly of late.

Natasha Romanof is on a deep cover assignment in Asia. (Speculation – Possibly related to the Ten Rings?) – Date based on “One Year Later” epilogue to FBW #4

At some point, Rogers is revived and told that he has been in suspended animation for nearly seven decades. He remains hidden from public view while he struggles to assimilate into modern life and overcome the loneliness of being a man out of time.

Unknown – The World Security Council reverses its funding decision about funding Fury’s Avengers Initiative.

2012

May 1 – Loki is given a scepter-like device from a mysterious cloaked entity known as the Other. The Other grants Loki the use of the Chitauri, a war-mongering alien race, to help him subjugate Earth in exchange for retrieving the Tesseract. Loki uses the small amount of dark energy that the scepter posses to remotely activate the Tesseract and teleport to Earth, arriving inside Project: Pegasus. He steals the Tesseract, ensnaring a small handful of SHIELD agents in his mental control including Dr Selvig and Clint Barton. The SHIELD base is destroyed during the escape but Coulson and Fury manages to save material that is part of Phase Two of their Tesseract research. Fury reactivates the Avengers Initiative

Once one relocated to the East Coast with the Phase Two materials, Coulson contacts Agent Romanov in Russia and instructs her to cut short her current mission in order to retrieve Banner and bring him to SHIELD. She finishes her interrogation of Georgi Luchkov and heads to India.

May 2- Romanov meets Banner in Kolkata, India and recruits him to help in the search for the Tesseract.

Fury gives Rogers his orders to report to the Helicarrier the next morning.

That evening, Tony Stark brings a miniaturized ARC reactor online to power the newly opened Stark Tower in midtown Manhattan, a high tech remodeling of the former Pan Am building. Agent Coulson calls on Stark with Selvig’s research on the Tesseract and requests that Stark review it.

May 3 – Black Widow arrives on the SHIELD helicarrier with Banner while Coulson arrives with Captain America. Banner begins a search for the gamma radiation signature put off by the Tesseract. Intelligence points to Loki being in Stuttgart, Germany.

Rogers and Romanoff head to Stuttgart where they engage Loki. Stark arrives in his Iron Man armor and helps capture Loki. But Loki’s appearance in Germany is a diversion in order for Hawkeye to steal iridium needed by Dr Selvig to build a device for Loki.

While transporting Loki back to the SHIELD helicarrier, the group is intercepted by Thor who wishes to take Loki back to Asgard to persuade Loki from his plan to attack the Earth and a brief skirmish between Stark and Thor ensues.

May 4 – Captain America, Tony Stark and Thor return to the Helicarrier with Loki. Fury places Loki in a cage originally made to hold Banner. In separate investigations, Banner and Stark and Rogers discover that SHIELD’s “Phase Two” is a plan to create Tesseract-powered weapons similar to the ones Hydra used in World War Two as defense against any alien threats. Loki is able to subtly influence the group, playing up their mistrust of each other in an effort to keep them fractured and unable to form a cohesive defense when his army invades.

When tensions hit their highest, a squad of SHIELD soldiers and Barton, all still under the influence of Loki, attack the helicarrier. While Stark and Rogers race to repair one of the helicarrier’s damaged turbines, Banner loses control of the Hulk who rampages through the helicarrier before leaping at one of the ship’s escort fighters and falling. Romanoff manages to free Barton from Loki’s influence through a sharp blow to the head. Loki escapes, killing Coulson in the process. Fury uses Coulson’s death to nudge the heroes into acting as a group.

Meanwhile, Selvig is able to finish the Tesseract-powered device which opens a portal to allow Loki’s army pass through. In a fierce battle in and over midtown Manhattan, the Avengers – Rogers, Stark, Thor, Romanoff, Barton and Banner in more control of the Hulk than has been previously seen – are able keep the Chitauri from establishing a beachhead on Earth but are having trouble driving them back through the wormhole. Fury defies the orders of the World Security Council to launch a nuclear strike on New York, but a SHIELD fighter pilot acts on that order and launches the device. The nuclear missile is intercepted by Stark who redirects it through the wormhole to destroy the Chitauri’s command ship. (With Stark’s passage through the wormhole he becomes the first recorded human to travel beyond the confines of the Earth’s solar system.) The Chitauri on the Earth side of the wormhole collapse as the worm hole is closed when Slevig and Romanoff destroy the Tesseract-powerd device. (Speculation – The Chitauri were biological/mechanical constructs that ran on broadcast power emanating from the other side of the wormhole.)

Afterwards, the Avengers go for shwarma while the Other reports to his master, Thanos, that to attack the humans would be “to court death.”

May 6 – Thor takes Loki and the Tesseract back to Asgard. Banner accompanies Stark back to Stark Tower where Potts is overseeing repairs. Fury defies the World Security Council’s orders to continue monitoring the Avengers’ individual whereabouts.

Key:

A: TAA – The Avengers: The Avengers Initiative one-shot comic

A:BWS – The Avengers: Black Widow Strikes three-issue comic book mini-series

CA:FA – Captain America: The First Avenger film
CA:FV – Captain America: First Vengeance four issue comic book mini-series

FBW – Fury’s Big Week four issue comic book mini-series
FTHWTH – A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To Thor’s Hammer short film

IM – Iron Man movie
IMD – Iron Man deleted scene
IMN – Iron Man novelization by Peter David
IMC1 – Iron Man comic adaptation issue 1
IMC2 –Iron Man comic adaptation issue 2

IM2 – Iron Man 2 movie
IM2N – Iron Man 2 novelization
IM2P- Iron Man 2 promotional/viral
IM2F- Iron Man 2 filmmaker comment

IH- Incredible Hulk movie
IHD – Incredible Hulk deleted/extended scene
IHN – Incredible Hulk novelization by Peter David

TA – The Avengers movie

TC – The Consultant short film

TH – Thor movie

A Note On The Canonicity of Sources: As this is a chronology of the united Marvel Movie Universe*, the films themselves are the final authority as to what is “official” in this unofficial timeline. Of secondary authority are comments from the filmmakers clarifying things presented in the films. Finally, other sources such as deleted scenes, novelizations, viral promotions and comic adaptations are considered tertiary and can be revised or completely discarded if later contradicted by a primary or secondary source. Example – While the events of the deleted opening sequence of Incredible Hulk were originally included in the timeline, events in Captain America have called for some revision.

* This is only for the properties that Marvel Studios owns film rights to and intend on including in their shared universe. Unfortunately, this means no X-Men, Fantastic Four, Daredevil, Spider-Man, Ghost Rider, Blade, Punisher or Howard The Duck.

You’ve got to love AMC Theaters. Much like they do with the Academy Award nominees each year, the theater chain is offering comic book movie fans of great endurance a chance to see all six Marvel films (Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2, Thor, Captain America: The First Avenger and The Avengers) on the big screen, one after the other, all on the same day. Well, two days if you count The Avengers being a midnight showing. That day would be May 3rd.

Tickets for the event are on sale at these theaters:

• Boston Common 19,  Boston, MA
• Burbank 16,  Burbank, CA
• Downtown Disney 12,  Anaheim, CA
• Aventura 24,  Aventura, FL
• Empire 25,  New York, NY
• Garden State 16,  Paramus, NJ
• Downtown Disney 24,  Lake Buena Vista, FL
• Metreon 16,  San Francisco, CA
• Alderwood 16,  Lynnwood, WA
• Tysons Corner 16,  McLean, VA

You can also buy tickets for The Avengers alone at those theaters, if there are any available.  More participating theaters will be announced on March 16.  Tickets for the Marathon cost $40 for the whole day, which comes out to an economical $6.67 per film. The film viewing orgy starts at 11:30 am.

Be forewarned! Thor, Captain America: The First Avenger and The Avengers will be shown in 3D, but it appears that you will be able to select from a choice of four commemorative 3D glasses.

For more information, including the expanded list of theaters, visit http://go.amctheatres.com/marvel