My husband and I LOVE Marvel. Even before we were together, my husband was really into Marvel. I didn't get to develop my secret penchant for geekdom until I started dating him, but it was always there. With the release of Sam Raimi's Spiderman movies, we were hooked into the Marvel universe again. I was learning the lore and backstories and all sorts of things.
See... when I was a kid... my mom told me only losers read comic books and to stay away from them. Only wanting to make my parents happy, I stayed away from the giant bin of comics in our basement that were given to my mom from my older cousin - clearly thinking my brother would like them (because seriously... girls were just not part of that scene back in the day... as much as we want to debate and argue that... it's a rough sell).
As Marvel grew in popularity and finally the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) hatched into existence, we, too, found ourselves pulled into the vortex. I'm not going to get into the whole battle of the fandoms between Marvel and DC. DC has it's merits, but I've found the storytelling and foundational connections much richer in the Marvel Universe, whereas DC continues to go to the same stock characters in every reboot, just attempting to justify the changes that they make. My opinion, not really looking to start a thing.
Again, as I was saying, we were caught in the vortex. So much so that my husband got out his old Marvel (TSR) roleplaying game. He had gotten it out prior when I was working on an "Origin Stories" unit in my seventh grade Literacy class four years ago. We created a character for each student and they had to write an origin story for that character. The sky was the limit for how creative they could be. So I was familiar with the system before he brought it out. But this time... it was my turn to create a character.
From this my secret RPG alter-ego was born: Io Leda from the planet Edhyla - a genetically created being of her planet's species who flees her creator and arrives on Earth, hiding out and trying to fit in.
My god I love her so very much. No, seriously... I have written so much supplemental material on her it is insane! I've been talking to my husband about trying to turn some of our stories into a blog of fanfic, but the jury is still out on that one.
Digressions... I'm sorry. Bottom line... we love Marvel.
When the Infinity Wars trailer dropped, I started seeing .gif posts about watching every MCU movie that would lead you up to the release of Infinity Wars. I liked the sound of that, but then... I thought... maybe I should push it one step further. I like to do that, just to torture myself and then be disappointed when I don't keep up with it. (If you're reading this blog, you know I have a tendency to abandon the wagon when life starts to take up too much of... well... my geek life.)
A while ago, my husband and I were talking about all the ways to watch the movies, especially when we started watching Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (AoS). Do we spread things out and watch the episodes intermingled with the movies.... do we watch the movies as their own entity.... what about the Netflix series? My husband decided he wanted to watch the series in Phases, but that also means we don't technically get to watch Phase 3, because we don't own Phase 3, because Phase 3 is like... a million times bigger than Phase 1 and Phase 2! Absurdly so...
I, though, love getting into the hardcore nitty-gritty of things like this. I don't want to phase it and just leave the TV/Series out. Instead, I'd like to just really throw myself into the convoluted world of all the things. But that created it's own conundrum. I read one article that essentially said it broke up the AoS just to give people a break from AoS. Well... that seems incredibly irresponsible. At the same time, I don't know if I really know where it belongs....
I am in agreement, though, with where to put things like Daredevil and Luke Cage... essentially The Defenders. I know there's a subtle hint here and there about some sort of larger universe connection, but they really are focused on The Hand and not the intergalactic side of it all. I will say, though, haters gonna hate on Iron Fist, but having no preconceived notions I found him to be endearing and NOTHING like all the other "billionaire" superheroes. After his initial phase of mansplaining wore off, I understood him for who he was and it is unique. So I, personally, appreciate his story. Is it my favorite? That's pushing it, but I enjoyed it.
Essentially, I'm not an expert. I've taken several different variations of lists and articles and other and generated one that felt right for me. So fingers crossed that this all goes well.
The Beginning
- Marvel One-Shot: Agent Carter (DVD: IM3) - And then retcon it… hehe.
- Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)
- Marvel's Agent Carter (S1 & 2)
- Iron Man (2008)
- Iron Man 2 (2010)
- Marvel One-Shot: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Thor's Hammer (DVD: CA:FA)
- The Incredible Hulk (2008)
- Marvel One-Shot: The Consultant (DVD: Thor)
- Thor (2011)
- Marvel's The Avengers (2012)
- Marvel One-Shot: Item 47 (DVD: Avengers)
- Iron Man 3 (2013)
- Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (S1, E1-7)
- Marvel One-Shot: All Hail the King (DVD: T:DW)
- Thor: The Dark World (2013)
- Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (S1, E8-15)
- Captain America: Winter Soldier (2014)
- Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (S1, E16-22)
- Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)
- Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017)
- Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (S2, E1-19)
- Marvel's Daredevil (S1)
- Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)
- Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (S2, E20-22)
- Ant-Man (2015)
- Marvel's Jessica Jones (S1)
- Marvel's Daredevil (S2)
- Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (S31-19)
- Captain America: Civil War (2016)
- Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (S3, E20-22)
- Marvel's Luke Cage (S1)
- Doctor Strange (2016)
- Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (S4)
- Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
- Marvel's Iron Fist (S1)
- Marvel's The Defenders (S1)
- Inhumans (S1)
- Marvel's The Punisher (S1)
- Thor: Ragnarok (2017)
- Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (S5, first half)
NOT YET RELEASED
- Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (S5, second half) - I’m sure exactly where this will fit in)
- Black Panther (February, 2018)
- Jessica Jones (S2) (March, 2018)
- Avengers: Infinity War (May, 2018)
- Ant-Man and the Wasp (July, 2018)
- Luke Cage (S2) (2018?)
- Cloak & Dagger (2018?)
