Marvel Cinematic Universe / Tropes A

Tropes for Marvel Cinematic Universe
Tropes A | Tropes B to F | Tropes G to R | Tropes S to Z

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• Abled in the Adaptation:
  • In the comics Hawkeye spent a large part of his run being partially deaf, wearing a hearing aid, and is able to use American Sign Language. In the film incarnation none of this is included. (At first, anyway. As of Hawkeye (2021) he's developed hearing loss.)
  • Thor: In the comics, Thor's "Donald Blake" alias on Earth is a crippled surgeon whose cane would transform into Thor's hammer, which Odin set up in order to teach him humility. Because of the circumstances of Thor's being sent to Earth being different in the MCU, "Donald Blake" is instead an incredibly buff vaguely Scandinavian guy, only used extremely briefly as an alias alibi.
  • In the comic story where Thor suffers Eye Scream while Asgard is being destroyed, he (willingly) loses both of his eyes. A similar thing happens in Thor: Ragnarok, but he only loses one (right) eye during the film's Final Battle, then gains an artificial eye in a later time anyway.
  • Ant-Man: In the comics, Scott's daughter Cassie had a congenital heart condition, which was why Scott took on the mantle of Ant-Man so he could get a hold of the only doctor who could cure her. In the films, Cassie has not shown any signs of this.
  • Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D: Gabriel Reyes in the comics was born with an unspecified neurological disorder (the result of his mother having been pushed down the stairs while pregnant), which left him wheelchair-bound and mentally and developmentally slow. In the show, he's a normal 14 year old who's left paraplegic after the attack that gave his brother, Robbie Reyes, his superhero origin story. In fact, it's indicated he's a very intelligent young man who quickly pieces together who Daisy is after spending a few hours with her during a blackout, which the comics version would most likely not be able to do.
  • Iron Fist: Harold Meachum in the comics had his legs amputated. Harold Meachum in the show still has his legs.
• Aborted Arc:
  • The Incredible Hulk:
    • This movie's poor box-office returns created a big one involving Dr. Samuel Sterns and his Start of Darkness. Though the studio was able to continue Bruce Banner's character arc with his appearance in The Avengers, the lack of direct sequels to The Incredible Hulk meant that we never got to see the fallout from Sterns using Banner's gamma-irradiated blood to turn himself into the Leader. This plot thread was eventually continued in the Fury's Big Week comic that was released as a prequel to The Avengers. In it, Sterns uses his new abilities to attack Black Widow, only to end up knocked out and taken into custody by S.H.I.E.L.D..
    • The even bigger plot thread was The Stinger that showed Thunderbolt Ross partnering with Tony Stark to take down the Hulk. This was never mentioned in any of the subsequent films. This was explained in the short film The Consultant; S.H.I.E.L.D. sent Stark as a patsy to ruin the relationship with Ross after the World Security Council ordered Fury to add the Abomination to the roster of the Avengers.
  • Captain America: The Winter Soldier seemed to be hinting at a romance between Steve Rogers and Sharon Carter, with the two even kissing in the sequel, Captain America: Civil War. This element was dropped in subsequent films, with Sharon not even appearing (or even getting mentioned by name) in Avengers: Infinity War or Avengers: Endgame. She eventually returns in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier and reveals that she's rather bitter about being left behind like that.
• Action Film, Quiet Drama Scene: Nearly every film takes a break from all the non-stop battles at least once to have the characters catch their breath, talk, and process just what's going on.
• Action Girl: Just about every film or series in the franchise has at least one woman that takes part in the fighting. Examples can be found on the trope's Live-Action Films and Live-Action TV pages.
• Actionized Sequel:
  • The shared continuity allowed The Avengers to play this trope for all it's worth; since each of the characters got their own movie detailing their origin story and character background^note except Hawkeye and Black Widow, but the former makes a couple cameos in Thor that reveal that he's a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent and the latter has a supporting role in Iron Man 2 the writers could afford to make the majority of the exposition be about the team as a whole, rather than focusing on each character's history.
  • Thanks to ten years' worth of movie doing the exposition work for it, Avengers: Infinity War is the most action-packed film in the MCU by far. Even the subsequent Grand Finale Avengers: Endgame is not as loaded in this front, though it compensates in sheer volume, with the whole final third being a massive battle with just about everyone introduced in the previous movies.
• Adaptation Amalgamation:
  • The Avengers draws heavily from not only the mainstream Avengers comics, but The Ultimates as well. Loki is still used as the reason behind the team's formation, but a number of elements (such as Hawkeye and Black Widow being black-ops agents and founding members of the team, and the team being formed to combat an alien invasion by the Chitauri, whom Loki commands in the MCU) come from the Ultimate universe.
  • Iron Man 3 combines elements of the "Extremis" arc by Warren Ellis, most notably the Extremis itself and many characters from that comic such as Aldrich Killian, the "Sentient Armor" arc by Joe Quesada, the Mandarin's origin story, more plot points from the "Armor Wars" arc, "The Five Nightmares" arc with Ezekiel Stane, and the Civil War story.
  • Captain America: The Winter Soldier is based off a storyline from Ed Brubaker's run, but Captain America sports his Secret Avengers costume, while The Falcon looks like his Ultimate incarnation. The storyline also has elements of the "S.H.I.E.L.D. Gone Bad" storylines Nick Fury vs. S.H.I.E.L.D. and Secret Warriors, due to Alexander Pierce taking on the role of Aleksandr Lukin as Winter Soldier's handler.
  • Avengers: Age of Ultron incorporates Ultron and The Vision's intro story (Avengers #54–58), Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch leaving a terrorist organization to join the Avengers (Avengers #16) (in the case of the film, HYDRA, though Scarlet Witch orchestrate's Ultron's creation and serves him with Quicksilver until he goes too far), the Sentient Armor story-line in which Iron Man created an AI suit that went insane and tried to kill him (Iron Man vol.3 #26–30), Ultron using multiple bodies (Ultron Unlimited), and the name of the Crisis Crossover Age of Ultron.
  • Thor: Ragnarok is adapted from both the Thor: Ragnarok storyline, involving the Ragnarok on Asgard (this time with Hela taking a prominent role as the main antagonist) and Planet Hulk (the appearance of the planet Sakaar in the film, and the involvement of Hulk, Korg, and Miek, though Grandmaster is the one who takes on Red King's role as the planet's ruler).
  • The plot of Black Panther is largely drawn from Don McGregor's "Panther's Rage" arc from The '70s (Killmonger igniting a violent insurrection in Wakanda, which leads to a duel with T'Challa atop Warrior Falls), but also has story elements and major characters taken from from Christopher Priest (Nakia and Okoye) and Reginald Hudlin's (Shuri) respective runs. Some of the visuals (namely the new Black Panther suit) were also taken from the very recent run by Ta-Nehisi Coates and Brian Stelfreeze.
  • Avengers: Infinity War is an adaptation of The Thanos Quest and The Infinity Gauntlet (notably the fact that this is the film where he goes after all the Infinity Stones), but takes elements from Infinity as well in order to make Thanos' plot tied more closely to Earth. It also has elements of Annihilation and Secret Invasion.
  • Captain Marvel combines the title character's origin story with elements lifted from The Kree/Skrull War, such as the war itself.
  • Avengers: Endgame, like Infinity War, draws from The Infinity Gauntlet, but the Time Heist which takes up much of the middle section has a similar premise to Avengers Forever, with additional elements cribbed from J. Michael Straczynski's run on The Mighty Thor, Fear Itself, The Ultimates volume 3, and Rick Remender's run on Captain America.
  • The Falcon and the Winter Soldier draws from the Captain America John Walker story arc from the 80s, Captain America: Sam Wilson, and Truth: Red, White & Black.
• Adaptation Distillation: Most of the elements are taken from the main Marvel Universe from comic books, but it may also include elements from alternate universes from the comics. For example, Nick Fury is similar to the one from Ultimate Marvel, and Tony Stark sports a goatee like in Heroes Reborn.
• Adaptation Dye-Job: Has its own page.
• Adaptation Name Change: Has its own page.
• Adaptation Origin Connection:
  • In Iron Man, Obadiah Stane is a long term business partner to both Tony Stark and his father. His betrayal is what leads to the creation of Iron Man. In the comics, Stane has no connection to Tony's origin, being simply a rival arms manufacturer.
  • In The Incredible Hulk, the Abomination is a soldier working under Thunderbolt Ross who gets a dose of Captain America's Super Soldier serum and then doses himself with a vial of Bruce Banner's blood obtained from Samuel Stern, rather than merely a KGB spy who bombarded himself with gamma rays. Speaking of Samuel Stern, the forgotten Sequel Hook implied that the Leader's origin would be tied to the events of this film^note Stern is last seen mutating after accidentally becoming infected with a sample of Banner's gamma-irradiated blood., rather than him having been a janitor who accidentally broke open a container of gamma waste.
  • In Iron Man 2, Anton Vanko also has ties to Tony's father and the past of Stark Enterprises, though this is closer to the inverse, as Stark's family is tied to the birth of Whiplash rather than Vanko being involved in the creation of Iron Man.
  • In Captain America: The First Avenger, Red Skull was a recipient of a previous version of the Super Soldier serum. In the comics, he was just a guy that Hitler trained and given a mask to be more scary. For a time, he did possess a cloned body of Cap and an accident did turn his head into a shriveled red skull looking thing, but that's not how he was in WWII.
  • In Iron Man 3, the Big Bad turns out to be Aldrich Killian, a vengeful scientist that Tony was a massive dick to in the past. Lampshaded when Tony points out that one of the major themes of the movie is how we all create our own demons.
  • Minor example in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, but Brock Rumlow is introduced as a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent and ally of Captain America. In the comics, Rumlow is just some asshole mercenary who works for the Red Skull. The events of the movie turn him into Crossbones when he gets caught in a collapsing building trying to subdue Sam Wilson, returning for a brief moment in Captain America: Civil War under the "Crossbones" moniker.
  • Guardians of The Galaxy ties Ronan the Accuser with the origin story of Drax the Destroyer by having Ronan be a puppet of Thanos that performed the killing of Drax's family, so Drax switches targets to Thanos once Ronan is dead by film's end. In the comics, said atrocity was all Thanos' doing and he was the sole target of Drax's obsession.
  • In Avengers: Age of Ultron, Ultron, Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver and The Vision are all either created or empowered by the Mind Stone.
  • Each of the artifacts that turn out to be Infinity Stones in the movies have nothing to do with each other or the Infinity Gems in the comics.
  • Ant-Man made Darren Cross into a Composite Character for this exact reason. He's introduced as the protege of Hank Pym (the original Ant-Man), and later becomes Yellowjacket, the Evil Counterpart of Scott Lang (the new Ant-Man). Edgar Wright cited the use of this trope in the first Iron Man movie as a major inspiration, arguing that the hero and villain getting their powers from the same source makes for a simpler and more coherent story.
  • In Captain America: Civil War, Black Panther's father is killed in the present day by Zemo, the film's Big Bad, and a large chunk of the story revolves around Black Panther trying to kill Bucky Barnes, who has been blamed for the deed. In a broader sense, it could be argued that Black Panther's origin is tied to the Avengers, as the whole reason he and his dad come to Europe in the first place is to address the events of Avengers: Age of Ultron. His origin was fairly isolated in the comics, as his dad was killed by a Dutch scientist named Ulysses Klaw many years ago. This film also sees Iron Man taking a young Spider-Man under his wing, and later providing the boy with his trademark costume and upgraded web-shooters. In the comics, Peter's outfit was something he designed himself.
  • In Spider-Man: Homecoming, the Vulture's winged flight suit is created from leftover technology from the Chitauri invasion seen in The Avengers, and the entire reason he's a villain in the first place is because Tony Stark ruined his business. It's also revealed late in the game that the Vulture is the father of Liz Allan, Peter's love interest. Additionally, the Shocker's gauntlet is created from one of the gauntlets used by Crossbones in the above-mentioned Civil War.
  • Likewise, in Spider-Man: Far From Home, Mysterio turns out to be a bitter former Stark International employee who tried to con people into thinking he was a superhero after being fired for his unstable demeanor.
  • It's left ambiguous, but there are hints in the season finale of Jessica Jones that the car accident that granted Jessica her powers may have somehow been connected to the Super-Soldier program that Simpson ("Nuke" in the comics) is involved with.
  • In The Punisher, Billy Russo (A.K.A Jigsaw) is Frank Castle's former friend who served alongside him in the military.
  • In Cloak and Dagger, D'Spayre gained his abilities from the same accident at the Roxxon oil rig that empowered the titular heroes.
• Adaptation Personality Change: Every hero in the universe has been altered to some degree, with the most consistent change being that none of them abide by the Thou Shall Not Kill trope, even the ones who ardently lived by it in the comics. See the trope's Film page for the full list (with a few others on the Live-Action TV page).
• Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: Has its own page.
• Adaptation Species Change:
  • In the Guardians of the Galaxy comics, Drax the Destroyer and Mantis were both humans originally from Earth; their powers and unusual appearances come from being genetically altered/trained by aliens. In the film and its sequel, both are aliens. It's also possible that Rocket, before being granted intelligence by experiment, was not a terrestrial raccoon but some alien animal that happened to look like one.
  • Also in Guardians of The Galaxy Vol.2, Ego the Living Planet is a Celestial instead of "just" a sentient planet.
  • Thanks to rights issues^note The X-Men Film Series rights belonged to 20th Century Fox rather than Marvel Studios and Disney until 2019 when Disney acquired them outright, meaning mutant characters like Magneto could not be used in the first three phases of the MCU. the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver are not depicted as mutants. In Avengers: Age of Ultron, it's shown that they were ordinary humans who received special abilities from experimentation done with Loki's cosmic scepter. This change carried over to the comics, where their powers were Retconned into being the result of experimentation from the High Evolutionary combined with coming from a magical bloodline, with Magneto no longer being their father.
  • Redwing in the comics is a bird with a telepathic link to The Falcon. Here, Redwing is reimagined as a drone of entirely technological origin, in part because Falcon here is a Badass Normal in this universe.
  • Subverted by Edwin Jarvis. He's human in the comics, but the Jarvis introduced in Iron Man is an Artificial Intelligence. However, as first shown in supplemental material, it turns out that this computer program is based on the actual Edwin Jarvis, who was given an Age Lift and served Tony's father instead.
  • In the The Mighty Thor comics, Hela and Fenris are jotun (giants) as the children of Loki. In Thor: Ragnarok, they are Asgardians instead since they are no longer related to Loki by blood; Hela is a biological daughter of Odin while Fenris is merely listed as an "Asgardian wolf".
  • Avengers: Infinity War reveals that Thanos is a member of a race called the Titans who hail from a planet called Titan (which is apparently not Saturn's moon of the same name). In the comics, he was an Eternal, one of a splinter race of humanity who were forcibly altered by the Celestials and chose to leave Earth to resettle on Titan (Saturn's largest moon).
  • Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D:
    • In the Secret Warriors comics, both Quake and Slingshot were human women who gained superpowers as a result of having superhuman fathers (Mister Hyde and Griffin, respectively). In the show, they're both Inhumans.
    • Likewise, Hive was a human HYDRA agent who was subjected to an experiment involving ravenous parasites that ended up bonding with him. The series has him as an ancient and powerful Inhuman.
    • In the comics, Hellfire's powers are supernatural in nature, and stem from him being the grandson of Carter Slade, the original Ghost Rider. In the show, Hellfire is yet another Inhuman.
  • In Cloak and Dagger, D'Spayre is a human who gained powers from a scientific accident rather than a demon.
  • Runaways:
    • Molly is a mutant in the comics, but because the X-Men franchise was off-limits at the time, the TV show depicts her as a human who got powers from extraterrestrial rocks that her parents had been studying.
    • Likewise, Xavin is a Skrull in the comics, but a Xartan (an existing but far more obscure race of alien shapeshifters) in the series.
• Adaptational Abomination:
  • Doctor Strange: Dormammu was always a Humanoid Abomination, but his comic version was still a recognizably humanoid Evil Sorcerer. His live-action film counterpart isn't even remotely humanoid beyond a face and exists outside of time while he tries to assimilate universes into his Dark Dimension.
  • Guardians of The Galaxy Vol.2: While Ego the Living Planet was quite powerful, the Ego of the film is more of a cosmic being despite having the ability to take a human form. His true form is a giant glowing brain with the planet being something he formed for himself rather than just being a planet that was given consciousness. He becomes more Lovecraftian when his true colors are revealed, as his expansion plot involves spreading pieces of himself to grow like tumors on other planets.
  • Spider-Man: Far From Home: Invoked and subverted with the Elementals, who are portrayed by Mysterio as immortal beings who have inspired myths throughout history and are capable of destroying the entire planet. Except actually don't exist at all, at least in the incarnations Mysterio presents, as they are his illusions he uses to pretend to be a hero. Morris Bench, the "real" Hydro-Man, is mentioned to supposedly exist as a "mere" superpowered human.
  • In WandaVision, the Darkhold describes the Scarlet Witch and her chaos magic as an eldritch figure; in the comics she's just a normal if powerful sorceress.
• Adaptational Attractiveness: Has its own page.
• Adaptational Backstory Change: This happened in general with the verse, which changed not just the time of the origins of superheroes and villains set in the present, but also made various heavy modifications compared to the original source. A good example is HYDRA, which was founded by Red Skull as the scientist arm of the Nazi Party in the 40s instead of being just an evil organization founded by Baron Zemo that allied the Nazis as in the comic books.
• Adaptational Badass: has its own page.
• Adaptational Early Appearance:
  • The Avengers has both Black Widow and Hawkeye as original members, even though both characters joined later rosters in the comics.
  • Captain America from his second solo movie on draws heavily from Ed Brubaker’s work with the character that started in 2004. The most prominent aspect of his work in the MCU is his reinvention of The Winter Soldier, Bucky Barnes. Bucky was changed from a long dead Kid Sidekick to someone who was kidnapped by the Soviets in World War 2 and turned into an assassin with a metal arm.
  • Ultron is the main villain of Avengers: Age of Ultron, and is accidentally created by Tony Stark. In the accepted comics canon, Hank Pym (the first Ant-Man) created Ultron, but Hank had not even been introduced at this point in the MCU.
  • The Avengers had already been published for about a decade when Thanos first appeared in 1973. In the MCU, Thanos has essentially been the franchise's Greater-Scope Villain since the first Avengers movie, where he was revealed to be the Man Behind the Man in The Stinger.
  • In the comics, James Rhodes didn't appear as part of Iron Man's supporting cast until 1979, and didn't become War Machine until 1992. He's part of Tony's supporting cast from Day 1 in the first Iron Man movie, and becomes War Machine in the very next movie. In this continuity, he effectively predates a bunch of characters who have been around a lot longer in the comics, like Spider-Man, Doctor Strange and Hawkeye.
  • Spider-Man: Homecoming:
    • Inverted with Spider-Man himself. In the comics, he predated Iron Man and the formation of the Avengers, and was in fact, probably the only major Marvel hero at the time not to be a member of the team when the book first launched. Because Spider-Man's movie rights were off-limits during the first two Phases of the MCU, he doesn't show up in the movies until several years after the Avengers have already been formed (and when he is, they go back to the beginning and thus give him an Age Lift in comparison to the others). In fact, Peter Parker's idolization of the Avengers (especially Iron Man) is a plot point.
    • Done retroactively via the creators that the kid in the Iron Man mask that Tony rescues from the Hammer Drone in Iron Man 2 was a young Peter.
    • Iron Spider and Tony's mentoring role are also a case, as these are things that didn't happen until Peter was married and in his twenties. Here, he's 15 when he meets Tony and the Iron Spider suit is gifted to him six months later.
    • As an Expy / Race Lift of Mary Jane Watson, Michelle, A.K.A "MJ," would count as well, since she's introduced as Peter's high school classmate in Spidey's first solo MCU outing, while Gwen Stacy has yet to be introduced in this continuity.
    • Also by extension, pretty much every other teen character and young hero in contrast; Peter was a grown man by the time other teen heroes started showing up, and is Older and Wiser than most of them now. Here, Peter's at least decade younger than Jessica Jones (who he went to high school with) and Daisy Johnson (who is almost a decade younger than him in the comics), and is the same age/younger than such heroes like the Runaways and Cloak and Dagger.
  • Shuri is present from the very beginning of Black Panther, even though she wasn't introduced until the 2005 run of the comics. Same goes for the Dora Milaje, one of whom even appeared in Captain America: Civil War, despite not existing in the comics until The '90s. Somewhat a Justified Trope though, as in both cases, the characters were Remember the New Guy? and depicted as having always been part of Black Panther's cast; later stories set during T'Challa's early years or flashbacks to previous eras in the comics have depicted them as being around the whole time, and just never mentioned/seen during these previous stories.
• Adaptational Heroism: Has its own page.
• Adaptational Late Appearance:
  • In the comics, Spider-Man predated Iron Man and the formation of The Avengers, and was not a member of the team when the book first launched. Because Spider-Man's movie rights were off-limits during the first two Phases of the MCU, he doesn't show up in the movies until several years after the Avengers have already been formed. In fact, his idolization of the Avengers (especially Iron Man) is a plot point. Then done retroactively after the release of Spider-Man: Homecoming, via the creators that the kid in the Iron Man mask that Tony rescues from the Hammer Drone in Iron Man 2 was a young Peter.
  • Played with in the absence of The Wasp and Ant-Man in the first two phases of the MCU. In the comics, Hank Pym and Janet van Dyne were founding members of the Avengers, and in fact Jan was the one who coined the name "Avengers" in the first place, while Hank was the creator of Ultron. Instead, Nick Fury named the team^note Eventually revealed in Captain Marvel to have been inspired by Carol Danvers' USAF Call Sign. and the creation of Ultron fell to Stark and Banner. And then it's turned on its head when Ant-Man was finally released in Phase Three, with the revelation that Hank and Jan predated the Avengers, working as operatives of S.H.I.E.L.D. during the Cold War. Making it both an Adaptational Late Appearance in the context of the franchise as a whole, and an In-Universe early appearance.
  • In the comics, the Mandarin was one of Iron Man's earliest villains, and his ArchEnemy. Although a charlatan claiming to be the Mandarin shows up in Iron Man 3, the real Mandarin doesn't appear until the 2021 movie Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, a full 13 years after the release of the original Iron Man movie. Because of this, the Mandarin instead fights Shang-Chi, as Iron Man was killed off at the end of Avengers: Endgame 2 years prior.
  • Adam Warlock doesn't join the Guardians of the Galaxy until the third movie (though his cocoon appeared in The Stinger of the second movie), while his comic counterpart was one of the founding members of that version of the team.
  • Because their film rights belonged to 20th Century Fox until Disney bought the company in 2019, the Fantastic Four and the X-Men were legally barred from appearing during the first 3 phases of the MCU. In the original comics, the Fantastic Four predated the Avengers (and kickstarted the entire Marvel Universe), while the X-Men debuted in 1963, the same year the Avengers first came together. Instead, the MCU has the Avengers as the team that kickstarted the universe, and many characters who came much later in the comics (like the Guardians of the Galaxy) ended up making their debuts years before the FF or X-Men. Additionally, certain characters who were originally created for those series (like Black Panther, who started off as a Fantastic Four supporting character back in The '60s) ended up having their own movie debuts ahead of them as well. A further consequence of this was that movies adapted from stories that included those characters had to omit them, meaning that the FF were not in the movie version of Civil War, and that Wolverine and the Silver Surfer could not join the fight against Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War or Avengers: Endgame, even though they did in the original story.
• Adaptational Nice Guy:
  • In the films, Thanos is a Well-Intentioned Extremist, believing that if he doesn't do something, the universe will suffer from overpopulation, environmental damage, and wars for resources, and leaving half of Gamora's species alive. In the comics, he worshiped Death the entity, was a nihilist, killed half the universe to as an offering to Death and actually enjoyed reliving his crimes when subjected to Ghost Rider's Penance Stare. Though in the films and Gamora's people were decimated by Thanos who abducts her from her mother, whilst in the comics Thanos rescues Gamora from the genocide of her people at hands of zealots and adopts her.
  • While Robert Downey Jr.'s take on Tony Stark / Iron Man is still a Jerk with a Heart of Gold like in the comics, there's much more emphasis on the "heart of gold" than the "jerk" part (in particular, he's surprisingly good with kids). For one thing, while comics Tony still initially remained an arms dealer even after becoming Iron Man, this version began shutting down that part of the business the moment he got back to America. This difference particularly comes through in Captain America: Civil War; in the original Civil War comic, Tony willingly adopts ever more extreme (to the point of downright villainous) methods in order to enforce the Superhero Registration Act, while in the film, he's visibly bothered by the more extreme means used by the government to enforce the Sokovia Accords.
  • Similar to Tony, Hank Pym is much nicer in the Ant-Man movie than in the comics, where he's a deranged Fallen Hero whose hurt everyone close to him. In the movie while grouchy Hank is a Cool Old Guy who loves his wife Janet and daughter Hope and will do anything for them. In comics Hank has infamously troubled relationship with Janet which led to a divorce and never even met his daughter Nadia.
    • Hope is also much nicer than comic version, where she’s the psychotic Red Queen who tried to kill the Avengers.
  • Loki in the comics was a chaotic villain and did his best to bring about Ragnarok and also cause mayhem on Earth as well. In the films while he’s still villainous for most part, Loki genuinely loves his brother Thor, his mother Frigga and father Odin. In comics he had no qualms trying to kill his Asgard family multiple times.
  • In Black Panther, T'Challa is a charming, friendly, and charismatic politician who gets along with most people he meets. This is in stark contrast with the comic book version, who is often smug, secretive, and standoffish towards non-Wakandans (especially Westerners).
  • Adrian Toomes aka The Vulture is a despicable old man in the comics who is always out for himself. In Spider-Man: Homecoming though he’s still a criminal Toomes only wants to support his family and actually has Villain Respect for Spider-Man to extent where he doesn’t give Spidey’s identity away to the Scorpion when questioned.
  • In Captain Marvel, Yon-Rogg is a sincere Kree nationalist who wants to protect his people and serve their interests, however ruthless and deceptive that requires him to be. His comic counterpart was a jealous backstabber who betrayed his subordinates for personal gain and was eventually outed as a traitor.
  • Daredevil: In the comics, Bullseye is an absolute psychopath who can't go a single scene without showing off some misogyny, racism and/or casual violence. In the Netflix adaptation, Benjamin "Dex" Poindexter has severe psychological problems, but he's actually pleasant to all but the worst of people (Wilson Fisk), though this sociopathy begins to rear its head after he begins committing murders for Fisk.
• Adaptational Protagonist:
  • In The Infinity Gauntlet, the Avengers are basically there to help up the death toll and make for an exciting battle with the all-but-godlike Thanos. In particular, Iron Man has his head unceremoniously pulled off and Captain America is the last man standing before Thanos shatters his shield and snaps his neck. Instead, Adam Warlock is the one who plans and finally carries out a plan to bring Thanos down. When the story was adapted into the events of Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, the Avengers take center stage, with Iron Man being the one to put Thanos down once and for all; at this point in the MCU, Adam Warlock had yet to exist aside from a cameo in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, and would not surface until the aftermath in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.
  • The Civil War event was a Crisis Crossover involving the whole Marvel Universe and focusing on different viewpoints from the two fractions of Captain America and Iron Man. While both of them and some other superheroes are involved in the narrative of Captain America: Civil War, the movie is clearly a Captain America movie and a follow-up to Steve Rogers' and Bucky Barnes' story in Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
  • Captain Marvel (2019) is loosly based on Avengers: The Kree/Skrull War. The movie lets out all the other Avengers and while the storyline in the comics involves Captain Marvel, it is the Mar-Vell incarnation of the character while the movie is about Carol Danvers.
  • An odd case with Thor: Ragnarok: The Sakaar-arc of that movies is based on Planet Hulk which is a story about the Hulk. While Hulk appears in the movie as the deuteragonist, the protagonist of the movie is of course Thor - who isn't part of the original storyline at all.
• Adaptational Superpower Change:
  • Zig-zagged when it came to magic-users in phases one and most of two. Loki from the Thor movies and the reality warping Scarlet Witch from Avengers: Age of Ultron had their powers described in pseudo-scientific terms instead of mystical ones in order to not break disbelief, though Thor makes clear in his first film that "magic" is just another name for the same things. Wanda's abilities were originally psychic in nature and heavily toned down, while Loki's weren't explained but could be the result of Asgardian super-tech. Then Doctor Strange came out, and they didn't have any reason to play coy with magic anymore. Loki described his abilities as magical in his show, and Wanda's powers were Retconned to being magic as well brought up to her reality warping level from the comics.
  • When the Mandarin was formally introduced in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, his rings were changed from each giving its own unique superpower to armbands that can be telekinetically controlled (usually in a manner similar to Chain Pain) and grant abilities like Super-Strength, energy Hand Blasts, and Immortality. The change away from hand-based jewelry was likely done to avoid comparisons to Thanos and the Infinity Gauntlet. The comics also explain that the ring powers look like magic but are actually alien in origin, while the movie makes it a point to say that their origin is unidentified and aren't recognizable as any kind of alien, supertech, or mystical artifact.
  • The Falcon, being a more grounded, realistic character in the MCU than in the comics, lacks a telepathic connection with birds. Instead of having a pet bird named Redwing that he has such a bond with, Redwing is a remote-controlled birdlike robotic drone.
  • The MCU incarnation of The Vision adds Super-Toughness to his powerset, with vibranium incorporated into the 3-D-printed cells of his body. The laser beam he projects from his forehead gem has also ramped up in power, since the jewel is an Infinity Stone here.
  • In the comics, Star-Lord is essentially a normal human who uses various bits of alien gear that he's picked up. The movies mostly follow suit, but Guardians of The Galaxy Vol.2 shows that as the son of Ego the Living Planet (itself an Adaptation Species Change for Star-Lord), he can channel Ego's powers including matter-manipulation and immortality. However, Ego is dead by the end of the film, leaving Star-Lord a baseline human once more as there's no longer a power source to draw from.
  • In the comics, Darren Cross was mutated into a Hulk-like behemoth with superhuman strength. Ant-Man made him a Sizeshifter instead so that he could serve as the title character's Evil Counterpart.
  • Ant-Man and The Wasp:
    • Janet Van Dyne, the first Wasp, started as an ordinary human who used a special suit that allowed her to shrink and fire energy blasts, before later being genetically augmented so that those powers were now internalized within her own body. In the movies, Janet never had the energy projectile abilities and her shrinking always came from the suit, as she didn't undergo the procedures to receive actual superpowers. Instead, she later gained vague, quantum-related powers that involve Healing Hands and Telepathy as a result of having been trapped in the Quantum Realm for decades.
    • Another change: Janet's wings are part of her body in the comics, and have been that way from the beginning, even back when she needed Hank's technology to change size and fire projectiles. In the movies, Janet's wings were instead built into her suit, and the same goes for her daughter, Hope.
    • Ghost in the comics is a baseline human who gains ghost-like abilities via a special suit. In Ant-Man and the Wasp, his Gender-Flipped counterpart got these powers via an accident, and thus can use them freely of the suit (which helps keep her stable but isn't completely needed) albeit at the cost of the powers slowly killing her.
  • In Captain Marvel, a major character is the Skrull warrior Talos. In the comics, Talos was born with a defect that deprived him of his species' ability to shapeshift. In Captain Marvel, however, this is not the case, as he not only has these abilities, but uses them to infiltrate S.H.I.E.L.D. This reimagining of the character was due to the notion that Talos' character arc from the comics would be hard to pitch to film audiences, since the Skrulls are a race whose entire gimmick is their Voluntary Shapeshifting. It also gives his actor, Ben Mendelsohn, more face time.
  • In Agent Carter, Whitney Frost has the ability to turn people into shadow energy called "Darkforce" and absorb it. Her comics counterpart Madame Masque has no actual powers.
  • Inhumans:
    • Black Bolt still has his trademark Sonic Scream, but is no longer a Flying Brick. In fact, while he still has enhanced strength (just nowhere near the level he has in the comics), he can't fly at all. He does not appear to possess the power to manipulate electrons like his comic counterpart either.
    • Maximus' mind control powers were removed in order to make him an Anti-Villain instead of a Card-Carrying Villain. Since the show places powerless Inhumans at the bottom of a Fantastic Caste System, being powerless himself gives him more motivation to start a coup than just For the Evulz.
    • In the comics, Karnak is a Badass Normal with Charles Atlas Superpowers and the ability to find the impurities in anything. The TV version of Karnak is explicitly superhuman and seems to possess some sort of nebulously-defined "super analysis." Karnak's change is likely because they wanted the Fantastic Caste System to apply only to Maximus.
    • Also in the comics, Auran is a yellow-skinned Inhuman with large, bat-like ears that give her "parabolic hearing" (she can listen for specific words and determine exactly where they were said). In the TV show, she looks like a normal human and instead possesses a Wolverine-like Healing Factor.
  • Jessica Jones:
    • The titular character is not a Flying Brick here. Instead, she starts out with Super-Strength and learns how to perform powerful jumps with it along with a downplayed version of Super-Toughness.
    • In the comics, Nuke has pills that serve as placebos; they give him the illusion of increased adrenaline and therefore increase his power. The pills on the show do genuinely grant superhuman power for a time, as shown when Trish steals one and beats Nuke into submission.
  • In the comics, Moon Knight is usually a Badass Normal, though certain runs have also depicted him as being able to draw Super-Strength from the moon. Here he can form his costume around him out of thin air, which grants him super strength and the ability to summon weapons, and also heals his injuries.
  • Ms. Marvel (2022): Multiple characters are adapted for the show with a brand new shared origin of being "djinn" (explicitly not the mythological kind, but extradimensional Human Aliens called by a mythological name), though the execution is slightly different for different characters:
    • In the Ms. Marvel comics, Kamala and Kamran are Inhumans who received unique superpowers when exposed to Terrigen Mists: Kamala has super-elasticity that she could use to change size and extend her limbs, while Kamran could make objects explode. In the show, they're part-djinn and can have their inherent powers unlocked,^note Kamala is one-eighth djinn and has hers unlocked by an heirloom bangle, while Kamran is half-djinn (or maybe full; we've never seen the father) and gained his powers by receiving his mother's energy allowing them to create crystalline Hard Light constructs; Kamala can use them as extendable limbs like in the comics, but they can also be used to create crude objects like midair platforms and force-field body armor.
    • Kamala's bangle appears to have additional abilities of its own. In addition to activating her innate powers, it seemingly grants visions, can break down the barrier between Earth and the djinn home realm, enables Time Travel, and can teleport Kamala and Carol Danvers so that they switch places. None of these are part of Kamala's powerset in the comics, and her bangle there is just a mundane object. The final episode also notes that Kamala appears to have some kind of genetic mutation — explicitly referencing the X-Men — that is also affecting her djinn abilities in an unspecified way.
    • The Destine family of the comic book ClanDestine are half-genies that have immortality (or at least longevity) and their own personal powers. The show makes their counterparts the Clandestines full-blooded djinn (though as stated above, not "actual" djinn). On Earth, the djinn abilities are sealed; the Clandestines have the Destines' longevity but merely have increased durability and strength instead of unique powers.
• Adaptational Sympathy: MCU has a habit of making the origins of its villains more sympathetic than those of their comic book counterparts. Ghost, Killmonger, Loki, Taskmaster and Vulture all get this treatment. The full list of examples can be found on its own page.
• Adaptational Ugliness:
  • In the comics Hank Pym aka Ant-Man is a handsome blonde man and Janet Van Dyne aka The Wasp is a Head-Turning Beauty. In Ant-Man and it’s sequel Hank and Janet are given a Age Lift into being a older couple played by Michael Douglas and Michelle Pfeiffer who are in their 70s and 60s respectively, and while obviously neither are ugly (especially not Pfeiffer) they aren’t in their prime like their comic book counterparts are.
  • Flash Thompson, former Jerk Jock bully turned friend of Spider-Man is usually depicted as a tall musclebound stud in the comics and previous film adaptations. In Spider-Man: Homecoming Flash has got a unimposing build and is more of a unathletic loser compared to the sporty Chick Magnet of the comics, this was deliberate on the part in the filmmakers to reflect the cyberbully age.
  • Nebula when she first appeared in the comics was a blue-skinned space babe with luscious black hair. Eventually she lost her hair and got some minor cybernetic upgrade but still remained beautiful, in Guardians of The Galaxy Nebula’s Cyborg aspects are dialed up as she’s lost most of her skin and unlike the comics has Black Eyes of Evil. However due to the success of the films, comic Nebula would adopt her movie design.
  • Proxima Midnight in the comics is similar to Nebula is a blue skinned attractive alien woman who wears a ominous Cool Helmet that always covers most of her head. In Avengers: Infinity War Midnight is much uglier, with her helmet being turned into curving horns, and unlike her adoptive sisters Gamora and Nebula she’s mopcapped with CGI making her look more inhuman.
• Adaptational Villainy: Has its own page.
• Adaptational Wimp: Has its own page.
• Adapted Out:
  • Avengers: Infinity War was based on the comic book The Infinity Gauntlet. However, Adam Warlock, a protagonist of the comic, did not take part in that film.
  • Many characters from Marvel Comics that have been licensed to other studios don't appear. As a result, adaptions of storylines that include a character that is off-limits are rewritten to avoid it. For example, Jean Grey does not appear in the conflict between Jessica Jones and Kilgrave, Ultron is made of Vibranium instead of Adamantium (granted some of his bodies in the comics were made of an alloy of the two metals), Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch had a father who is not Magneto (which was the case in the early comics), and so on. This limitation largely applied to the Infinity Saga, prior to Marvel's partnership with Sony and Disney's acquistion of the Fox licenses with the company as a whole.
• Advertised Extra:
  • Maria Hill was featured on many of the posters of The Avengers alongside the team and Nick Fury. Ultimately she gets one action scene to herself in the first ten minutes, and after that is mostly a bystander. As she has at least three deleted scenes, it's safe to say that much of her material was cut for time. Some have theorised it was an attempt to disguise the glaring fact that Black Widow was the only female Avenger.
  • Nick Fury got a lot of presence in the posters and trailers for Avengers: Age of Ultron, despite his role being much smaller than in the first one.
  • Sharon Carter in Captain America: Civil War. She is heavily featured in the merchandise and promotional art for the film as a member of Team Cap, including illustrations of her fighting alongside the others against Team Iron Man. In the actual film, she never suits up in the uniform she's seen wearing in the illustrations, nor does she officially join Team Cap or fight against Team Iron Man.
  • Spider-Man: Homecoming:
    • Iron Man's supporting role was greatly played up, with the character being prominently featured in the marketing and merchandise. In reality, Tony only shows up in a few scenes, and only one of those actually has him wearing the armor.
    • Likewise, Zendaya's mysterious Michelle was prominently featured on the theatrical poster, even though the character doesn't get much screen time. This is particularly egregious since Ned, who has a much larger role, and Liz, who is Peter's actual love interest, aren't on the poster.
  • Odd example with Doctor Strange's role in Thor: Ragnarok. He only appears in one scene in the first act, and most of the promotion for the movie made sure to avoid exaggerating the size of his role. However, the preview for the movie included in the guide for the D23 expo definitely tried to make it seem like Strange had a much larger part than he actually does, likely due to the success of his solo movie:
    If you need even more intergalactic, world-saving action, Thor: Ragnarok in November brings together Thor, the Hulk, and Doctor Strange to face off against intergalactic baddies both familiar and new.
  • Due to the massive success of his solo movie just a few months prior, T'Challa and his supporting cast were heavily featured in most of the later marketing for Avengers: Infinity War. In the actual film, they don't really get to do much until the last act. Shuri in particular (who was very prominent in the print advertisements) only gets about two scenes before she disappears from the movie.
  • One year later, Avengers: Endgame had Danai Gurira billed and appearing on the poster, given she's one of the few main characters who survived the previous movie. She appears in at most three scenes, none very prominently. A minor case is again the star of the movie released right before, Carol Danvers, who as soon as her movie became a hit got heavily promoted. She is sidelined by her own missions shortly after the Time Skip, and only returns in the climactic battle in the third act - though her case is justified by Carol being as powerful, if not more, than the villain.
    • Captain Marvel may be an exaggerated version of this trope. The Stinger for Avengers: Infinity War implied that she was only contacted due to Nick Fury's quick decision to message her, and thus she would be pivotal in the fight against Thanos. Not only was her role fairly insignificant in Avengers: Endgame, the scene showing Fury activating her pager was irrelevant as well, because her part in the story begins once she discovers Tony Stark and Nebula adrift in space nowhere near Earth at all and the pager never being brought up. In a case of Trailers Always Lie, she is shown demanding to know what happened to Nick Fury, dialogue which doesn't actually appear in the released film. Finally, dragging a third film into the false advertising, her solo film is almost completely unnecessary to watch to understand the events of Avengers: Endgame or her role in it and she doesn't interact with Nick Fury at all in the latter film. One might suspect that The Stinger was designed to help sell tickets to Captain Marvel but not enough footage was actually filmed in Avengers: Endgame to capitalize on the former film's success, nor was there time in the two months between films to give her a larger part in the story.
  • Daredevil: Claire Temple during the first two seasons. She only appears in five out of 13 episodes in the first season, and she doesn't have any big impact on the plot after Matt saves her from the Russians. In the second season, she only has three episodes: an early episode where Foggy approaches her seeking help scouring the hospitals for Matt after he's captured by Frank, and later being asked by Matt and Brett to shelter kids they've rescued from the Hand (and later quitting when the Hand attack, and the hospital covers up the event). In between the two Daredevil seasons, she also got an extended cameo in the season 1 finale of Jessica Jones. It wouldn't be until Luke Cage that Claire finally began to take on a more prominent role, functioning as Luke's sidekick for the second half of season 1.
  • Iron Fist:
    • Ramon Rodriguez gets main credits billing, yet Bakuto has fewer episodes across Iron Fist and The Defenders than Madame Gao, who is considered a Fake Guest Star.
    • Sacha Dhawan, who plays Davos, gets main credits billing even though he's only in the last five episodes of the season. Justified, since he returned to be the main antagonist of the second season.
  • The Defenders: Due to the time constraints of eight episodes, juggling four leads AND a very large supporting cast, the supporting cast kinda get pushed to the wayside and save for Claire, Misty, and Colleen, have about maybe 12 to 15 minutes screentime max. Additionally, regardless of how much screentime they get, the supporting cast in question all get title credits billing depending on if they were billed in the title credits of whatever solo show or shows they originated in.
  • The Punisher: Karen Page's appearances in the first season falls into the same trap that Rosario Dawson fell into during Daredevil season 1: Deborah Ann Woll was pushed front and center during the promotional work, when in the finished show, her role is that of a special guest star and only appears in 4 of the 13 episodes, and doesn't contribute much to the main plot beyond helping Frank find Micro's family, and later being part of the resolution to the B-plot when he has to save her life from Lewis Wilson. Meanwhile, Amber Rose Revah (Dinah Madani), the actual female lead of the show, was practically ignored. The marketing team for The Punisher team was widely suspect by many to be trying to draw in "Kastle" shippers and viewers from Daredevil, where Frank had originated, and Karen was the character who had the most screentime with him. In fact, Karen's inclusion wasn't a part of Steve Lightfoot's story plan at all to start, until he decided to find a place for her after watching her scenes with Frank in Daredevil season 2, which would explain why her scenes feel disconnected from the rest of the narrative.
• Advertising by Association: It's pretty common for Phase 2 Marvel Studios movies to have the tag line "From the studio that brought you The Avengers" at the time when that was their biggest and most successful movie.
• Affably Evil:
  • Iron Man 3: Trevor Slattery, the "fake" Mandarin, is actually pretty nice. He is completely oblivious to the machinations of the film's true villain, Aldrich Killian.
  • Loki from Thor is very sympathetic and tragic given that his fall to villainy was all because his adoptive father Odin wouldn't respect him as his son nor allow him to take the throne of Asgard.
  • In Captain America: Civil War, Zemo is very a noble and wise human being who shows great respect towards the Avengers despite his vendetta against them for creating Ultron who killed his family. He is also very understanding of other people and would show great sympathy towards them, as he did with T'Challa whose father he killed and framed Bucky for the murder.
  • In Spider-Man: Homecoming, Toomes is a very respected and father and former businessman turned supervillain. He values his daughter Liz deeply as much as any father would and even warned Peter to treat her right while dropping them off at the High-School Dance. And despite his vendetta against both Iron Man and Spider-Man, he even defended the latter from a prison inmate in The Stinger.
  • Thor: Ragnarok has the secondary villain The Grandmaster (Jeff Goldblum, and that casting says a lot right there), who rules a trash planet and delights in all manner of hedonism, in particular making "prisoners with jobs" (aka slaves) fight to the death in Gladiator Games. At the same time he's rather pleasant to be around provided one doesn't wind up on the wrong end of his "melt stick", and even then he doesn't think that, say, talking out of turn is a killable offense. As Loki puts it to Thor, "He's a lunatic, but he can be amenable." In the "Team Darryl" bonus short on the DVD release, he even becomes Darryl's roommate on Earth after being overthrown!
  • Thanos of all people turns out to be this as well. Unlike in the comics, Thanos is actually a Well-Intentioned Extremist who thinks the only way to save the universe and its limited resources is to wipe out half the life in the universe. He commends bravery and sympathizes with his opponents, and is a a man of his word.
  • Agent Carter's Dr Ivenchko hypnotises an SSR agent into killing himself, but gives him commands to have a drink at his favourite bar first. There's no reason for this, except it's better for the guy to be happy and relaxed when he dies than otherwise.
• Affirmative-Action Legacy:
  • Captain Marvel is the female Carol Danvers version instead of the older character of Captain Marvel. Downplayed due to the fact that in this adaptation, Mar-Vell is (a) a woman, and (b) never a superhero, but rather Carol's late mentor and a defecting Kree scientist. Interestingly, a Ms. Marvel show starring Kamala Khan and set in the MCU is in the works, so it remains to be seen how the legacy aspect will be handled since Carol never used that name in this continuity.
  • In the final minutes of Avengers: Endgame, Sam Wilson, a black man, takes up the shield and mantle of Captain America from the retired white Steve Rogers, while Valkyrie, a bisexual woman of color, becomes the new Asgardian ruler once Thor abdicates. Interestingly, Valkyrie's character progression is completely original to the films; unlike Carol as Captain Marvel or Sam as Captain America, there is no comic-book precedent for her as Thor's successor.
  • The Falcon and the Winter Soldier takes one of Endgame's examples and ends up deconstructing the trope with it, in that the "Affirmative Action" part ends up complicating things immensely. The title of "Captain America" is a major national symbol. How can a black man symbolize a country that has mistreated its black citizens for hundreds of years, and continues to do so? Sam starts the series deciding that he can't, only for the government to turn around and give the identity to a white man instead. It takes Sam most of the series to come around to the idea that he can and should accept the title.
  • It has been confirmed that the upcoming Thor: Love and Thunder film will adapt Jane Foster's time as Thor, though it is unknown yet what this means for the original Thor.
• Afrofuturism: This is surprisingly common for a big-name mass-market franchise, with several works using the superheroics to discuss racial issues:
  • Black Panther leans heavily into this trope, with the central conflict centered on how involved the technologically advanced African nation of Wakanda should become in the affairs of the world, more specifically the affairs of the Black Diaspora.
  • Luke Cage takes a comic book setup (superpowered hero defends his hometown from evildoers) and uses it as a springboard for exploring police brutality, racial identity, and fighting white supremacy.
  • Cloak and Dagger stars an interracial couple with Wonder Twin Powers - the black, upper-class Tyrone (Cloak) has darkness-based powers while the white homeless Tandy (Dagger) can shoot light-based projectiles.
  • The Falcon and the Winter Soldier addresses America's history of racism in the context of an Affirmative-Action Legacy.
• Age Lift: A number of characters have had their ages changed from the comics, usually for pragmatic reasons.
  • Steve Rogers' year of birth in the comics is usually circa 1922, Depending on the Writer, making him about 20 years old at the start of WWII and 23 by the time he's frozen. The movies push it back to 1918, so that he's about 24 at the start of the film and 26 or 27 by the end.
  • Bucky Barnes, a Robin-style Kid Hero in the comics, is depicted as a twenty-something soldier in The First Avenger. The Smithsonian exhibit in The Winter Soldier lists his birth year as 1916 or 1917 in different places, while a deleted scene from The Avengers has it as 1922 in his SSR file. So either he's a year or two older than Steve or (like their comic book counterparts) four years younger, but in both cases, he's depicted as an adult rather than a Kid Sidekick.
  • Alexander Pierce, who was in his 30's-40's at the oldest in the comics, is played by 76-year old Robert Redford in Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
  • Hank Pym is a contemporary of characters like Tony Stark and Bruce Banner in the comics, but is played by 70-year old Michael Douglas in the Ant-Man movie. Going in the other direction, Scott Lang's daughter Cassie was nine when she was introduced and is 14 in the present comics, but is much younger in Ant-Man and up to 10 by Ant-Man and the Wasp. Thanks to Endgame's Time Skip, she now matches her comics age.
  • Donnie Gill is an adult criminal in the comics, but is explicitly stated to be no older than 18 in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
  • There's Eric Koenig and his "brothers". In the comics, Koenig is a veteran of World War II and would have to at least be in his 80's, while in the show, he and his brothers are played by 46-year-old Patton Oswalt.
  • While not as noticeable due to being Older Than He Looks, Hawkeye is played by 43-year-old Jeremy Renner, while in the comics, he's generally depicted as being rather young, at least compared to characters like Steve, who he generally looks up to as an older brother or father figure. Given Chris Evans is ten years younger than Renner, it makes this kinda ironic in retrospect.
  • The comics version of Yondu is in his prime, but the Guardians movie portrays him as a grumpy old man. The same applies to other classic Guardians-turned-veteran Ravagers in Vol. 2.
  • Played with for Peter Parker and Jessica Jones. In the comics, they were in high school together, but Jessica wasn't introduced until they were both several years older. The MCU is staying true to the ages each one was at their respective debuts, meaning Jessica is now several years older than Peter.
  • Aunt May is normally in her 70s, but Marisa Tomei (who is in her fifties, and has aged quite well) plays her.
  • The Owl, who is usually middle-aged in the comics, played by Bob Gunton in Daredevil, who is 70. This led to a popular theory that the son he mentions a few times would become the MCU Owl, but it never happened before the series was cancelled.
  • In the comics, both Nick Fury and Black Widow were around during World War II, but are Older Than They Look thanks to the Infinity Formula. The movies indicate they're roughly the same age as their actors, Samuel L. Jackson and Scarlett Johansson, with Winter Soldier explicitly giving Black Widow's birth date as 1984 - though, Black Widow's past being what it is, it could quite easily be faked.
  • Monica Rambeau is introduced in Captain Marvel as an 11-year-old. But it's a period piece in the 1990s; when she appears in the present day in WandaVision and The Marvels, she matches her comics age.
• The Alcatraz:
  • Guardians of The Galaxy has the Kyln, which is difficult to escape from by virtue of the fact that it's a space station, requiring a carefully laid plan to get a ship in order to escape. Of course Rocket, being something of an escape artist, comes up with a plan to bust out pretty quickly.
  • Captain America: Civil War introduces the Raft, an underwater prison apparently built for the sole purpose of containing the Avengers if they go rogue (or, really, any superpowered individuals, but we only ever see it used for that purpose). Following the airport fight, it's used to contain Hawkeye, Ant-Man, Falcon, and Scarlet Witch, although Steve and Bucky break them out after defeating Iron Man at the Hydra Facility in Siberia. It's essentially the MCU's version of Prison 42 from the original Civil War storyline, which was an extra-dimensional prison used by Iron Man and his allies to hold non-registered superheroes before their trial.
  • Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D: There are repeated mentions of the Fridge, SHIELD's maximum security prison/storage facility, which is implied to be one of these. Eventually, it's revealed that it's a massive tower with no ground-level exits, only one entrance/exit on the roof accessible by helipad, and the door is reinforced to such an extent that the machine gun on a gunship fails to penetrate.
• Alien Fair Folk: Though in the comics their relationship to Earth is a little more complicated, in this verse, all the creatures of Norse Mythology are aliens, plain and simple.
• Alien Invasion:
  • The Avengers: Loki brings the aliens known as the Chitauri to Earth to act as "his" army. Loki wants to rule Earth to spite his brother Thor, while the Chitauri merely want the Tesseract, so that they can conquer other worlds. This is woven into the backstory in the Netflix Marvel Series, including Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, The Defenders, and The Punisher. It's mostly kept in the background and referred to obliquely as "The Incident". It has however greatly impacted the value of property in Manhattan.
  • Thor: The Dark World: The Dark Elves attack London in order to use Earth as a staging point for unleashing the Aether to destroy the whole universe.
  • Avengers: Infinity War: The Children of Thanos invade Earth in order to gather the Infinity Stones hidden there. After two brief skirmishes in New York and Edinburgh, they bring an entire army of Outriders to Wakanda.
  • Captain Marvel: The Skrulls are a race of shapeshifting aliens who invade and take over planets by infiltrating and destabilizing their leadership. The Kree have been at war with them, and Starforce's mission is to stop the Skrulls by wiping them out. During the events of the film, no alien invasion takes place, due to the Skrulls having already lost the war and are trying to escape somewhere the tyrannical Kree cannot find them. The Kree themselves only send a small squadron of elites to Earth in order to track Carol, although their leader does call in an orbital bombardment that almost blows up the planet if not for Carol unlocking her true potential shortly beforehand.
  • Avengers: Endgame:
    • The Chitauri invasion of New York City during The Avengers is revisited, although most of the action takes place after the invasion has been dealt with.
    • 2014 Thanos makes his way to the Earth of the prime timeline, along with his whole army. Only this time the Avengers and their allies are all able to gather at the same place for a welcome committee.
• Aliens Are Bastards: Several of the alien lifeforms, such as the Chitauri or Dark Elves, are malevolent and tear up whatever world then end up on. However others (like the Xandarians or Asgardians) are well-meaning and even look out for humanity's best interests when they interact with Earthlings.
• Aliens of London:
  • Guardians of The Galaxy: Yondu and his Ravagers all have American "deep south" accents.
  • Played for Laughs in Thor: Ragnarok, where Korg, an intimidating gladiator alien made of stone, inexplicably speaks with a gentle, high-pitched New Zealand accent.
  • Talos in Captain Marvel speaks with Ben Mendelson's natural Aussie accent, while the other Skrulls don't sound especially Australian.
• Aliens Speaking English:
  • When Thor arrives on Earth after being banished in his first movie, he wakes up and starts instantly speaking fluent English, even though he's from Asgard, a realm that apparently speaks something akin to Old Norse. So far, it's not been established whether the "Allspeak" ability from the comics exists (though it's mentioned in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D that Asgardians are expected to learn the languages of other races), but he is able to instantly communicate with Groot in Avengers: Infinity War.
    Rocket: You speak Groot?
    Thor: Yes, they taught it on Asgard. It was an elective.
  • The "cosmic" MCU films feature countless alien races all communicating in mostly perfect English, complete with different accents and dialects, with only a few issues like Drax not understanding figurative language of any sort and Groot only being able to say the words "I am Groot"; however, it's clear that most of this is just Translation Convention for the viewer's sake. Additionally, the creators outright state that most space-faring types have a two-way universal translator implanted in their bodies, which is very briefly shown early in Guardians of The Galaxy when "translator implant in neck" is shown on Peter Quill's rap sheet after he is arrested, implying that he actually is hearing everything in English. However, this still leaves the question of how specific Earth-based metaphors and even hand gestures are universally understood by just about everyone (apparently the middle finger is offensive even on planet Xandar).
  • A similar Hand Wave happens in Captain Marvel, where Carol checks to make sure her Universal Translator is working after arriving on Earth.
• All Deaths Final: In Stark contrast to the original comics, death in the cinematic universe is much more concrete. People who were erased by the Infinity Stones can be "un-erased", and given the setting there are alternate timeline and universe versions of characters running around, but the only instance of an actually dead character returning to life in the post-Disney+ continuity is a minor character who required a one-time-only entreaty to reality itself to accomplish.
• All for Nothing:
  • Captain America: The Winter Soldier: The Reveal that HYDRA is alive and bigger, more seclusive and dangerous than ever, which rendered everything Captain America and his friends did to wipe them out in World War II meaningless. Black Widow even lampshades this later in the movie.
  • Captain America: Civil War: Convinced that Zemo plans to unleash the other Winter Soldiers, Steve convinces his friends that they need to violate the Sokovia Accords to save the world before it's too late. They end up thrown in the raft, even after they escape they're still international fugitives. It turns out, it was all a hoax. Zemo never had any intention of releasing the Winter Soldiers.
  • Avengers: Infinity War:
    • All the heroes' attempts to stop Thanos from completing the Infinity Gauntlet fail miserably, with half the heroes disintegrating by the end and a few others dead. This is ultimately played with, however, as Doctor Strange implies that it is All According to Plan.
    • Throughout the movie, the Secret Avengers (plus Rhodey) try to find a way to destroy the Mind Stone without killing Vision. Wakanda is attacked before Shuri can finish detatching Vision's consciousness from the Stone, forcing Wanda to take him and flee into the forest. In the end, Wanda destroys Vision completely to keep Thanos from getting the Mind Stone, only for Thanos to bring him back with the Time Stone and brutally rip the Mind Stone out of him.
    • Infinity War also rendered the whole plot of Guardians of The Galaxy story moot, where they tried to protect the Power Stone, given just a brief mention as "Thanos attacked Xandar" last week.
  • Ant-Man and The Wasp: A particularly cruel example happens during the credits via Thanos's snap, killing those Ant-Man spent the entire film helping, and leaving him trapped exactly the same as Janet was with no way out.
  • Daredevil:
    • Season 1 ends with Matt, Karen and Foggy defeating Wilson Fisk and putting him away after getting a corrupt detective to link Fisk to the murders of Detective Blake and several other cops. However, this only temporarily stops Fisk, as season 2 shows him rebuilding his criminal empire from within prison, even using Frank Castle to get rid of the kingpin who heads the prison's underground economy. And in season 3, he gets out of prison and seeks revenge on Matt, Karen and Foggy for putting him away.
    • Matt's defeat of Nobu and the Hand in season 2 is rendered this trope by Iron Fist (2017) season 1 and The Defenders, which reveal Matt only defeated a faction of the Hand, and never got close to touching the other factions led by Bakuto, Madame Gao, Sowande, and Alexandra.
    • Matt manages to save Stick from Elektra in the 12th episode of season 2, but this only prolongs Stick's life by a couple months, and the next time around, in The Defenders, Elektra kills Stick, with Matt unable to stop her.
  • Jessica Jones season 1 sees the protagonists trying to clear Hope's name, after Kilgrave made Hope kill her parents. Jessica Jones and her allies go through dangerous lengths in order to capture him alive just to prove his powers and therefore, Hope's innocence. In the end however, he evades all their traps and Hope kills herself so Jessica can focus on killing him instead of bringing Kilgrave to justice.
  • Luke Cage: All of Misty Knight and Luke Cage's work to take down the Stokes-Dillard gang succeeds in putting away Luke's murderous half-brother Diamondback, but Mariah walks free due to arranging for Shades to kill the one witness who could link her to Cottonmouth's murder.
• All There in the Manual: Some details that the movies neglect to explain are addressed in the comics or One-Shots:
  • The Security Measures comic gives a reason why Coulson kept using S.H.I.E.L.D.'s full name in Iron Man 1 instead of the acronym: Fury had apparently always used the full name, so Coulson thought Fury preferred it that way. Fury, for his part, was annoyed to find there was a perfectly good acronym he had been unaware of all this time. (Captain Marvel later invalidated this, with Fury well aware of the S.H.I.E.L.D. acronym the whole time. Of course, it would also be in Coulson's character to intentionally try to screw with Stark for some reason.)
  • The Stinger from the end of The Incredible Hulk (which was otherwise Left Hanging) is resolved in The Consultant.
  • Samuel Sterns' fate from The Incredible Hulk is revealed in Fury's Big Week.
  • War Machine's absence during The Avengers is explained in Iron Man 3 Prelude. The book also shows where he got his new armor from, as well as what happened to the bulkier suit he wore in Iron Man 2.
  • How exactly the Asgardians learned that Loki was still alive and working for a mysterious cosmic benefactor is revealed in Thor: The Dark World Prelude.
  • The Doctor Strange tie-in comics feature some major nuances to Kaecilius' backstory that the movie barely hints at.
• All There in the Stinger: A staple of the movies is that they at least have one stinger that shows a plot beat connecting it to a future film. Sometimes the stinger scene is actually repeated in that future film itself.
• Alliterative Name: Some of the most prominent characters, by virtue of the franchise being inspired by the comics who already included this trope plenty of times. Among the most prominent are Bruce Banner, Peter Parker, Bucky Barnes, Stephen Strange, and Kamala Khan.
• Alternate Continuity: The movies differ a lot from their comic counterparts and in some cases outright change things, so it's best to think of them as a separate story line, or alternate universe, than comic-to-movie adaptations. This has been formalized with the MCU universe taking its place alongside the other alternate universes seen in Marvel comics. The MCU is Earth-199999; the prime universe that most Marvel comics take place in is Earth-616.^note Though, confusingly, Multiverse of Madness also assigns 616 to the main movie continuity. Traffic between the two is surprisingly limited, mostly taking the form of very subtle continuity nods. When the Young Avengers of Earth-616 were thrown into the Multiverse in 2013, for example, a passport stamp indicated that Earth-199999 was one of the many universes they visited off-page.
• Always Chaotic Evil:
  • The Chitauri from The Avengers are a legion of ravenous aliens whose only personality characteristic is to be led into battle by Loki. When they arrive in New York, they raze the city and cause mass chaos with little objective or purpose.
  • The main antagonists in Thor: The Dark World are the Dark Elves, a species of being from Svartalfheim (the eponymous "Dark World"), led by Malekith the Accursed. Due to mostly unexplored motivations that never made it into the final cut of the movie, their goal sums up as a Generic Doomsday Villain's would, trying to return the Nine Realms to a place of darkness and little else. Bor Burison (Odin's father) slaughtered as much of their race as he could find, mostly because of this trope, as he believed their decimation was the only key to peace (which ultimately ended up true).
  • So far, the MCU version of the Kree seem to be this, interestingly in contrast with their comic book/616 counterparts who, Depending on the Writer, are Noble Demons; they constantly flip flop between evil and neutral and there are also a few heroes of Kree origin in the comics. Here, starting with Ronan the Accuser in Guardians of The Galaxy, the Kree are usually depicted as needlessly cruel, warlike, imperialistic, goth tinged, always angry and downright brutal bastards.
  • Surprisingly, subverted with the Skrulls. They're stock alien bad guys in the comics and are originally presented as much in Captain Marvel, but the movie's twist is that they're being unfairly demonized by their enemies and just fighting to survive.
• Amazing Technicolor Population: On the cosmic side of the franchise, many characters look human except for their skin tone. The Frost Giants and Loki by extension are blue skinned, the Guardians of the Galaxy movies feature the blue-skinned Kree, the green-skinned Gamora, the grey-skinned Drax, the purple-skinned Thanos, and some red-skinned citizens in the background, with Vol. 2 introduced the golden-skinned Sovereigns. There is also the case of the Hulk, who is green skinned.
• Amicable Ants: Ant-Man / Scott Lang, like his comic book counterpart, is an ant-themed superhero with the same sizeshifter and ant-controlling abilities. He is portrayed as a comical, but very capable hero who even plays a major role in reversing the effects of Thanos' snap in Avengers: Endgame.
• Anachronic Order:
  • In Phase One, The Incredible Hulk takes place sometime during Iron Man 2 (a news report of Hulk's rampage appears at IM2's end), and during Thor, (the first half of which is occurring concurrently with the second half of Iron Man 2 — the overlap ending when Coulson arrives in New Mexico, and a freak thunderstorm is mentioned in Hulk). The overlap is confirmed in Fury's Big Week, which follows Fury, Black Widow and Hawkeye during the events of all three films.
  • The Defenders shows were released over the course of four to five years, but take place in a span under four. They're also likely to be set some time before their releases; the first season of Daredevil is said to take place two years after The Avengers, when the premiere dates of the two are much closer to three years apart. Plus, the later seasons were released after Infinity War but don't acknowledge it at all. The lack of links to the wider MCU beyond referencing "the incident" (The Avengers' Battle of New York) means that they can take place just about anywhere between that and Infinity War without causing continuity problems.
  • Phase Three starts mixing things up again, with Guardians Vol. 2, Spider-Man: Homecoming, and Black Panther taking place mere months after prior films (Guardians Vol. 1 for the former and Civil War for the latter two) and therefore before other films that were released earlier. Doctor Strange further complicates things, as it takes place over several months and Civil War, Spider-Man, and Black Panther occur during that time. Captain Marvel is a full-on Prequel set in the 90s.
  • Black Widow is the first Phase Four movie, but takes place mid-Phase Three (after Civil War). Meanwhile, the second movie of the phase, Eternals, is said to span thousands of years, making it the earliest movie to take place chronologically.
• And Starring: Nearly every installment has at least one "and" or "with" actor credit. The full list can be found on the trope page.
• And the Adventure Continues:
  • In the end of Guardians of The Galaxy, the newly christened Guardians set off into space to do not "something good" or "something bad", but "a bit of both", while "I Want You Back" by the Jackson 5 plays in the background. The screen then cuts to "The Guardians of the Galaxy will return".
  • Avengers: Endgame: Captain America passes the torch to Sam Wilson and Thor joins the Guardians of the Galaxy to explore the universe.
  • So far, all of Marvel's Netflix shows have ended in this manner due to the restructuring of the verse. The obvious intention is to leave the characters in a place where their stories can be picked up again in the future if the producers so desire, while still tying up most loose ends in their currents plots. Details below:
    • Daredevil: With Kingpin Out-Gambitted by Matt and in jail for life, Matt restarts his law firm as a three-way partnership with Foggy and Karen (as a private investigator). Meanwhile, Ben Poindexter takes the final steps toward becoming Daredevil's archenemy Bullseye.
    • Luke Cage: Per Black Mariah's will, Luke becomes the new owner of Harlem's Paradise and de facto ruler of Harlem's underworld. He accepts not because he wants to become a criminal mastermind, but to prevent a violent gang war from the resulting Evil Power Vacuum. He reopens the club while former allies Claire, DW, Misty, and Tilda look on, waiting for his next move.
    • The Punisher: The final episode of season 2 shows Frank fully embracing his Punisher persona, unleashing wanton street justice on some gang members.
    • Iron Fist: After a six-month Time Skip, Danny is now a globetrotting hero and something of a Mage Marksman, while Colleen has stayed in New York as the new Iron Fist, complete with a starter pack of rogues consisting of Mrs. Yang, Typhoid Mary, and possibly Luke Cage.
    • Jessica Jones: Jessica ties up all loose ends in New York City and is ready to board a train to El Paso and make her way to Mexico for a new life, when she has a last-minute change of heart and decides to continue her work in New York.
• Animating Artifact: The Mind Stone is one of the six Infinity Stones. As its name implies, the Mind Stone has various powers involved with the mind. It possesses a core that is comparable to neurons firing in a human brain. While in Loki's Scepter, it grants the wielder the power to control others, and even imbuing them with some level of knowledge while under this thrall, as it "opened the eyes" of Clint Barton and Erik Selvig, showing them visions and granting them special knowledge they can use. On its own, it seems to be able to imbue sentience onto artificial intelligence, two notable examples being Ultron and Vision.
• Antagonist Title: We have Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Avengers: Age of Ultron. However, the Winter Soldier is just The Dragon to his employers in the former. Also Avengers: Infinity War, since Thanos is the Villain Protagonist and the Avengers are roadblocks in his journey.
• Anti-Hero: Has its own subpage.
• Anti-Hero Team:
  • In The Avengers, the eponymous team is comprised of one hero, four anti-heroes, and one anti-heroine. Moreover, the anti-heroic characters exemplify different shades of anti-heroism: Bruce is a Classical Anti-Hero (Hulk is a Nominal Hero), Tony and Thor are Disney Anti-Heroes, while Hawkeye and Black Widow are Unscrupulous Heroes. Captain America is the only proper hero on this superhero team - though Thor is on the borderline.
  • Guardians of The Galaxy: The eponymous Guardians are a straight-up bunch of anti-heroes, with the team being made up of thieves, career criminals, and assassins.
  • The Defenders: Comprised of a jaded private detective who wants nothing to do with the word "hero", a lawyer-slash-vigilante who has to keep his violent tendencies in check, an orphaned rich kid with a lot to prove, and a wrongfully convicted ex-prisoner who's the most straightforwardly heroic of the bunch.
• Anti-Villain: Some movies give us certain villains who have honorable aspects and well-intentioned goals in their crimes:
  • Loki, the antagonist from Thor, is continuously doing the wrong things for the right reasons. He's actually just a screwed-up "Well Done, Son" Guy trying to win his father's approval through pretty much the worst means possible.
  • Wanda and Pietro Maximoff aka Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver from Avengers: Age of Ultron at first antagonize the Avengers because Tony Stark created the shells that bombed their home. Later, after they realize Ultron's true motives, they join up with the Avengers.
  • In Avengers: Infinity War, Thanos performs multiple genocides across multiple planets because he genuinely believes that if the planets are left unchecked, then they could suffer from an Overpopulation Crisis and leave the planet into a lifeless shell just like his own. He holds no ill will towards his enemies and fully respects their resolve regardless if they are against him or not. It's only his own hubris and hurt pride that prevents him from seeing a solution besides mass murder.
  • In Ant-Man and the Wasp, Ghost goes to increasingly brutal lengths as the film progresses, but her only goal is to relieve herself of the constant agony she's suffering from as a result of her phasing powers and to prevent her inevitable and imminent death.
  • In Eternals, new Celestials are born from the violent destruction of entire inhabited planets. They don't do this out of malice, though, and only do so because there is no other way for them to be born. Additionally, they have the essential job of maintaining the consistent flow of creation and energy in the universe, preventing it from stagnating and dying, and so don't assign any value to individual worlds, or the life on it; in their eyes, a Celestial being born is more important than the deaths of billions, because that Celestial can now help create trillions more lives across the universe.
• Apocalypse How: Has its own page.
• Arbitrary Skepticism: Has its own page.
• Arc Welding:
  • The later Phase One films dealt with an object of power called the Tesseract and The Stinger to The Avengers revealed that Thanos was that film's Greater-Scope Villain. The Stinger of Thor: The Dark World would then tie those two together with its own MacGuffin, the Aether, when it stated that the Tesseract and the Aether are both Cinematic Universe versions of Infinity Stones, which Thanos has historically been involved with in the comics.
  • In a smaller instance, in the first Iron Man movie we are told that Howard and Maria Stark died in an accident when Tony was younger. Not much thought is given to this since unfortunately, car accidents are a common occurrence in real life. Then, years later during Captain America: The Winter Soldier, we find out via Freeze-Frame Bonus that the accident was deliberately caused after the Starks were targeted for assassination by HYDRA. Captain America: Civil War follows up on this by confirming that not only did HYDRA order the assassination, but Bucky was the one to carry it out, savagely beating the Starks to death.
  • Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D:
    • Various, seemingly independent threats throughout Season 1, such as Project Centipede and Ian Quinn's corporation, are eventually be revealed to all be orchestrated by the same Big Bad, the Clairvoyant who turns out to be a HYDRA agent, tying into the events of Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
    • One of Season 2's initial main villains, "the Doctor" (Calvin Johnson, aka Cal Zabo, aka the comics Mr. Hyde) is revealed in the second half of the season to have been working on (as he perceived it) the behalf of his wife, Jiaying, who eventually serves as the season's Final Boss. She, in turn, can blame her Start of Darkness on Daniel Whitehall, the other of the first half of the season's main villains. So, in this way, most of the season's main villains were all connected to each other.
  • The Defenders bridges together the two different plot lines involving the Hand introduced in previous series. In Daredevil, they're established as being in a Secret War with the Chaste, while in Iron Fist, they're stated to be ancient enemies of K'un L'un. Here it's revealed that the Hand was founded by exiles from K'un L'un, and the Chaste was created afterwards to serve as the Iron Fist's army to fight them in defense of the city.
• Arch-Enemy: Has its own page.
• Archaic Weapon for an Advanced Age: Among the MCU's higher-tier cosmic characters, the Asgardians and Kree favor melee weapons. Aside from Thor's Mjölnir and Ronan's Universal Weapon, cool swords are also quite common, and several characters use knives. Many of the characters who prefer such weapons have Super-Toughness, Super-Strength, and/or Super-Reflexes and many are Blood Knights or from Proud Warrior Races.
• An Arm and a Leg: A motif in Phase Two - every movie has a character lose an arm or part of one. It's a Running Gag in tribute to The Empire Strikes Back.
  • Iron Man 3: Aldrich has an arm cut off by Tony, but regenerates it thanks to Extremis.
  • Thor: The Dark World: Loki cuts off Thor's hand, but it's actually an illusion. In addition, Malekith's defeat by Portal Cut starts with him losing both his arms.
  • Captain America: The Winter Soldier: The Winter Soldier lost his arm before the movie, having it replaced with a cybernetic prosthetic.
  • Guardians of the Galaxy: Gamora chops off both of Groot's arms in their initial confrontation (they grow back) and during the prison break, Rocket has Star-Lord steal a prisoner's prosthetic leg, later revealing that he only had him do it because he thought it would be funny. Later on, Nebula removes her own robot hand near the climax in order to escape the battle.
  • Avengers: Age of Ultron: Ultron cuts off Klaue's arm after the latter compares him to Tony Stark.
  • Even Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. gets in on the fun in season 2, with two characters getting their hands cut off to save them from Diviner petrification: Izzy in the season premiere and Coulson in the season finale.
• Arms Dealer:
  • Tony Stark is one of these in Iron Man before he sees US forces get attacked with his own weapons and has a change of heart. Even after that, his weapons keep turning up in enemy hands. Turns out Obie has been going around behind his back.
  • Justin Hammer from Iron Man 2 wants to take Stark's place as the world's top arms dealer, but ultimately lacks the competence to do so.
  • Ulysses Klaue from Avengers: Age of Ultron and Black Panther is a mercenary and smuggler who's heavily involved in the black market arms trade.
  • Adrian Toomes in Spider-Man: Homecoming is a former salvage company owner who is driven out of business after Stark Industries and the US government set up the Department of Damage Control. In order to help provide for his employees and his family, he becomes an arms dealer who specializes in manufacturing powerful weapons by combining modern and alien technology he and his men managed to recover from the Avengers' various battles, starting with New York City following the Chitauri invasion.
  • Daredevil: Turk Barrett is a shady arms dealer. When John Healy buys a gun from him, Turk reassures him that his guns don't jam (they do). In the Season 2 premiere, Matt interrupts Turk while he's trying to sell a bunch of shotguns to enterprising criminals, overly praising them, only to then admit to Matt they couldn't even kill a rabbit.
  • The Stokes gang in Luke Cage primarily dabble in arms dealing, peddling Hammer Industries weaponry on the streets of Harlem. Their contact in season 1 is Diamondback, who sells machine guns, pistols, and rocket launchers. He also developed the Judas, a bullet made from Chitauri metals and based on abandoned Hammer Industries prototypes in Ukraine, designed to pierce even Luke Cage's skin, drill deep, and explode within the target. Not only that, but he's got the connections and resources to get the NYPD to bulk-purchase the Judas and arm their ESU teams with them.
• Artistic Title: The movies that lack Creative Closing Credits sequences tend to make up for it with snazzy opening credit reels.
  • The Incredible Hulk shows Bruce Banner's gamma exposure and first Hulk Out during the opening credits.
  • Iron Man 2 shows Ivan Vanko working in his laboratory.
  • Guardians of The Galaxy shows Star-Lord exploring planet Morag, while dancing and singing along to "Come and Get Your Love" playing on his Walkman. Guardians of The Galaxy Vol.2^note Which unlike the aforementioned MCU movies, also has a Creative Closing Credits reel. shows Baby Groot dancing while the other Guardians fight an Abelisk.
• Ascended Extra: Has its own page.
• Ascended Fridge Horror:
  • Item 47 is about a couple who restore to working condition a Chitauri weapon that'd been laying around in the wreckage after the battle in New York from The Avengers. They then use it to go rob banks. Spider Man: Homecoming also exploits this, showing that Adrian Toomes and his gang have been gathering whatever rest of discarded tech results from superhero battles (along with Chitauri, there's SHIELD, HYDRA, and Ultron) and repurpose if not reverse-engineer into items that usually get sold in the black market.
  • Guardians of The Galaxy had a couple bits at the end. Okay, so Peter is a Half-Human Hybrid, and that explains how he was able to handle the Power Stone and not die instantly. And Yondu, a notorious career pirate and criminal refers to Peter's father as a "jackass". Okay, so what kind of being was both that powerful and so bad that someone who spent a lifetime plundering ships and killing people would call a "jackass"? We find out in the sequel: this universe's version of Ego the Living Planet, a Celestial who sired - and murdered - untold numbers of his own offspring trying to find one that had enough power to help him destroy the entire universe. Yondu was hired to deliver Peter to Ego, but backed out of the deal and raised Peter as his own when he realized what Ego was doing to the other kids he helped bring to him.
  • Black Panther's central conflicts is based on acknowledging the real life pitfalls of a country like Wakanda. A Cracked article claims that Wakanda's refusal to help it neighbors, arsenal of advanced weapons, and absolute leadership determined by brute force would make it an ideal authoritarian state. Likewise, an episode by The Film Theorists pointed out that Wakanda's over-reliance on vibranium and traditionalist society could lead to the country losing out in a technological arms race with the outside world. Come the actual movie, many of these talking points form the crux of the conflict. Not only do many of T'Challa's advisors point out that the outside world is closing the technology gap, but T'Challa realizes that Wakanda's tribalistic isolationism has led to the suffering and neglect of the Wakandan diaspora. The film also shows why choosing a king based on ritual combat is a bad idea when Killmonger exploits Wakanda's power structure to usurp the throne by defeating T'Challa in combat, despite his lack of leadership skills, and uses his privilege as king to create a fascist state and attempt to start a race war that doesn't have a guarantee of Wakandan victory.
  • Avengers: Endgame spends its entire first third covering how the world has coped (or rather, failed to cope) with the ending of Avengers: Infinity War. Major metropolitan areas are abandoned due to not having the population to sustain themselves. Places where people do live are in disrepair and covered in trash and graffiti. Depression rates are incredibly high, with people apparently breaking down crying fairly regularly. It's even worse on a cosmic scale, since Earth at least has the Avengers as a source of hope.
  • Spider-Man: Far From Home covers some of the speculated side-effects of pushing the Reset Button after five years had passed. People have lost their homes and spouses in the interim. Everyone who was blipped didn't age in that time, so a lot of kids didn't grow up alongside their classmates and siblings. It's mostly Played for Laughs, but still shows a darker side to Endgame's happy ending.
  • Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D actively deals with much of the Fridge Horror from Captain America: The Winter Soldier and in many cases takes it a step further: SHIELD is a fraction of its former self, HYDRA is active, and loyal SHIELD agents who managed to avoid death at the hands of former friends or military detention by their own government are hunted as terrorists. Meanwhile, many of the dangerous people and artifacts SHIELD was originally created to contain are now out in the world.
  • The Netflix shows, set in New York City following the Incident, highlight the fallout of the aliens' invasion on the lives of general New Yorkers, which was mostly glossed over in the films.
    • Daredevil: The alien invasion hit Hell's Kitchen the hardest. Wilson Fisk is building his criminal empire by skimming off reconstruction contracts.
    • This is an aspect of Spider-Man: Homecoming too, as the movie revolves around alien technology scavenged from the Incident by criminals to create truly destructive weapons.
    • Jessica Jones: Prejudice against gifted people is now prevalent, as Jessica finds herself dealing with one such woman whose mother was killed in the Incident.
    • Luke Cage: Hammer Industries pioneered a bullet built from Incident metals which they dub the Judas bullet.
• Ascended Meme:
  • Agent Phil Coulson of the 2012 The Avengers movie gained more than a little popularity after his death, sparking the Coulson Lives Project, operating under the hashtag #CoulsonLives. So Coulson was brought back from the dead (with suggestions at suspicious circumstances) for the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D television series... with the aforementioned hashtag being integral to the marketing.
  • A common complaint in the fanbase for post-Avengers movies like Iron Man 3 and Captain America: The Winter Soldier was "why doesn't the hero call in the Avengers to deal with that big problem?" In Ant-Man, when the big problem is explained and Hank Pym and Scott Lang discuss how to solve it, Lang asks that same question.
  • Speaking of Winter Soldier, one scene early on featured list of things Cap wanted to view. Later on, Natasha makes a WarGames reference, and Cap responds that he understood that reference.
  • Avengers: Infinity War features a few of these:
    • Red Skull turns out to be the guardian of the Soul Stone, confirming a long running fan theory that he didn't actually die at the end of Captain America: The First Avenger and was simply teleported to another plane of existence by the Tesseract.
    • During the final battle in Wakanda, Rocket eyeballs Bucky's metal arm and attempts to buy it off him.
    • When confronting Thanos Star-Lord calls Thanos "Grimace" and threatens to blow his "nutsack of a chin" off his face if he doesn't let go of Gamora.
  • Ant-Man and The Wasp references and lampshades the "I'm Just a Civilian" meme◊ when Hank, Hope, and Scott all don this type of disguise. In the words of Scott Lang: "We just look like ourselves at a baseball game!"
  • Spider-Man: No Way Home features a bit with the multiple Spider-Men pointing at one another, in reference to the meme from the 1967 cartoon.
• Audience Surrogate:
  • Agent Phil Coulson has ended up being this trope by default. Originally created in Iron Man 1 for the purpose of saying SHIELD's full name and being told it was too long, he caused such an impression with his little time on air that he scored a role on the following movies of the MCU and became a Canon Immigrant to the comics, probably because of his characteristics that allow him to represent the aging comic book fan, and at the same time do awesome things like hanging out with his favorite superheroes despite having no superpowers himself and fire a laser gun at the Big Bad. He even gets to acts a little like an Ascended Fanboy in The Avengers without losing his charm.
  • Deputy Task Force Commander Everett Kenneth Ross has become something of a successor to Coulson following the latter largely being confined to Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D after The Avengers as the normal guy who is the link between the authorities and superheroes. He especially fills this role in Black Panther once he's brought to Wakanda, as the Westerner who discovers a world that was totally unknown to him, and marveling at the technological wonders there. Ironically, Coulson is a creation for the MCU while Ross had existed in the comics for decades.
  • Hawkeye could also qualify as this in the Avengers films. He is the most normal person on the team and often points out the absurdity of the situations they are in.
  • Kat Dennings stated in this interview that the character of Darcy in Thor: The Dark World qualifies.

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