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Marvel Cinematic Universe / Tropes B to F

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Tropes for Marvel Cinematic Universe
Tropes A | Tropes B To F | Tropes G to R | Tropes S to Z
  • The Bad Guy Wins: This starts to crop up in later movies:
    • Thor: The Dark World: Downplayed. Loki, who's more of a Wild Card than a straight villain, fakes his death takes Odin's throne in the end, with Thor being none the wiser.
    • Captain America: Civil War: Zemo is successfully apprehended and imprisoned for his crimes and terrorist activities, but succeeded in his actual goal of tearing apart the Avengers.
    • Luke Cage: Season 1 ends with only the villains (except Diamondback) getting a happy ending: Mariah Dillard manages to walk away from prison after having the only witness that could testify against her killed, gets the main hero arrested, rebuilds her power base with a clean record, and starts a relationship with Shades. Dr. Burnstein still has Revas' files and intends to restart his research with a badly-injured Diamondback as his test subject.
    • Thor: Ragnarok: Downplayed. Surtur ultimately destroys Asgard during Ragnarok as was prophesied. But only because Thor and his allies willingly bring it about in order to stop Hela, making it more of a Pyrrhic Victory for the heroes than a real win for the villain.
    • Avengers: Infinity War ends with Thanos getting all the Infinity Stones, and killing half the universe with a single fingersnap, including many of the superheroes like Black Panther, Doctor Strange, Spider-Man, and every Guardian of the Galaxy except for Rocket and Nebula. In a rare villanous example of Earn Your Happy Ending, the final scene is Thanos sitting on a lush planet, watching the sunset and sporting a melancholic smile. Granted, the next movie has him get ambushed and killed by the surviving Avengers three weeks later, but not before destroying the stones to prevent them from undoing his life-long work.
    • Spider-Man: Far From Home: In the mid-credits scene, Mysterio appears to have faked his death and escape as a Villain with Good Publicity. What's worse, he frames Spider-Man for mass murder using Stark Industries tech, and now he's seen as a Hero with Bad Publicity courtesy of J. Jonah Jameson. What's even worse, he publically reveals Peter's secret identity to the whole world. In one grand move, Mysterio managed to completely destroy everything Spider-Man has been fighting for!
    • The Falcon and the Winter Soldier: Zemo lands back in jail, but succeeds in eliminating the Super-Soldier Serum and all the Flag-Smashers who have taken it. Meanwhile, due to the complete secrecy surrounding the Power Broker, they get away scot-free and in a position of more power than before.
    • Played with in Thor: Love and Thunder. Gorr the God Butcher achieves his goal of using stormbreaker to reach the being Eternity, but not before Jane!Thor destroyed the Necrosword and Thor acted as an example of a noble god, ridding Gorr of the blade's influence and proving that no, not all gods are irredeemable. This causes Gorr to change his wish from wishing for the destruction of all the gods to simply wishing his daughter back to life. You could say that in the end, Gorr won and the God Butcher lost.
  • Badass Normal: Despite the franchise focusing on superheroes, several unpowered characters are able to hold their own:
    • Nick Fury has no superpowers, but still manages to run rings around anyone and everyone who does.
    • Black Widow and Hawkeye are not innately super-powered, just very agile and highly capable fighters.
    • Peter Jason Quill in Guardians of the Galaxy has no superpowers and relies on nothing more than a blaster, his guile, and his crack piloting skills. It's revealed at the end of the movie that he's not completely "Terran", which allowed him to hold the Infinity Stone longer than anyone prior, and may give him other innate abilities.
    • The whole premise of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is that none of the main characters have superhuman powers, but frequently have to work with those who do. Early trailers for the show even used the tag-line "Not all heroes are 'super'".
    • Peggy Carter and the Howling Commandos in Captain America: The First Avenger are able to keep up with Cap and the Red Skull.
    • In Black Panther, the Dora Milaje, Shuri, and Nakia all hold their own against Killmonger.
    • Maria Rambeau is an Ace Pilot who takes part in a dogfight in Captain Marvel and wins.
    • When the villain's Mecha-Mooks corner Peter Parker's classmates in the Tower of London museum in the climax of Spider-Man: Far From Home, MJ grabs a mace and bludgeons one of the drones.
  • Badass Cape: Although heroes in the MCU rarely fall into this trope, there are a few characters who have one of these.
    • Thor is often shown wearing a cape as part of his traditional Asgardian garb whenever he appears. He briefly forgoes it near the end of the Infinity Saga due to outside circumstances, but later brings it back in time for the final battle.
    • Shortly after being born, the Vision ends up creating a cape as part of his visage, seemingly because he liked the way it looked on Thor, and wanted one for himself.
    • Doctor Strange's Cloak of Levitation is a more literal example than most: not only does it allow Strange to fly through the air, but it also is a sentient being that is capable of fighting the Sorcerer Supreme's enemies.
    • Moon Knight has a white cape as part of his costume, making him look especially foreboding when he's battling enemies.
  • Bathos: A large part of the MCU's brand of storytelling. Juxtaposing serious moments with the inherent zaniness of a superhero universe and Mood Whiplash are not uncommon.
  • Big Bad: Being part of a superhero franchise, most of the films have a main antagonist for the hero to fight; the MCU even has its own page.
  • Big Good: In several movies, the featured hero isn't actually the main force of good; and there's someone higher up that can assist them or vice-versa:
    • Nick Fury is the Big Good to both the Avengers (individually and assembled) and S.H.I.E.L.D. If any member of either group absolutely needs his help (even if they don't necessarily want it), he'll be there.
    • The Nova Corps serves this role in the first Guardians of the Galaxy since they are the Space Police.
    • Whoever holds the title of Sorcerer Supreme is this in regards to mystical matters. During Doctor Strange, it's the Ancient One; and it's mentioned as a Sequel Hook-style plot point at the end that her death, with no apparent successor, is likely to open the door for all kinds of evil to move unopposed. As of Phase Four, the title has been given to Wong.
    • Odin is the king of Asgard and in charge of policing the Nine Realms. But subverted in that he makes his share of bad decisions and has some skeletons in his closet, and ends up causing as many problems as he supposedly solves.
    • Shang-Chi features a dragon known as the Great Protector. While Shang-Chi faces Wenwu in a personal fight, the Great Protector is the one taking on the main threat directly and the rest of the cast just provides it critical assistance.
  • Black-and-White Morality: Played straight at the extremes: the Avengers are good, Loki, HYDRA, and Thanos are bad. Ultimately reconstructed throughout the franchise. Both the heroes and villains are shown to have their flaws and redeeming qualities, respectively, and the Avengers in particular consistently struggle with their own inner demons, as well as their messed-up, flawed relationships with each other, while villains like Loki. However, the Avengers ultimately rise above their flaws because they chose to be the best of themselves, while most of the villains they go up against (HYDRA, Thanos, etc) gave in to their flaws because they ended up embracing evil.
  • Break-Up/Make-Up Scenario: Tony and Pepper's relationship goes through this. Uniquely, it stretches multiple movies. They get together in Iron Man 2 but the strain of Tony being a superhero means that by Captain America: Civil War, they've broken up. They patch things up by Spider-Man: Homecoming and Tony is implied to propose at the end. In Avengers: Endgame, they're married and have a daughter.
  • Breakout Character:
    • Agent Phil Coulson was a Canon Foreigner who debuted as a minor character in the first Iron Man film. His role expanded further in Iron Man 2 and Thor, and starred in a couple of the Marvel One-Shots that solidified his reputation as a Badass Normal. This led to a major role in The Avengers culminating in a Heroic Sacrifice. The outcry at his demise was just what the studio was hoping for, leading Phil to come Back from the Dead to be the star of the MCU's first TV series, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D..
    • Unlike Coulson, Peggy Carter was from the comics, created to be a Temporary Love Interest for Captain America during World War II... but she debuted in The '60s, long after Cap's wartime comics were over, and defrosted Cap got together with her younger relative, Sharon. As a result, she'd rarely been anything more than a Satellite Character to Steve and Sharon in the comics. Since 99% of Captain America: The First Avenger takes place during the war, she had a much bigger role in that film than she ever did in the comics. This led to her starring in one of the Marvel One-Shots set shortly after the war, where she fought not just the bad guys, but the institutionalized sexism of the time. The popularity of that short led to her starring in her own TV show, Agent Carter. She went from being a Satellite Love Interest in the comics to the first female lead in the MCU. It's worth noting that the filmmakers have tried to use Peggy in every single (Earth-bound) Phase Two movie after The First Avenger. Joss Whedon wrote an unused scene for her in The Avengers; she has cameos in The Winter Soldier, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Age of Ultron, Ant-Man, and Endgame; and an alternate version of her was made the face of What If? This character has seriously resonated with her audience.
    • Iron Man was considered a B-tier character in the comics' world; his movie was the catalyst which rocketed him to Batman/Spider-Man levels of popularity.
    • In the wake of their 2014 movie, the Guardians of the Galaxy are quickly went from a group of B or C-listers to becoming one of Marvel's most popular teams.
    • Claire Temple, originally little more than a love interest for Luke Cage in the comics, has essentially become the equivalent of Coulson for the Netflix shows, become a Composite Character with Night Nurse and appearing in them all as New York's go-to superhero hospital.
  • Breakout Villain: Loki has played a major part in four movies (all three Thor movies, plus The Avengers) when most other villains don't even survive their films. Hiddleston even made an appearance as him in-character during Marvel's Comic-Con panel in 2013, which proves plenty of humans would gladly let him take over the planet. This led to him getting his own solo comic series, and upgraded to a much larger presence in the overall Marvel universe. Eventually, he got an MCU series of his own (even despite the fact that he had already been killed off — thank time-travel shenanigans for that one).
  • Briefer Than They Think: Samuel L. Jackson's role as Nick Fury is one of the more famous roles in the MCU as he has appeared in many of the movies and in a few episodes of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Despite this, he usually appears in a single scene, sometimes The Stinger for those films. He likely only has about one hour of screentime spread out throughout Phases 1 and 2, and doesn't get what could be considered a lead role until Captain Marvel.
  • Broad Strokes:
    • The exact continuity between the Netflix shows and the broader cinematic universe: Events and characters from Phases I and II have been referenced. However, the Sokovia Accords have yet to be acknowledged, though the Raft prison has been mentioned. It remains to be seen which is the exact timeline of events, especially in the wake of half of humanity being destroyed in Infinity War, which the second season of Luke Cage (released afterward) made no mention of. Word of God clarified that all of the Netflix shows finish their storylines shortly before the start of Infinity War.
    • Runaways and Cloak and Dagger have barely acknowledged the movies at all. They're connected to each other since they had a crossover, but outside of that, the only link is that Cloak and Dagger and Luke Cage have made a few references to each other.
  • The Bus Came Back: Has its own page.
  • The Cameo: As part of being a Shared Universe, characters will frequently make a quick appearance in movies outside their own sub-franchise. For instance, Captain America appears in Thor: The Dark World (as an illusion of Loki's) and Spider-Man: Far From Home (via school PSA videos).
    • Some of the more notable cameos include Howard the Duck in Guardians of the Galaxy as a kind of Crossover Punchline, and Edwin Jarvis in Avengers: Endgame as a rare nod to the TV spinoffs.
    • There are a couple of characters who appear in most or all of the Netflix series (including Claire Temple (with the exception of The Punisher) and Turk Barrett, though Claire has more than a minor role in most of them). Then there are several more from one show who make brief appearances in another: Foggy Nelson from Daredevil briefly appears in Jessica Jones and Luke Cage; Jeri Hogarth from Jessica Jones and Misty Knight from Luke Cage show up in Iron Fist (though for more than just cameos); Danny Rand and Colleen Wing from Iron Fist appear in Luke Cage; and Karen Page from Daredevil is in The Punisher.
  • Canon Character All Along:
    • In The Incredible Hulk, Martin Starr appears as a random student at Culver University who offers Bruce Banner some pizza. Fourteen movies and nine real-world years later, he reappears in Spider-Man: Homecoming, identified as Peter Parker's teacher Roger Harrington.
    • In Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., main character Skye is revealed during the second season to be one of the characters from the comics, Daisy Johnson.
    • Florence Kasumba had a very brief scene in Captain America: Civil War, and the credits listed her as simply "Security Chief". When she returns in Black Panther and later The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, she's identified as Ayo from Ta-Nehisi Coates's run on the Black Panther comics. That said, she doesn't seem to be much like her comic book counterpart. (In the comics, Ayo is a lesbian and opposes T'Challa as the Wakandan ruler; if these things are also true of Ayo in the films, they remain to be seen.)
    • In Spider-Man: Homecoming, Peter Parker has a classmate named Michelle. In her final scene in the movie, she admits that she prefers to be called MJ, evocative of Spider-Man's longtime love interest Mary Jane Watson. While Michelle Jones is meant to be a composite of multiple Spider-Man supporting characters with no real one-to-one comics equivalent, her commonalities with her namesake become more visible in Spider-Man: Far From Home.
    • In Avengers: Infinity War, Thanos and Gamora meet the Stonekeeper, a mysterious being who guards the Soul Stone on the distant planet of Vormir. Once the Stonekeeper lifts his cloak, he's immediately recognizable as the Red Skull, banished to Vormir for his Tesseract-related war crimes and general inhumanity. Admittedly, Thanos and Gamora (and in Avengers: Endgame, Hawkeye and Black Widow) have no way of knowing this.
    • in Captain Marvel, Carol's commander and mentor is never called by name until after Carol finds a major clue that indicates he's hiding something from her. He's Yon-Rogg, and as is the case in the comics, he is the villain indirectly responsible for Carol getting her powers.
    • In WandaVision, Wanda's neighbor Agnes is revealed to be Agatha Harkness.
    • In Moon Knight, Layla eventually becomes the MCU version of the little-known Egyptian superhero the Scarlet Scarab.
  • Canon Discontinuity:
    • While most non-movie content is at least indirectly referenced in some way, the events of the video games (which seem to only have been made as part of an obligation to release tie-ins of questionable quality, which has since become a model that game developers have learned to avoid) are completely ignored. Figures such as Baron Strucker and Surtur appeared to round out antagonists in the games, yet their portrayals in the MCU completely ignore how they were featured in those titles.
    • The situation was very bad with the TV shows before Marvel Television was dissolved. After the first season of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., there was almost no communication between Marvel Television and Marvel Studios, in part due to a very difficult working relationship between Studios head Kevin Feige and Marvel president Ike Perlmutter, and partly due to the very different production timelines for film and television. The result is some excellent television (and some crappy television) with almost no references in the film productions.
    • invoked Word of God has explicitly confirmed that the official events of the MCU aren't canon for the shows that aired on Netflix between 2015 and 2019. Despite this, the actors will be reprising their roles for future MCU projects, most specifically for the Disney+ platform. This makes sense, considering that Disney doesn't want its MCU projects to be as dark and ridiculously violent as the Netflix shows were.
  • Canon Foreigner: S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent Phil Coulson, and most of the human supporting cast in the Thor and Ant-Man franchises. For Thor, this includes Jane's associates Dr. Erik Selvig, Darcy Lewis, Richard and Ian. Ant-Man features Paxton, the husband of Scott Lang's ex, as well as Luis, Kurt and Dave, Scott's prison friends who assist him in his heist. All the members of the lead cast of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s first season are also original to the cinematic universe. Subverted with Skye, who is eventually revealed to be the comics character Daisy Johnson AKA Quake.
  • Canon Immigrant:
    • Agent Coulson made his comics debut in the Battle Scars miniseries, which came right before the Avengers movie. The rest of the Season One cast of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. were added in S.H.I.E.L.D. (2014) (Agents May, Fitz and Simmons at launch, Grant Ward after a retitle to Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.). The exception is Skye, who didn't carry over into the comics since she was already there; she's Daisy Johnson.
    • Thor's Dr. Selvig was added to the comics universe in Avengers Standoff.
    • Miss Minutes from Loki was introduced to the comics in a special called Timeless.
    • Moon Knight's Layla El-Faouly/Scarlet Scarab made the jump to the Moon Knight comics in 2023, first in Vol. 9 #25 and then in the City of the Dead miniseries.
  • Capepunk: MCU deconstructs and reconstructs the superhero genre by applying its stock tropes in the context that is closer to "real-world".
  • Casual Danger Dialogue: A trope so frequent in the franchise that it’s become infamous amongst fans and detractors alike. Whether the heroes are in the middle of saving the world from extraterrestrial threats, or fighting a group of criminals and terrorists, they will always have time to engage in lighthearted banter while doing it.
  • Celebrity Paradox: The sheer number of actors involved with MCU at some point or another makes it almost impossible to include a pop-culture reference without invoking this trope in relation to someone. Examples can be found on its own page.
  • Celebrity Superhero: The superheroes of the MCU, especially the Avengers, are generally treated like celebrities. Part of that might be the lack of Secret Identies for the majority of MCU-heroes. It also helps that people like Tony Stark and Bruce Banner were already famous - as business man and as scientist - before becoming superheroes. By the time of Ms. Marvel, it is shown that superhero brands are now used to capitalize from them.
  • Central Theme: The at times extreme mental, emotional and physical cost of being a hero and the question of whether that cost is a price worth paying.
  • Chuck Cunningham Syndrome:
    • Betty Ross was Bruce Banner's love interest and a major character in The Incredible Hulk. She hasn't been seen or mentioned since, and Bruce is instead shown being interested in Black Widow in Avengers: Age of Ultron. Even her father, Thunderbolt Ross, got a bus ticket back for Captain America: Civil War. The only major factor even defending her canonicity to the MCU in the Infinity Saga is that she was cited as one of the victims of Thanos' snap. It was very much a surprise when the trope was ultimately subverted, where she was revealed to be part of the cast for Captain America: New World Order.
    • The Incredible Hulk also introduced Samuel Sterns, aka The Leader, who was the Hulk's Arch-Enemy for years in the comics. At the end of the movie, some of Bruce's gamma-irradiated blood drips into a gash on his head, which starts swelling like his comics counterpart. Outside of a tie-in comic that establishes he was taken into custody by S.H.I.E.L.D. shortly after the events of the film, he's never been seen or mentioned again. Much like Betty Ross above though, he would also be confirmed to return for New World Order, being able to portray the Leader for real.
    • Thanos' servant, The Other. While his death in Guardians of The Galaxy would obviously prevent him from appearing in the present of Avengers: Infinity War or Avengers: Endgame, he does not appear in the former's flashback to Thanos taking Gamora's planet (Ebony Maw is shown in his place), nor does he appear when an alternate timeline version of Thanos and his entire army from a point in time where he would still be alive come to the main timeline for a final battle, where the Black Order is still shown. Although, the alternate Thanos does quote the Other slightly when he recognizes the Avengers and calls them "unruly wretches".
    • Avengers: Age of Ultron introduced a Korean scientist named Helen Cho, who was an ally to the Avengers. Despite last being seen in Avengers Compound at the close of the movie, Helen has not yet appeared in any of the subsequent films.
    • Jessica Jones: Jessica's neighbor Robyn disappears in season 2.
    • After being a big part of the first two Thor movies, Lady Sif doesn't show up in Thor: Ragnarok. Word of God made an excuse that Loki had exiled her in order to explain her absence. She finally returns in Thor: Love and Thunder, where she's shown recovering in New Asgard after losing her arm to Gorr the God Butcher.
    • Deconstructed with Sharon Carter, who disappears after helping Steve Rogers in Civil War and isn't referenced for the remainder of Phase Three. When she eventually does come back in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, she has a chip on her shoulder over the way the heroes abandoned her, which ultimately results in her performing a Face–Heel Turn partially out of spite, and also just to be able to survive after never getting pardoned for essentially helping a war criminal.
  • Cliffhanger Wall: A brief one. Avengers: Endgame hit theaters only a year after Avengers: Infinity War, but Ant-Man and the Wasp and Captain Marvel released in the intervening time and took place before the events of Infinity War (Captain Marvel taking place before most MCU films chronologically for that matter).
  • Color-Coded Characters: Many characters prefer specific colors in their clothing and abilities. Thus, Iron Man's, Spider-Man's and Scarlet Witch's signature color is red, Captain America's and Captain Marvel's classic costumes are mostly blue, Loki, Hela and Mantis favor green, Yellowjacket's costume has (surprise) yellow elements and Thanos is associated with purple.
  • Color-Coded Wizardry: Masters of Mystical Arts (Ancient One, Doctor Strange, Wong, etc) are Reality Warpers whose basic spells are orange, Scarlet Witch has Psychic Powers in addition to reality warping, whose magic is red, Loki is a Master of Illusion whose spells are green, Billy Maximoff has primarily psychic powers like his mother which glows blue, and Agatha Harkness uses magic much like Wanda's that glows purple.
  • Comic-Book Movies Don't Use Codenames: Zigzagged; some codenames are used (though some justification is usually given as to why they're used, as opposed to just "it's a superhero trope"), but others aren't. The full details can be found on their own page.
  • Comic-Book Time: Averted. From Iron Man to Infinity War, the timeline is identical with the theatrical releases of each individual film (other than some Anachronic Order in Phases One and Three, but that's still not an example of Comic Book Time). Even when the setting jumps five years into the future in Endgame, the timeline still stays relatively consistent.
  • Composite Character: Has its own page.
  • Continuity Nod: Has its own page.
  • Continuity Overlap:
    • In Iron Man, Stane uses a portable device that, apparently, paralyzes via soundwaves, but was rejected by the military for some unspecified reason. It lasted for fifteen minutes, but could probably easily be scaled up somehow, for the new, heavier threats. And sure enough, they did have a similar Stark Industries device in The Incredible Hulk, big enough to be car-mounted. Two of them stunned the Hulk for a while, but ultimately he was strong enough to get back on his feet and smash them both.
    • Not surprisingly, the events of The Winter Soldier impact Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. very hard, since the former results in S.H.I.E.L.D. being disbanded due to internal corruption by HYDRA. Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. returns the favor in its second season, with a mid-season cliffhanger involving the release of the Terrigen Mists, and ties into the then-announced Inhumans movie.
    • It's subtly implied that Tony's father created the designs for the original arc reactor based on his studies of the Tesseract, which he had a chance to study once it was captured from HYDRA.
    • Both Skye and Matt Murdock lived at Saint Agnes Orphanage in New York for a time (though likely not the same time).
  • Continuity Reboot: The MCU generally ignores any and all previous adaptations of the characters it uses.
  • Continuity Snarl: While none of the events that happen over the course of the movies explicitly contradict each other, what dates certain events occur is a point of contention. The most infamous mishap in this case was the claim that Spider-Man: Homecoming took place eight years after The Avengers (which occurred in 2012), which made no logical sense with the timeline of the other films. Avengers: Infinity War states that the first Avengers took place 6 years before Thanos showed up, which subsequently implies that Homecoming did take place in 2016 and not 2020 as was implied.
  • Corrupt Politician: The United States government seems to be full of traitorous politicians. Namely:
    • Vice President Rodriguez allies with A.I.M. to assassinate the president.
    • Secretary of Defense Alexander Pierce is also the leader of HYDRA and plans to assassinate, among thousands of others, the president and the Avengers in order to subjugate the world.
    • Senator Stern of Pennsylvania is also an agent of HYDRA.
    • Senator Christian Ward of Massachusetts is an Abusive Parent.
    • Senator Randolph Cherryh of New York is a member of Wilson Fisk’s crime ring.
    • Secretary of State Thaddeus Ross previously attempted to capture Bruce Banner in order to weaponize the Hulk, and has no compunctions about imprisoning a number of the Avengers.
    • Councilwoman Mariah Dillard of Harlem, New York has deals with her cousin Cornell Stokes and his crime ring.
    • Senator Ellen Nadeer of New York has ties to a Right-Wing Militia Fanatic group out of a shared hatred of Inhumans.
  • Costume Evolution:
    • Costumes are frequently updated between movies. One change that had attention called to it was Captain America getting a modern replacement for his old WWII uniform in The Avengers. Other especially noticeable ones were War Machine getting a red, white, and blue paint job, along with a name change to "Iron Patriot" in Iron Man 3 (and then reverting back afterwards) and The Falcon painting his wing pack red and white by the time he joined the Avengers.
    • Daredevil: Matt Murdock's outfit in season 1 is all black, with a black mask pulled down over the top of his head. After getting cut up by Nobu, he gets a new armored suit courtesy of Melvin Potter, in time for his final takedown of Wilson Fisk. Over the course of season 2, Matt gets some extra additions from Melvin, such as finally getting his billy clubs in the season 2 finale when visiting to get a new armored suit for Elektra. Then he loses the armor at the end of The Defenders when he's crushed under Midland Circle. Subsequently, he spends season 3 of Daredevil back in his original season 1 costume but with a new mask made from a nun's habit (which becomes more justified once Fisk threatens Melvin into creating a red Daredevil costume for Dex).
  • Creator Cameo:
    • As is standard procedure for Marvel productions, Stan Lee made cameos in all works throughout the Infinity Saga, only ending after his death (even in the TV shows, though in the Defenders shows and Cloak and Dagger it's only as background pictures; the only show he missed completely was Inhumans).
    • Other creators appear in films starring their characters as well: J. Michael Straczynski appears in Thor and Ed Brubaker appears in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, each of them having served as a script consultant on their respective films. Walt Simonson, perhaps the best-known writer of the comic, also appears in Thor. Thanos' creator Jim Starlin appears in Infinity War and Endgame, and Kelly Sue DeConnick in Captain Marvel.
  • Crisis Crossover:
    • The Avengers is a crisis crossover for all Marvel Studios movies starting with 2008's Iron Man. However, this was the plan from the very start, as it was first set up in The Stinger of Iron Man and just building with each new film released in the next three years.
    • Avengers: Age of Ultron reunites the team in reaction to events laid out in the intervening films, as well as being influenced by events in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (though the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. don't appear).
    • Captain America: Civil War crosses over the cast of the Captain America movies with the cast of the Avengers movies (sans Thor and The Incredible Hulk), as well as unaffiliated heroes Black Panther, Ant-Man, and Spider-Man.
    • Avengers: Infinity War once again ties together various sub-franchises from across the MCU, including ones not included in the previous two Avengers films, in order to both deal with the Greater-Scope Villain of Phases 1-3 (namely Thanos), and to finally tie off the Infinity Stone Myth Arc that has been running through The 'Verse since mid-Phase 1. It has the largest number of superheroes in any MCU film to date.
    • Avengers: Endgame is the direct continuation of the events of Infinity War, climaxing in a Big Badass Battle Sequence between the Avengers and their many allies verses Thanos's army.
    • The Defenders is the self-contained type. It is an eight episode miniseries that sees Matt Murdock, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Danny Rand team up to fight the Hand, a villainous organization built up in Daredevil season 2 and Iron Fist season 1. The crossover has lasting repercussions for the next phase of the Netflix shows, as Matt's "death" in the climax, and subsequent turning up at a convent, sets up the third season of Daredevil to do a loose adaptation of the renowned Born Again storyline.
  • Culturally Sensitive Adaptation:
    • The MCU has twice tried to adapt the Mandarin without the Yellow Peril stereotypes. Once in Iron Man 3 by deliberately making him an in-universe generically-"foreign" threat to exploit xenophobia, and again in Shang-Chi by using a rounded villain character that just happened to be Chinese.
    • In Doctor Strange, Wong is revised from being the Chinese houseservant that he was initially depicted as in the comics to a more competent and efficient warrior and Master of the Mystic Arts.
    • Black Panther:
      • In the comics, M'Baku is a Scary Black Man who is one of T'Challa's enemies and uses the alias Man-Ape. In the film, M'Baku's scariness is toned down, he is subjected to Adaptational Heroism and doesn't use the name Man-Ape.
      • In the comics, the Dora Milaje were picked from rival Wakandan tribes to be trained from puberty to serve as personal guards to the king, as well as potential queens to Wakanda. The latter function was done to maintain the peace in Wakanda by ensuring that every tribe has the opportunity to put forward one of their daughters for the crown. In the movie, the Dora still serve as T'Challa's bodyguards but their status as wives-in-training is removed. This results in changes to Nakia's backstory; in the comics, she was a teenage Dora who was obsessed with winning T'Challa's love (though he was not attracted to her or any of the other teenage Dora) and became evil when he rejected her advances.
    • Cloak and Dagger: In the original comics, Ty came from a poor black family, while Tandy came from a rich white one, a dynamic which carried a lot of implications even back in the 1980s. In the live-action series, the writers put them on a more equitable socio-economic footing, with Ty coming from a well-off black family while Tandy came from a formerly-comfortable white family that had fallen on hard times.
    • Runaways made several adjustments from its source material:
      • The original series featured a scene where Chase uses his x-ray goggles on Nico and Karolina without either character's knowledge. In the TV series, Gert uses the goggles on Chase instead, and even then the Double Standard of it being acceptable when a girl does it to a boy gets called out as Chase visibly objects.
      • In the original series, Karolina remains in the closet until the second volume and has to endure casual homophobia from her teammates (who don't yet realize that she's gay), and after coming out of the closet, she is Put on a Bus for several months to enter into an Arranged Marriage. The TV series significantly reduces the Gayngst; she comes out early on, is quickly accepted by her teammates, and starts dating Nico by the end of the first season.
      • In the original series, Xavin was a Gender Bender who would often default to a male form, only taking a female form because they were betrothed to Karolina, who is exclusively lesbian, which raised a lot of questions about whether they were really genderfluid or whether they were just pretending to be female in order to keep Karolina from breaking off the engagement. In the series, Xavin is only presented in their female form.
    • Moon Knight, which involves Egyptian Mythology, was directed by Mohamed Diab, who has been openly critical of the use of Ancient Egypt cliches in media and worked to present modern Egypt more faithfully. The crew also researched Disassociative Identity Disorder in order to portray the condition accurately.
  • Darker and Edgier: Has its own page.
  • Deader than Dead: The Infinity Gauntlet has power over reality itself and can reverse death fairly easily through a variety of methods, but there are limits. Acquiring the Soul Stone requires the sacrifice of the seeker's loved one, and nothing the Gauntlet can do can change that. Also, if someone is overwhelmed by the power of using the Infinity Gauntlet and dies, it appears that that can't be reversed either.
  • Deadpan Snarker: Marvel really likes dry humor. On the commentary track for The Avengers, Joss Whedon mentions finding it a problem in the writing of the script that almost all the main characters have a wit that is very dry, potentially making their interactions one-note. He mentions that Coulson is a character he was grateful for in breaking this up, since he provides a humor that is based more on geeky relatability. More examples can be found on their own page.
  • Death by Origin Story: Several, many of which overlap with the Mentor Occupational Hazard.
    • After mentoring Tony Stark and helping him build the first Iron Man suit, Dr. Yinsen sacrifices himself so Tony can escape.
    • The original plan was for Dr. Erskine's super serum to be used on several soldiers, resulting in a unit of Super Soldiers to defeat the Nazis. When Erskine is killed, the formula dies with him, and Steve Rogers becomes the world's first (and at the time, only) superhero.
    • King T'Chaka is killed in Civil War, causing his son T'Challa to take up the mantle of Black Panther and go after Bucky, whom he believes to be his father's killer. Likewise, Killmonger's Start of Darkness began with his father's murder at T'Chaka's hands.
    • After Mar-Vell is gunned down by Yon-Rogg, Carol Danvers gets her powers trying to finish what her mentor started by destroying the faster-than-light engine, accidentally imbuing herself with its power in the process.
  • Debut Queue: In Phase 1, the main characters each debut in their own movie before at last banding together in The Avengers — though Black Widow had to make do with getting introduced in Iron Man's second movie and Hawkeye in Thor. In The Avengers itself, they're also introduced in this manner with different S.H.I.E.L.D. agents going out to recruit them.
  • Decomposite Character: Has its own page.
  • Deconstructed Character Archetype: Has its own page.
  • Decoy Backstory:
    • Captain Marvel (2019): A flashback (specifically, Carol's Flashback Nightmare) at the start of the movie shows her surviving a plane crash, then a Skrull moves in to shoot her, but her boss Yon-Rogg shot the Skrull before the latter could attack. Later on, however, after some time on Earth, the same flashback plays... but with her piloting mentor, Wendy (a Kree in disguise), being shot by Yon-Rogg. The flashback at the start turns out to be a faked memory.
    • Spider-Man: Far From Home: When Peter first meets Quentin Beck, he tells him how he's from an Alternate Universe and had come to this Earth in pursuit of the elemental creatures that had killed his family. After a number of shared battles, Peter trusts Beck enough to give him the E.D.I.T.H. glasses he'd received from the late Tony Stark, thus giving him access to Stark information and technology. Once he has it, Beck is revealed to in actuality be a disgruntled Stark employee who gathered up others like him to create the illusion of a tragic warrior from another universe in an effort to gain Peter's trust.
  • Dénouement Episode: Ant-Man and Spider-Man: Far From Home each come immediately after a flagship Avengers film and feature a comparatively smaller-stakes situation.
  • Dented Iron: This is becoming a theme in later installments, with the series trying to acknowledge the ramifications of superheroing. Many of the Avengers have accumulated serious injuries (War Machine needs prosthetic leg braces, Thor lost an eye, the Hulk crippled his arm, and Hawkeye is losing his hearing), and others have developed mental scars (Tony has PTSD, Thor is traumatized by several losses, and the less said about the Scarlet Witch the better).
  • Depending on the Writer: Bruce Banner and the Hulk are practically different characters in each appearance. The relations between Banner and Hulk, and whether Hulk is an extension of Banner or a separate personality wavers. Whedon showed that Banner is the Hulk because, "I'm always angry", however Taika Waititi showed the Hulk developing as a separate personality in his time at Sakaar, and someone who seems to dislike and oppose Bruce Banner, who actively fears a Split-Personality Takeover. When the Russos get hold of Banner/Hulk, Hulk is downplayed and weakened and in Endgame, Banner has successfully integrated himself and the Hulk into the "Professor Hulk". Then in a Shang-Chi cameo, "Professor Hulk" is gone and he's just Banner again, with Hulk's status unexplained.
  • Differently Powered Individual: In the main comic reality of Earth-616, humans with superpowers are either "Mutants", born with them, or "Mutates", developed them through some sort of outside stimuli, i.e. Gamma radiation, or a radioactive spider. The MCU doesn't use this terminology (Marvel Studios not owning the rights to the X-Men until 2019 likely being a factor), instead referring to them as "gifted" or "enhanced" humans. In the ABC shows, a specific type of powered people, who had latent potential for powers that has since been unlocked by a exposure to Terrigen Mists, are "Inhuman".
  • Doing in the Scientist: Due to the general science-fiction nature of the setting, some characters assume that science is in place when it is actually magic. Ghost Rider was thought to be an Inhuman until a literal spirit of vengeance possessed someone else, and Thor: Ragnarok is more explicit about the royal family being Physical Gods, not Sufficiently Advanced Aliens; Thor being the god of Lightning is a plot point because his Shock and Awe abilities do not come from a hammer. In Doctor Strange, scientific metaphors are used to explain the Mystic Arts to the uninitiated before going into genuine magic stuff. And in WandaVision, the previously-pseudo-scientific description of Wanda's powers is dismissed and established as actual magic.
  • Doing In the Wizard: The main movies of the setting in general take a more scientific approach to certain characters, powersets, and artifacts. Asgard is presented as a society of Sufficiently Advanced Aliens whose purported godly power comes from applications of superscience (at first, anyway; Ragnarok leans more towards the "god" side), the origins of certain characters are grounded in more theoretical scientific principles (such as Ego The Living Planet essentially being a Boltzmann Brain), and as a whole relies more heavily on technology to explain equipment and abilities rather than Hand Wave explanations. However, this gets notably averted in the case of the Mystic Arts (which are explicitly supernatural) and the nature of entities like the Ghost Riders (being an example of demonic possession).
  • Downer Ending: A couple of times.
    • Avengers: Infinity War ends with Thanos' victory and a whole bunch of heroes dying.
    • Loki's first season ends with the multiverse's stability in serious question, Loki trapped in the past, and Sylvie having gotten a Pyrrhic Victory against He Who Remains.
  • Early-Bird Cameo:
    • Often done to hype a future movie: Nick Fury in Iron Man, Thor's hammer in Iron Man 2, Hawkeye and the Tesseract in Thor, Thanos in The Avengers and Age of Ultron, The Collector in Thor: The Dark World, Baron von Strucker, Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch - plus a Name Drop for Doctor Strange - in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Ulysses Klaue along with mentions of Wakanda in Age of Ultron, Blade('s voice) in Eternals. Black Panther and Spider-Man also appeared in Civil War before they got their own movies, though their roles were larger than just cameos.
    • Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. did this to a place, name-dropping the Triskelion several months before it appeared in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. There's also an appearance and name drop of the Kree, not to mention the entire Inhumans subplot.
    • Colleen Wing's dojo is introduced via a poster shown in an earlier Netflix show; ironically, when Danny first meets her she's hanging up more posters.
  • Early-Installment Weirdness:
    • The first two films weren't quite made to share a universe in the same way that the other entries have been once they proved successful, so a few things stand out, like S.H.I.E.L.D. being treated as a brand new organization in Iron Man. Though the others were mostly subjected to various patch jobs, like a One-Shot showing that Tony Stark was sent to General Ross to deliberately fail to get his approval for the Abomination at the end of The Incredible Hulk.
    • The earlier movies took more influence from Ultimate Marvel than the later, largely original-comics-influenced movies that make up the franchise overall. They had a darker feel, aimed for more scientific and realistic approach over the fantastic, and tried to do away with the comic tropes the later movies take in stride. Not to mention the Ultimate-influenced costumes and S.H.I.E.L.D. forming the Avengers as a government entity. Ultimate Marvel was made to be an adaptation-friendly version of Marvel to begin with, as a point where future movies could easily adapt, without all the fantastic themes that would seem weird back then. For later movies, they changed their focus to the more comic-like and Fantasy Kitchen Sink main comics continuity with increasingly fantastic themes, magic and the supernatural, talking animals and plants, over-the-top powers and super science, and tropes like Stupid Jetpack Hitler and Crystal Spires and Togas, among others, that gave us the MCU we know today.
    • In his solo films, Tony Stark is shown to reside in a nice mansion in Malibu, California, a sharp contrast to how the Avengers films would show him being based in the New York area.
    • On top of that, you can be forgiven for not remembering Edward Norton as Bruce Banner and Terrence Howard as Lt. Colonel Rhodes.
    • Phase One wasn't as strict and concrete with its timeline as the later phases. Iron Man 2 took place six months after the first film despite coming out two years later; The Incredible Hulk was released a month after Iron Man, but was set around the same time as the sequel. And Thor took place concurrently with Iron Man 2 and the Hulk movie. Up to the Avengers, it was a vague 2008-2010ish setting for these movies. Even heading into Phase Two, Iron Man 3 was set the Christmas after The Avengers. Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Guardians of the Galaxy are when this started to change, as the former was set in real time, two years after Avengers, while Guardians was confirmed to take place 26 years after the flashback in 1988. Since then, the majority of MCU movies have a more concrete date of point in the MCU timeline - for example, Captain America: Civil War is confirmed to be taking place in 2016 while Avengers: Infinity War happens in 2018. Often, they still don't come out in chronological order - Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 takes place two months after the first movie and before films like Avengers: Age of Ultron but was released in 2017, Black Panther takes place before Spider-Man: Homecoming and Thor: Ragnarok despite being released afterwards, Ant-Man and The Wasp is set shortly before Infinity War, and WandaVision and The Falcon and The Winter Soldier happen before Spider-Man: Far From Home - but even then, these movies and shows can be placed on a more exact point in time than the Phase One movies.
  • Earth Is the Center of the Universe: While there are a few important characters and events that take place in the cosmic side of the MCU (i.e: Thor, Loki and the Asgardians, Captain Marvel, the Kree and the Skrulls, The Guardians of the Galaxy, the Ravagers and Ego), the majority of the movies take place on Earth. Eventually most of those factions end up involved with Earth matters by the time Phase 3 rolls around, with Rocket and Nebula spending time there, Thor migrating with his people from Asgard, and Captain Marvel returning on a few occasions. In Avengers: Endgame, the final battle takes place entirely on Earth, where entire armies of aliens and their factions from other galaxies and planets join the Avengers and their allies to defeat Thanos, the ultimate threat to the universe itself.
  • Evil All Along: Granted, it often isn't a surprise to those familiar with the comics, but it certainly catches the heroes off-guard. Examples include Obadiah Stane/Iron Monger, Loki (in the first Thor at least, it gets messier from there), S.H.I.E.L.D. as a whole, Ego the Living Planet, the Kree Empire (though this one is a reveal only for the heroes; movie-goers have already met the Kree through Ronan in the first Guardians of the Galaxy, immediately casting doubt on Carol's assertion that the Kree are inherently heroic), Quentin Beck/Mysterio, and Agatha Harkness.
  • Evil Counterpart: Has its own page.
  • Evil Power Vacuum: In the The Defenders subfranchise, when Daredevil took down Wilson Fisk, it created a power vacuum in the New York underworld. Later crime bosses would try to fill it, but the continued efforts of vigilantes such as Daredevil, the Punisher, and Luke Cage would end up taking down even more crime bosses. Unfortunately, these in turn allowed the Hand to become the dominant criminal organization in New York. With the Hand's downfall in The Defenders, it's looking like Wilson Fisk, who is regaining power in prison, is set to take over again.
  • Evolving Credits: The Marvel Studios plate beginning with Doctor Strange shows clips from previous films. As new films are released, the plate subtly changes to include recent entries. Avengers: Endgame has noticeable blank gaps in the clips in which the dusted heroes were previously located.
  • Expanded Universe: During the Infinity Saga, the movies never explicitly acknowledged anything that happened in the TV shows, while shows often used and referenced the events of the movies.
  • Extremely Short Timespan: In Phase One, most of the movies take place almost at the same time even though they were all made years apart; in fact the tie-in comic Fury's Big Week specifies that Iron Man 2, Thor and The Incredible Hulk all happened the same week. Tony and Rhodey's fight took place the same day Bruce Banner crossed the border into the United States, which was also the same day Agent Coulson reported electro-magnetic disturbances in New Mexico to Nick Fury. Thor and Mjolnir arrived in New Mexico the day after the Stark Expo battle, while Hulk's fight at Culver University took place on the same day as Tony and Fury's conversation at the end of Iron Man 2, which was also the same day Thor got his powers back. In relation, Iron Man 1 was stated to have taken place six months earlier, Captain America took place mainly 70 years ago during WWII, and Cap's revival and The Avengers takes place at least a year later, although the discovery of Cap in the ice also takes place during the Big Week.
  • Fanservice: The franchise tends to find excuses to portray its male heroes shirtless at least once a film. Ironically, Black Widow, whose powers arguably include "being sexy", is possibly the least sexualized Avenger, doubly so given that her actress is generally accepted as being one of the most attractive women in the world.
  • Fantasy Kitchen Sink: The MCU has fantastic beings and items from all genres. Science-fiction is the most prominently featured with such things like Powered Armor, superbots, aliens and spaceships of all sorts, incredible technology that allow people to shrink to subatomic levels, and as of Endgame, time travel. On the other side, we get Norse Gods that use magic, as well as secret societies of wizards protecting earth from supernatural threats and spiritual planes where the King of Wakanda can visit his dead ancestors. It's to the point where the universe has Ancient Astronauts style immortal alien beings that served as the inspiration for various gods and mythological beings...whilst also having those gods and mythological beings being literally real as well.
  • Fantasy Landmark Equivalent:
    • The Avengers (2012) explicitly shows that Tony Stark bought the MetLife Tower and converted it into Stark Tower, which turns into the Avengers Tower for the rest of the MCU's runtime.
    • Avengers: Endgame shows a memorial to victims of the Snap has been set up in what seems to be Golden Gate Park.
    • Spider-Man: Homecoming shows a memorial to the first responders of the Battle of New York atop the reconstructed Grand Central Terminal, replacing the statue of Hermes from real life.
    • Spider-Man: No Way Home shows a renovation to the Statue of Liberty, where its patina has seemingly vanished and it's being converted to hold Captain America's shield in order to memorialize Cap after the events of Avengers: Endgame.
    • Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3: Counter-Earth, the High Evolutionary's replica of Earth created in his own image, features a statue of himself and a monkey modeled after the Statue of Liberty.
  • Fantasy Metals: The movies feature Vibranium, a super-durable and exceptionally versatile metal only found in Wakanda. Season Five of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. also involves a separate metal called Gravitonium that can warp gravity.
  • Faster-Than-Light Travel: Rather than simply jumping into hyperspace ala Star Wars, the MCU uses the Universal Neural Teleportation Network that allows spaceships to travel across the universe by using jump points to more-or-less teleport across the universe. Destinations are measured using the number of jumps one makes to reach it, with no more than 50 jumps being safe for occupants. The actual speed that spaceships have to be going at to make the jumps is unclear however.
  • Fatal MacGuffin: The Infinity Stones are generally very dangerous to handle:
    • Captain America: The First Avenger: The Tesseract is too hot to touch with your bare hands and if it feels you are a bad person, it can have devastating effects as seen when the Red Skull picked it up.
    • Thor: The Dark World: The Aether inhabits Jane Foster and slowly kills her. It's shown that you have to be a very powerful person to use it as Malekith eventually harnesses the Stone.
    • Guardians of the Galaxy (2014): The Power Stone's energy is so intense that anyone who tries to hold it in their bare hands ends up getting vaporized. Ronan is able to work around this by embedding the stone in his hammer, providing a safe medium to channel its powers into himself, and Thanos can only wield it by using it as part of the Infinity Gauntlet.
    • Doctor Strange (2016): Using the Eye of Agamotto in a careless manner can potentially break all of reality. The Masters of the Mystic Arts keep the Eye under close guard, and Doctor Strange himself uses it sparingly since his first movie.
    • Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers End Game: The Soul Stone is safe to touch but first, you have to sacrifice someone you love, making it unsafe for them.
    • When the Infinity Stones are all gathered together into the Infinity Gauntlet, the process is dangerous enough that even Thanos has trouble containing the energy and nearly kills himself using the Stones more than once. Later, the Hulk uses the Gauntlet and almost loses his arm. Unfortunately, Tony Stark does not survive his usage of the Gauntlet.
  • Female Gaze: The franchise employs a lot of Shirtless Scenes for the male leads, spending a lot of camera time on their chests and bodies, from ass shots and crotch shots (The Avengers is particularly filled with this). It's been semi-jokingly, semi-seriously suggested that this aspect is a major reason why the films are especially popular with women. Even the television shows aren't exempt from this, see Grant Ward from Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Matt Murdock from Daredevil, and try to find a scene where a woman doesn't drool over Luke Cage.
  • Fictional Accent:
    • Wanda and Pietro Maximoff, who are from the fictional country of Sokovia, speak with an accent that resembles a blend of Russian, Ukrainian, and a couple other existing accents.
    • T'Challa and the other native Wakandans speak in an accent that resembles a blend of several real African accents.
  • First Law of Metafictional Thermodynamics: The movies have gotten longer the more characters join the Avengers and the more the plot has to support them. The shortest movies are generally the solo movies like Thor, The Incredible Hulk, and Ant-Man that focus on one character, while Infinity War and Endgame have to have three hour running times just to contain the amount of superheroes, aliens, and wizards involved in their plots.
  • Flat Character:
    • A common criticism of Phases One and Two is that their villains are often underdeveloped, with the exception of Loki who is given almost as much screen time as Thor. Kevin Feige as much as admitted it while promoting Guardians Vol. 2, saying that the movies tell the heroes' stories and the villains are a means to that end; though in retrospect he was lying at the time.note  Later Phases, on the whole, have averted this with more fleshed-out villains.
    • Sharon Carter usually gets called out for being Out of Focus in the two latter Captain America movies that she's appeared in. As a result, some find that her romance with Steve Rogers in Civil War doesn't come off all that natural. She does get some more depth in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, as she's bitter over being abandoned since her last appearance.
  • Foil: Steve and Tony, the two foci of the first two phases, have mirroring and opposite character arcs. Steve started as an eager recruit, so determined to join the army that he risked felony charges by trying to enlist under different names in different locations. Meanwhile, Tony is not a team player, unreliable in the extreme before and after getting a hole in his chest. By the end, Steve has become disillusioned and distrustful of government organizations, refusing to sign the Sokovia Accords and, eventually, escaping into the past to finally have a real life for himself, while Tony has become desperate to finally escape responsibility, trying to create and join systems that will free him from being Iron Man. The Civil War is their clash over their changed ideals.
    Steve: [Bucky's] my friend!
    Tony: So was I.
  • Foreshadowing: There's been a bit of a trend of alluding to future Marvel heroes before they debut:
    • In Iron Man, Rhodey looks at one of the Iron Man armors and says "Next time, baby." He did indeed get to become War Machine in the sequel. You can get a glimpse of Captain America's shield in Tony's workshop, too.
    • Iron Man 2 has a brief scene where Nick Fury shows Tony a map of metahuman activity throughout the world. One of the markers is located in the Arctic, where Captain America was frozen - speaking of which, a box of S.H.I.E.L.D. gear given to Tony (which originally belongs to his father Howard) includes a sketch of Tesseract and a copy of Captain America comics. Moreover, the prototype shield which made a 'blink-and-you'll-miss-it' appearance in the first movie is used by Tony to balance his makeshift particle accelerator and Coulson frowns at the scene. Another spot on the map is in Africa, which was later confirmed to be a nod to Black Panther, who joined the MCU years later.
    • Thor has a line where Selvig mentions that he has a friend named Hank Pym who had a run-in with S.H.I.E.L.D. years earlier, though the name was omitted from the final release.
    • The Avengers has a deleted scene where the guard that Banner encounters asks him if he's a big guy who shrinks, alluding to Ant-Man.
    • In Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Sitwell name-drops Stephen Strange as one of the potential threats HYDRA plans to eliminate.
    • Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. incorporated subplots involving Inhumans since day one,note  a whole year before an Inhumans movie was even announced and five before its original planned release date.
    • Age of Ultron briefly visits Africa and introduces Ulysses Klaue, heralding the Black Panther, while Thor's visions warn of something terrible befalling Asgard in Thor: Ragnarok.
    • Doctor Strange features an appearance by Tina Minoru, wielding The Staff of One, hinting at her daughter Nico's involvement in the planned Runaways adaptation.
  • Forgotten Phlebotinum:
    • In Avengers: Age of Ultron, Helen Cho has built a "regeneration cradle" that can heal grievous injuries by creating synthetic tissue and bonding it to the victim's cells. Apparently, nobody thought to use this on War Machine after a serious fall cost him the use of his legs in Captain America: Civil War. Heck, the movie even has a scene where doctors are shown examining him after the accident, and Helen isn't even mentioned. Justifiable, considering that there seems to only be one cradle, which was severely damaged in Ultron, when Vision awakened and exploded out of it violently enough to knock Thor across the room.
    • Iron Man 3 prominently features Extremis, which can heal almost any injury short of decapitation or a headshot. It has the minor drawback that it might make you spontaneously explode, but Tony fixes that issue at the end of the movie, and uses it to remove the shrapnel from his chest. It is never referenced again, even when it could be used to heal Rhodey in Civil War, and he doesn't seem to have any kind of healing factor in any of the other movies.
    • Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D: In the pilot, Fitz and Simmons create a special version of the I.C.E.R. that fires out of a sniper rifle. The weapon proves exceptionally effective, allowing Ward to subdue the superpowered Villain of the Week without ever having to get close enough for the villain to use his powers against him. In fact, he never even realized Ward was there! Unfortunately, nobody ever seems to remember this when they need to non-lethally subdue threats in future episodes. While the I.C.E.R. itself becomes part of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s regular arsenal, they're all handguns, which have considerably less range and leave the user much more vulnerable.

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