Above is a neat-o little video regarding the history of the onscreen Marvel universe, and the various nods and Easter Eggs regarding each film thus far - from the studio's first (Iron Man) to its tenth, this weekend's Guardians Of The Galaxy . Well, technically its eighth, since it stops before Captain America: The Winter Soldier , which doesn't hit Blu-ray/ DVD until September 9th.
If you're a fan of the Marvel movies but haven't been paying the closest attention, this video from MTV will help you fill in some gaps. And if you're a die-hard who doesn't need to be told who Stan Lee is and where the Tesseract is found, there are still some goofy little in-jokes and nods you might have missed the first time. And if you're one of those militant internet nerds who spews rage wherever he goes, look out, because the narrator of the video clearly calls Hawkeye "Barson" and not "Clint Barton." RAGE!
It's hard to say what does and does not count as an "Easter Egg," though it feels like a missed opportunity to not discuss the many nods inside The Avengers. For one, Loki was the villain fought in the very first issue of The Avengers in the sixties, and he frequently manipulated the Hulk to do his bidding as he does in the movie. There's also the brief time where Hawkeye joins the villains, a reference to his earlier years as a criminal before he was reformed by Captain America (a similar dynamic will be a part of the relationship with Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver in Avengers: Age Of Ultron).
There's also James Rhodes' shift into Iron Patriot for Iron Man 3: comic fans would recognize this as foreshadowing, since Rhodes didn't take on the Iron Patriot identity in the comics, at least not initially. The original Iron Patriot was an insane (but somehow government-sanctioned) Norman Osborn, who used his new "heroic identity" to disguise the fact that he was still the old Green Goblin all along. True to form, Rhodes' Iron Patriot suit, commissioned by the government, would eventually be perverted for villainous gain. Also, how could you mention the Fing Fang Foom billboard in Iron Man but not Aldrich Killian's massive Fin Fang Foom tattoo in Iron Man 3?
Everybody's gotta have their own favorite nitpick of this video. Mine is that 2003's Hulk is not considered part of this canon, despite The Incredible Hulk borrowing heavily from the film. And not only does this presentation clock out before The Winter Soldier (which had some juicy Easter Eggs all its own), it also doesn't even acknowledge the Marvel shorts that go on the Blu-ray. Those things are just about loaded with so many Easter Eggs that they might as well be sponsored by Paas. Still, surely you have an Egg that wasn't mentioned in the video. List your favorite below.
