Fantastic Four 2(2008)
The same cast as the original film return with Lawrence Fishburne reprising his role as the Silver Surfer from the Tarantino film, though Doug Jones plays the Surfer himself in the silver skin. The film concerns the Surfer arriving first and warning fo Galactus. Galactus physically appears in the film in an accurate depiction of his comic book design. The film is devoted to finding a way of stopping Galactus and also retrieving the Silver Surfer's Surfboard after Doctor Doom steals it in an effort to challenge Galactus himself. R.Lee Ermey has a cameo as J.Jonah Jameson, decrying Galactus as a hoax, which was a one panel gag in the original story. Fishburne's return to the role was the first taste of the Cinematic Universe that was beginning to assemble. the Human Torch is shown to be good friends with Spider-Man.
Behind the scenes, plans were being made to create what would come to be known as the Marvel Movie Universe. Marvel had licensed the rights to their characters to various companies but had now been carefully crafting deals that would allow them to appear together on the big screen. Instead of regaining the rights and getting entirely new actors and rebooting the franchises, they would instead canon weld their existing and already successful film series. However, Marvel had been left with several not as well known characters, namely the Avengers, as the Fantastic Four, X-Men and Spider-Man were seen as the money makers. Marvel set about assembling the Avengers on screen. They had an Iron Man in Tom Cruise, Ruffalo as the Hulk, Craig as Thor, Blunt and Black Widow and Holloway as Hawkeye, but the roster was still missing Captain America, which was the next step in assembling the team.
Iron Man: Armor Wars(2008)
Directed by Jon Favreau, who originally wanted to introduce the Mandarin in the film, but instead decided to shift him to the third Iron man movie and have Obadiah Stane play the villain of Iron Man 2 instead. The film also included Aton Vanko AKA Crimson Dynamo. The plot concerned Tony Stark discovering the Iron Man armor blueprints were stolen by his rival Hammer industries and setting out on a quest to get the designs back. Emily Blunt cameo'd as Black Widow. Al Pacino played Justin Hammer. Tim Robbins returned to play Howard Stark in pre-recorded footage in universe. Rumiko Fujikawa appears in the film, played by Zhang Ziyi. Paul Bettany returns as Edwin Jarvis. The film also deals with Tony Stark's alcoholism, which causes him to become more aggressive in his actions as he hunts down those who stole his armor.
Captain America(2008)
Directed by Joe Johnston as OTL. There is no Writer's Guild strike to delay the film and it is released earlier. The idea of adding a subtitle was rejected in case the Avengers idea fell apart as the films were seen as needing to stand on their own since many different studios owned the characters. It is fairly similar to OTL plotwise. Jansen Ackles played Captain America. The Film also feature cameos from Wolverine and Magneto. Wolverine as a member of the Howling Commandos and Magneto as a young child rescued from a concentration camp by Captain America and Wolverine.
Hulk vs Wolverine(2009)
After the conclusion of the trilogy, it was decided to give Wolverine his own film, as he had largely blended into the ensemble cast and his popularity meant he could likely support his own movie. The Films were also criticized for having too many characters and this way it seemed that situation could be remedied. The desire to mix Marvel Franchises was brought up and an idea for a cancelled Animated Marvel Movie was put forth.
Hulk vs Wolverine was greenlit. Chronologically the film was a prequel to the X-Men film series, just as the studio had wanted. The plot concerned Weapon X trying to capture the Hulk. Wolverine was sent after the Hulk and ran into his old team. Michael C.Hall was cast as William Stryker. While Hugh Jackman, Liev Shreiber, and Ryan Reynolds reprised their roles as Sabertooth and Deadpool respectively along with Kelly Hu as Lady Deathstrike.
Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance(2009)
Nicholas Cage returned as Johnny Cage and Peter Fonda returned as Mephistopheles as did Sam Elliot. The film is much more adult, Nicholas Cage drinking Alcohol instead of Jelly Beans in a martini glass. The film was a much large conspiracy thriller in the line of the DaVinci Code.
Jet Li as the Mandarin
Iron Man: Enter the Mandarin(2010)
Jon Favreau returned to direct, this time pitting Iron Man against his Comic foe of the Mandarin(played by Jet Li) and choosing not to shy away from the mystical elements of the character, leading to an interesting battle with the Mandarin in the film's conclusion, with the ten rings allowing the Mandarin ten different abilities, being combatted by Iron Man's vast number of suits and weapons. The film also featured Jessica Chastain as Maya Hansen, who seduces Tony Stark but is revealed to be working for the Mandarin when she shoots and kills Jarvis. The battle with the Mandarin forces Tony to send all his suits into battle with almost all of them destroyed, forcing Tony to rebuilt from scratch. Tony is seen building an AI which he names J.A.R.V.I.S. in memory of his butler.
Mads Mikkelsen as Malekith(say that three times fast)
Thor: The Dark World(2010)
The original cast returns with Patty Jenkins as director. The film features Malekith the Accursed as the antagonist, played by Mads Mikkelsen. Jenkins put more focus on the romance between Thor and Jane. Carter Burtwell did the soundtrack. Balder also appears in the film, albeit in the background as does Tyr, played by Clvie Russell. Alan Taylor also cameos as an archer who lights a flaming arrow at Frigga's funeral. Thor defeats Malekith by channeling the Lightning from all the realms during the convergence, meaning he is drawing even more power with the aid of a lightning conductor created by Jane Foster, Darcy Lewis and Eric Selvig. The film appears to kill off Loki, but he is shown to have faked his death.
Annihilus
Fantastic Four 3(2011)
The third film put more focus on the relationship between Ben Grimm and Alicia Masters, as well as the birth of Franklin Richard. Beau Garrett appeared as Nova. Tom Story returned to direct. The film borrowed from the plot of Annihilation Wave and had an army coming to Earth, destroying everything in its path, leading to the introduction of the Inhumans and the Skrulls, both races threatened by it that the Fantastic Four unite with. Johnny Storm falls in love with the Inhuman Crystal while Alicia Master's father, is granted powers by the Inhuman Terrigen mists due to the Inhuman Maximus the Mad subjecting him, granting him the ability to control others by taking samples of their blood, which he infuses into clay that is shaped into human forms of his victims, becoming the Puppet Master. Another character is introduced in the film is Black Panther as Wakanda is the one nation on Earth advanced enough to aid in repelling. the invasion. Black Panther is played in the film by Djimon Hounsou. The film ends with the seeming death of Johnny Storm, who goes Supernova to destroy the antagonist Annihilus and the last of his massive horde.
Promotional Art of Bryan Cranston as Mister Sinister
X-Men: First Class(2011)
X-Men: First Class was a film directed by Matthew Vaughn and depicts the original team of X-Men. Charlie Rowe was cast as the young Charles Xavier and Aaron Taylor Johnson was cast as Erik Lensherr. Benjamin Walker was cast as Dr.Hank McCoy AKA Beast. Taron Egerton was cast as Scott Summers, a fresh new talent(here he finishes Acting School a bit earlier to be in the film). Chloe Moretz was cast as Jean Grey. Alice Eve was cast as Emma Frost, as the Hellfire Club was chosen to be the film's antagonists. Bryan Cranston was cast as the villain Mister Sinister, who is killed in the film's climax, leading to Emma Forst succeeding him as the Hellfire's Club's leader. Matthew Vaughn cast Dexter Fletcher as the Man in Black, and Peter Wyngarde as Mastermind, though with effects(referred to as illusions) to make him looked younger(OTL Vaughn was falsely told Peter Wyngade had died). Azazel, a member of the Hellfire Club, has a notably more demonic appearance ITTL.
The Avengers(2011)
The film was the long awaited culmination of the previous decade's films. Captain America, Thor, Iron Man, Hulk, Black Widow and Hawkeye were brought together along with Hank Pym and Janet Van Dyne as Ant-Man and the Wasp(from the 1980's film), though Pym changes his identity to Giant Man in the film. Mark Ruffalo returned to play Bruce Banner. Josh Halloway played Hawkeye. Captain America's costume is a bit different, with ears exposed and a chinstrap(things added to his costume in later films OTL).
The film takes a lot of inspiration from Mark Millar's the Ultimates for its plot. The Avengers are assembled by Nick Fury to combat Loki's arrival on Earth. During the film, Loki causes Banner to transform into the Hulk and the Avengers fight him before assembling once more to fight Loki and the Skrull army invading Earth. Like in OTL, the film teases Thanos at the end. Natalie Portman appears as Jane Foster, who is with Thor when SHIELD approaches him. War Machine also cameos, arriving too late to help out the Avengers.
A line of dialogue from Nick Fury mentions that the Avengers are being formed to defend against threats such as Magneto, Doctor Doom, Galactus and the Annihilation Wave in case groups like the Fantastic Four and the X-Men are defeated or unavailable. The Oscorp Tower once more appears in the New York Skyline but was recently bought out by Tony Stark to become Stark Tower and then Avengers Tower.
Because of the way the MMU pulls from earlier Superhero films, Phase One is seen as starting after the Avengers film rather than leading up to it. Since most of the film became retroactively canon.
