One of the bigger downsides of operating within a large cinematic universe when making a film is the history that has come before and the rules and lore that have been established within it. Sometimes, certain scenes that establish things that should be bigger down the line are forgotten, causing some issues when looking back on the cinematic universe as a whole.
The issues caused by some key details in Phase One of the Marvel Cinematic Universe have become infamous, largely because many scenes simply don’t make much sense anymore. Whether it be some small world-building detail that should have had more impact later or a fact established that is later contradicted, the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Phase One is not safe from its share of scenes that don’t make sense anymore.These Phase One MCU scenes are now outdated at best and outright nonsensical at worst, and it shows.
10Tony’s Clean Energy Plans
‘The Avengers’ (2012)
At the very beginning ofThe Avengers, in Iron Man’s (Robert Downey Jr.) introduction, it’s established that Tony Stark is about to become the face of clean energy in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. While it doesn’t have anything to do with the Marvel superheroes directly, this is a huge technological in-world development that would surely have an impact on the greater populous and technology moving forward.
However, after this film, it’s never brought up again.Did the plans die or get swept under the rug?Surely something like clean energy being introduced to the world would change the trajectory of how energy is consumed for the rest of time. Who knows? Maybe he got paid off by Big Oil. It’s notexactly an MCU plot hole, but it sure is a major inconsistency.
The Avengers
9Courting Death
The post-credits scene ofThe Avengersmade a huge leap in introducing the big bad of Phase One into the Marvel Cinematic Universe: Thanos (Josh Brolin). Unfortunately, for those who look back on the previous post-credit scenes from Marvel Studios' first phase of films, the big tease at the end of this team-up film doesn’t make much sense anymore.
When approaching the Mad Titan, his servant makes the claim: “To challenge them… is to court death,” to which Thanos smiles. For fans of Marvel Comics back whenThe Avengerscame out, this was huge, hinting that Thanos' motivation to snap away half of the universe was in hopes of impressingthe love of his life, Lady Death. However, now Thanos has come and gone and his true motive was finally revealed,this “courting death” line doesn’t make as much sense anymore. What did his servant mean, then? And why would Thanos smile at such a comment?
8Red Skull Vaporized By the Tesseract
‘Captain America: The First Avenger’ (2011)
In the climactic final battleofCaptain America: The First Avenger, Captain America’s (Chris Evans) foe, Red Skull (Hugo Weaving), holds the Tesseract and is completely vaporized. His apparent death makes sense because, as established inGuardians of the Galaxy, no random being can just hold an Infinity Stone. Butif Red Skull was killed by the Tesseract…why can everyone else hold it later on?
In almost every other appearance of the boxed-in Infinity Stone afterCaptain America: The First Avenger, normal humans are able to wield the Tesseract. A major example is when Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) simply picks it up with his bare hands inAvengers. This happens again inAvengers: Endgamewhen Tony Stark is able to grab it with just an Iron Man glove in his hand.
Captain America: The First Avenger
7Tony Creates An Element
‘Iron Man 2’ (2010)
Tony Stark’s biggest conflict inIron Man 2is that he’s being poisoned by the arc reactor that is also keeping him alive. How does he manage to resolve this issue in the film’s second act? Well, somehow, Tony creates a new elementthrough his dad’s old files, which he then uses to modify his reactor before apparently forgetting all about it.
This didn’t make sense from the get-go — how does one create an element? At the end of the day, these are superhero movies, and everyone is supposed to have a suspension of disbelief. Still, some internal consistency is required to make that suspension of disbelief easier to swallow; when discussing the many things that don’t make sense in the Marvel Cinematic Universe,this new element always comes up because of how random and deus ex machina-like it is.
Iron Man 2
6Howard Stark Finds the Tesseract
After Captain America goes down into the ice at the end ofCaptain America: The First Avenger, it’s shown that while looking for him, Howard Stark (Dominic Cooper) comes across the Tesseract. This was already a little confusing when the film initially came out, as it was vaporized along with the Red Skull earlier in the film.
Eight years later, it’s revealed inAvengers: Endgamethatthe Tesseract somehow transported the Red Skull(Ross Marquand) to Vormir to become the Stonekeeper, which is where things get a bit more confusing. If he was brought to live in a purgatory on Vormir,how did the Tesseract make its way back to Earth?It’s no film-breaker, but it still opens up a lot of questions that are never answered.
5Other Nations Making Their Own Iron Men
It’s made very clear inIron Man 2that ever since the emergence of Iron Man, other countries have been attempting toreplicate the same technology and createversions of the Iron Man armor. This is a huge issue, obviously, that could’ve potentially upended the world’s political landscape. In the Marvel Comics universe, this premise led to the infamous “Armor Wars” storyline.
However, ever since theIron Mansequel, this development has never been addressed. While it is to be assumed that it will be followed up on inArmor Wars, the project has absolutely gotten no update from Marvel Studios and has no release date. So, until that project comes out, these scenes look pretty confusing when looking back, especiallygiven how many years it’s been in-universe since these developments were introduced.
4Tony Destroys the Chitauri Mothership
One of the biggest moments of Tony Stark’s character arc in the Marvel Cinematic Universe was when he flew the nuclear missile sent by the World Security Council intothe Chitauri Mothership inThe Avengers. This moment redefined Stark’s character and served as the big deus ex machina for taking out all the Chitauri in New York City. However, the scene makes less sense afterAvengers: Endgame, where the Chitauri were far more difficult to take down in the final battle against Thanos' army.
When Captain Marvel (Brie Larson)makes her big appearance in the final battle, she destroys Thanos' warship. However, the Chitauri don’t start falling like they did when Tony destroyed their ship in 2012. Was Thanos' ship not controlling them like their mothership was in 2012? And if they aren’t near the Mothership, how far can they stray from it before their “connection” lessens? Do the rules even work from timeline to timeline? It opens up way too many loose ends.
3Loki Remotely Controlling Erik Selvig
‘Thor’ (2011)
The post-credits scene forThorleft audiences with a good couple of questions whenThe Avengerscame around. It’s shown thatLoki (Tom Hiddleston) is controlling or manipulating Erik Selvig (Stellan Skarsgård) through some sort of remote magic. However, when Loki makes his appearance inThe Avengers, his mind control receives a whole new rule set.
Loki can only manage to control people through the Scepter, later revealed to contain the Mind Stone. So this begs the question:how was he controlling Selvig at the end ofThor?Was he merely spying on and vaguely influencing Selvig? After all, if he could indeed remotely manipulate people through magic, many of Loki’s issues inThe Avengerscould be solved, like how he couldn’t influence Tony in Act Three due to the Scepter not being able to touch his heart.
2Loki Arrives with the Mind Stone
When Loki first appears inThe Avengers, he’s holding a mysterious Scepter which would later be revealed to hold the Mind Stone. Who else could have given said weapon to him butthe MCU’s version of Thanos? Although it made sense at the time, once Thanos' big plan for half of the universe was eventually revealed,Loki arriving on Earth with the Mind Stone didn’t make much sense anymore.
To place an object of such universal importance into the hands of Loki, of all people, is a pretty stupid move on the Mad Titan’s part.
If Thanos' goal from the beginning was to gather them from the start,why on Earth would he willingly hand an Infinity Stone over to Lokiif he wasn’t 100% sure that the God of Mischief wouldn’t betray him or fail? To place an object of such universal importance into the hands of Loki, of all people, is a pretty stupid move on the Mad Titan’s part; he’s an unstable and unhinged god known for trickery and deceit, for crying out loud! With how intelligent and calculating Thanos is, trusting Loki with the Mind Stone doesn’t make a ton of sense.
1Tony Recruits Thunderbolt Ross
‘The Incredible Hulk’ (2008)
The end credits scene featured inThe IncredibleHulkmade the second big step towards the Avengers Initiative thatNick Fury mentioned to Tony Starkat the end ofIron Man. When Tony Stark approaches Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross (William Hurt) after the credits roll inThe Incredible Hulk, he tells the General, “We’re putting a team together.”
However, two big problems arise shortly after. For one,Ross never gets involved in the Avengers' activitiesand doesn’t reappear in the saga for almost ten years. If he had been involved with the Avengers in any capacity, Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo)wouldn’t have been a part of the team. Not to mention, it’s also firmly established later that Tony never had any real involvement in the initiative beforeThe Avengers, so why was he running around recruiting people?
