The Entire Iron Man MCU Timeline Finally Explained

It's been said many times, but without Iron Man, there wouldn't be a Marvel Cinematic Universe. There were other well-received Marvel comic book movies: Blade, the original Sam Raimi-directed Spider-Man, X-2: X-Men United. Still, Iron Man changed the game, showing the potential of a shared cinematic universe built on the back of genius jerk who built a suit of armor in a cave out of a box of scrap. Tony Stark is in many ways the beginning of the MCU, even though his own story came to an end in Avengers: Endgame.

But what happened in between? With more than 20 MCU movies and counting, not to mention tie-in television shows like Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D and Agent Carter, it's easy to lose track of where Iron Man fits into everything. Not to worry; we're bringing up the holographic schematics and outlining how Tony Stark goes from a genius weapons designer with no heart to Iron Man, a self-sacrificing superhero with a heart of palladium. This is the entire Iron Man MCU timeline, finally explained.

After World War II, Howard Stark goes on to have all sorts of adventures (as seen in Agent Carter), but most pertinent is his founding of S.H.I.E.L.D. in 1949 alongside Sharon Carter and Chester Phillips. The Strategic Scientific Reserve is folded in as S.H.I.E.L.D's science division, and new areas of super-science are explored.  One of these projects is Project P.E.G.A.S.U.S., a joint collaboration with NASA and the United States Air Force which explores the use of the Tesseract as an unlimited energy source. In the '60s, he designs the Arc Reactor with Anton Vanko before deporting him and replacing Vanko with Obadiah Stane as his partner in Stark Industries. In 1970, Howard conceives Tony with his wife, Maria, while continuing to work as an industrialist and S.H.I.E.LD. scientist. In 1979, he breaks off with another of the MCU's premiere super-scientists, Hank Pym, after Hank finds out that S.H.I.E.L.D is trying to copy his Pym particles.

Finally, Howard's life comes to an end when he's murdered by a brainwashed Bucky Barnes, who's working as the Winter Soldier in 1991. His death is fixed to look like an automobile accident, and Obadiah Stane takes over Stark Industries.

When Tony returns home, he realizes the error of his weapon-dealing ways and tells Obadiah that Stark Industries won't be making any more weapons technology. Obadiah's against the decision, and so is Colonel James "Rhodey" Rhodes, Tony's best friend and a true-blue military man. Unfortunately, Tony's new conscience comes with a cost; the board of Stark Industries basically ousts Tony on the basis that his new sense of empathy is just PTSD from his kidnapping. As it turns out, Obadiah's been playing both sides, both in terms of the Stark Industries board and the global weapons market. While pretending to serve as a father figure to Tony, he actually led the board's betrayal, and he's been selling Stark Industries tech to terrorist groups the whole time. Without actual control over Stark Industries and knowing that plenty of his tech is already out in the world, Tony upgrades his Iron Man suit to be sleeker and more colorful, and embarks on a quest to take down any terrorist groups using his weapons.

After a successful mission, Tony makes a plan with his secretary, Pepper Potts, to hack into Stark Industries and find out where the rest of his weapons have gone. However, Obadiah incapacitates Tony, steals the arc reactor in his chest, and places it in a suit of his own design that's inspired by Tony's first one. Tony replaces his missing arc reactor with the prototype that he'd saved from the desert and suits up to battle against Obadiah's "Iron Monger." He defeats Obadiah, saves the day, and then announces to the world that there's no secret identity needed: he is Iron Man.

Suffering from palladium poisoning and flush from his victory over Whiplash, Tony goes off the deep end during his birthday party. He puts on the Iron Man suit as a party trick and starts blasting away, only for Rhodey to show up in another one of Tony's suits to try and stop him. Tony and Rhodey battle it out to a draw, and Rhodey flies off to give the "War Machine" suit to the U.S. military. Hammer gets the job of outfitting it with new weapons, while Nick Fury, the head of S.H.I.E.L.D., gives Tony his come-to-Jesus talk telling him he needs to grow up and figure out how to fix his palladium poisoning. Tony figures out that his father designed a replacement for palladium in the '70s, but lacking the technology to build the new element, he buried the design in the schematics for the Stark Expo.

Tony discovers it, builds the new element, and upgrades his suit just in time to interrupt Ivan's master plan: he's built a fleet of Iron Man-esque drones for Hammer Industries that only he controls, as well as remote control over Rhodey's War Machine armor. With the help of Happy Hogan and Natasha Ramanoff, who had been working undercover at Stark Industries under the name Natasha Rushman, Tony frees Rhodey from Ivan's control, and the two of them defeat Whiplash together. With the day saved, Rhodey keeps the War Machine armor, while Tony accepts a role as a consultant for the Avengers Initiative from Nick Fury.

In Iron Man 3, which takes place six months after The Avengers, it's revealed that Tony Stark is definitely not fine. He's nearly crippled with anxiety following his excursion through the wormhole and the Battle of New York. In the meantime, he's dealt with his manic energy by investing in Damage Control, an organization originally created by S.H.I.E.L.D. to store dangerous artifacts, and spending his free time building dozens of Iron Man suits in case he ever needs more firepower for a future earth-shattering crisis. One obvious crisis that doesn't take long to pop up is the Mandarin, a mysterious terrorist leader who's been supposedly instigating bombings throughout the world. After Happy Hogan is injured in one of the Mandarin's bombings, Tony calls him out — which leads to Tony's house getting blown up.

Tony flees to Tennessee, where he meets Harley Keener, a young boy with a gift for engineering. Together with Harley, Tony fixes up his suit and learns where the Mandarin is hiding. Unfortunately, there's a bigger game at work: The Mandarin is just an actor playing a part designed by Aldrich Killian and Maya Hansen to give a narrative for their failed Extremis tests. After unraveling a conspiracy involving the vice president and Killian's plot to kill the president, Tony, Rhodey, and Pepper are able to defeat Killian and save the day. Tony undergoes heart surgery so he no longer needs the arc reactor in order to live, and seemingly retires from the hero business.

While the Avengers are doing their business, Tony's trying to cultivate a new breed of entrepreneurs by paying off the tuition costs of every single MIT student in 2016's Captain America: Civil War. His generosity comes under a dark cloud, though, when he runs into Miriam, the mother of a man who died in Sokovia during the Ultron event. She reads Tony the riot act about his lack of responsibility, and when General Ross later shows up to suggest that the Avengers come under the official purview of the United Nations, Tony supports it. Steve Rogers, however, is very much against the Sokovia Accords, and the two men struggle to reconcile their differences.

Bucky, the Winter Soldier, is freed from custody by Helmut Zemo as part of an extremely complicated plan to avenge the death of Zemo's own family in Sokovia. Steve gathers a team to help Bucky evade capture, while Tony gets his own team together, consisting of Black Widow, War Machine, Vision, Black Panther, and Spider-Man. A scuffle with Steve's team at the airport turns serious when War Machine is crippled by an errant blast from the Vision, which sends Tony into serious mode. He arrests Steve's team — minus Bucky and Cap, who've escaped — sends his own team home, and pursues Cap and Bucky to Siberia alone. Zemo's plan comes to a head when Tony discovers that his parents actually died at Bucky's hand rather than in an automobile accident. After a brutal battle, Cap and Bucky escape, minus Cap's shield, but Cap gives Tony a cell phone with his number on it if a time comes that they ever need to reunite against a greater threat.

When Avengers: Infinity War begins, Tony is happily married to Pepper and having dreams of what their child might be. Their happy reverie is interrupted when Doctor Strange arrives to request Tony's help in repelling the invasion of Thanos' Black Order, who have come to Earth in search of the Infinity Stones that Thanos needs to wipe out half of the universe. Strange and his Time Stone are kidnapped by Thanos' henchman Ebony Maw; Tony Stark and Spider-Man, newly decked out in his Iron Spider outfit, hitch a ride on Maw's spaceship.

After freeing Strange and blasting Maw into space, Tony, Peter, and Doctor Strange head to the planet Titan to prep for Thanos' pursuit. There, they run into Guardians of the Galaxy members Peter Quill, Drax, Mantis, and Nebula. A plan is hatched... and then Thanos arrives to turn that careful plan into ashes. With the rest of his allies down, Tony uses the full force of his nano-technology-powered suit to draw a single drop of blood from Thanos before the Mad Titan stabs him through the abdomen with Tony's own sword. Doctor Strange gives up the Time Stone to save Tony's life, leaving Thanos to quickly complete his Infinity Gauntlet and snap half the universe into non-existence. Tony survives, but Peter Parker turns to dust in his arms, and only he and Nebula are left alive on Titan, seemingly with no way home.

Tony Stark dies to erase Thanos and his world-conquering army from the past, finally making good on Ho Yinsen's plea that he not waste his own life. He dies, and the rest of the MCU lives (mostly). But just because Tony Stark dies doesn't mean that his story dies with him; Tony leaves three extremely qualified members of the next generation to succeed him. His daughter, Morgan Stark, takes after him in a number of ways, and a genius-level intellect seems to run in the family. His young mentee, Peter Parker, grew up with a hero worship of Tony Stark and spends most of Spider-Man: Far from Home trying to live up to the legend of Iron Man. Finally, Harley Keener, the young boy that Tony related to in Iron Man 3, appears at Tony's funeral, signifying that the Marvel Cinematic Universe hasn't forgotten Tony's first young protégé.

Even before the next generation are able to take on the weight of the legacy he leaves them, Rhodey and Pepper both have high-tech battle suits and a knack for doing the right thing. Just because Robert Downey Jr. is done with the role for the foreseeable future doesn't mean that the legacy of Iron Man won't continue to reverberate throughout the MCU going forward.