Marvel Movies Infographic Gets You Ready for The Avengers

Okay, so you've seen all of the Marvel Studios movies that lead up to The Avengers, which has already opened in some countries and will open in the U.S. on May 4. You know that both Iron Man movies, The Incredible Hulk, Thor, and Captain America: The First Avenger, comprise what is known as the Marvel Cinematic Universe. You're ready to see all those heroes finally team up in one spectacular movie, but (if you're like me) you're still kinda sketchy on the exact timeline in which all of those flicks take place.

Marvel Studios

Thanks to Patrick Casey Bennett at CBM, we now have an infographic that puts the Marvel movie events into perspective. Before you check out Bennett's work, here's a few key points to remember -

• The infographic mentions Fury's Big Week - this was an eight issue comic book series by Marvel that tried to tie the movies together. It showed Nick Fury's attempts to complete the Avengers Initiative - bringing all the superheroes together. Some of the events in the infographic did not appear in a movie, only in the comic book. Fury's Big Week is available to purchase from Comixology.

• The artifact known as the Tesseract is a major plot point in The Avengers. The Tesseract is what powered the Red Skull's weapons in Captain America: TFA and what Loki needs to conquer our world.

• Most of the events in Iron Man 2, The Incredible Hulk, Thor, and the last five minutes of Captain America: TFA, occurred during the same week. This shows why it was critical for Marvel to have Samuel L. Jackson signed on for all of these flicks. This timeline also illustrates the meticulous planning that must have gone into all of these films in order for The Avengers to make sense chronologically.

*Note - I included the infographic below, but in order to read it, go to CBM for a larger version.

Thanks to SlashFilm