Phase Two

Phase Two of the Marvel Cinematic Universe – which has just come to an end with the release of Ant-Man – served a number of purposes in the grand scheme of things.

First of all, it further developed the characters we were introduced to in Phase One, it also established the Avengers as an official and active team, and it took us into the cosmos – as hinted at in Phase One – in order to tease about and lead into the big event that is coming at the end of Phase Three (the Tesseract was confirmed to be an Infinity Stone, more Infinity Stones were introduced and it was made clear that Thanos was looking to gather them).

Moreover, it planted the seeds for the internal conflict that is coming at the start of Phase Three, by having the Avengers be responsible for the creation of Ultron.

Arguably, however, the most important thing about Phase Two was the craziness of Guardians of the Galaxy – who would have believed talking raccoon and walking tree were coming back in the MCU’s humble beginnings? It conveyed the fact that things were going to get really weird.