Avengers Infinity War, out April 27, is bound to be one of the most successful movies of the year, thanks to the 18 movies, 12 TV shows, and ten years worth of content that have come before it, all under the collective name of “the Marvel Cinematic Universe” (MCU). Those ten years of content have all been leading up to this moment, Infinity War and it’s sequel seek to serve as the ultimate payoff for fans. It seems to be working, seeing as it has passed the previous seven movies combined in ticket presales on Fandango.com. But there is a lot that has happened before this movie that you may not know about or may need a reminder on, if you’ve watched all of the content before. Also, spoilers for the past ten years of the MCU.

The Characters

This will be a quick overview of where we saw these characters last. If you would like a more detailed explanation, see further below.

The Avengers:

Captain America, Black Widow and Falcon: On the run and fighting for what’s right.

Iron Man: Running the Avengers and proposing to his longtime girlfriend, Pepper Potts.

War Machine: Getting to know his new bionic legs with Iron Man.

Scarlet Witch and Vision: On the run and hiding out in Europe with each other.

Spider-Man: Watching over Queens.

Winter Soldier/Bucky Barnes: Recovering in Wakanda.

Hawkeye: Retiring for good to take care of his kids.

The Guardians of the Galaxy:

Star Lord, Gamora, Rocket Raccoon, Groot, Drax, and Mantis: Guarding the Galaxy.

Nebula: Hunting down her adopted father, Thanos.

The Asgardians:

Thor, Loki, Heimdall, and Hulk: Protecting the people of Asgard from Thanos.

Valkyrie, Korg, and Miek: Missing in action

The Wakandans:

Black Panther: Dealing with the effects of opening secretive nation Wakanda to the world.

Shuri: In Wakanda, taking care of the Winter Soldier.

Okoye: Helping Black Panther deal with the effects of exposing Wakanda to the world and keeping him safe.

Ramonda: Counselling her son on what to do with Wakanda’s opening of its borders.

The Villains:

Thanos: Attacking the ship that holds the entirety of Asgard.

Cull Obsidian, Ebony Maw, Proxima Midnight, and Corvus Glaive: Attacking the Asgardians with Thanos.

Other People:

Dr. Strange: Protecting the world from magical threats.

Wong: Informing Doctor Strange about the Infinity Stones.

Ant Man: Under house arrest in San Francisco.

Collector: Still collecting out in the galaxy somewhere.

Happy Hogan: Chauffeuring Spider-Man around.

Pepper Potts: Being proposed to by Iron Man.

Detailed Breakdown

During Captain America: Civil War (2016), the Avengers were split into two teams, both fighting against each other. Captain America led a team that believed that the Sokovia Accords (laws put into place to keep the heros in check) were wrong and would only harm the Avengers’ operations, while Iron Man led a team that was for the Sokovia Accords. At the end of Civil War, Cap’s team was put in jail for a brief time until their fearless leader broke them out. Captain America, Black Widow, and Falcon, are on the run from the law and have changed their appearances so as to not be easily noticed. Other members of Cap’s team in Civil War include the Winter Soldier (aka Bucky), who has been placed in Wakanda (as seen in Black Panther) so that his sleeper agent programming can be reprogrammed and to hide from one Tony Stark because Bucky killed his parents, Hawkeye, who has not been seen in any promotional material for Infinity War, so one can assume that he is living with his family (as seen in Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)), Ant-Man, who is gearing up for his second solo movie with partner, the Wasp, and they both have not been spotted in promotional material, and finally Scarlet Witch and her love interest, the android Vision, have presumably been hiding out somewhere in Europe, fostering their relationship.

Then there is the other side of the battle, Iron Man’s side. Half of his team decided to go their separate ways after Civil War, but Iron Man, War Machine, and Spider-Man are still around. Iron Man (aka Tony Stark) has most notably proposed to his longtime girlfriend, Pepper Potts, at the end of Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), and has invented new technology between Homecoming and Infinity War. War Machine was left paralysed from the waist down at the end of Civil War, but seems to be making quite the comeback with help from a pair of Tony Stark-engineered bionic legs. Spider-Man has continued his job of protecting Queens after his defeat of the Vulture in Homecoming and turning down Tony Stark’s offer to join the Avengers.

The other member of Team Iron Man that I didn’t mention was Black Panther (T’Challa). After the events of his successful solo movie, Wakanda is now providing the world with their technology and helping to make the world a different place. T’Challa is now harboring Winter Soldier while his tech genius sister, Shuri, fixes him. As for other members of Wakanda, Okoye will return for this movie to help protect Wakanda from invasion, along with T’Challa’s mother, Ramonda. Another unaffiliated superpowered person on Earth is Doctor Strange, who is busy protecting Earth from magical threats with his partner, Wong, when Infinity War starts.

Also among this huge cast of characters is the Guardians of the Galaxy, fresh off of their two movies. The Guardians consists of Star-Lord, who has had to deal with parenting Groot, and the fact that his dad was a supervillain and a god and he himself is half god, Rocket the Raccoon, also parenting Groot, Groot, a living tree that has slowly grown himself back after being obliterated in Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) and being a baby in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017), Drax, who wants nothing more than to kill the villain of this movie, Thanos, for killing his family, and Mantis, who is a new addition to the team as of Vol. 2 and will now have to use her empathic abilities to help the Avengers and Guardians when they team up. Then there’s Gamora and Nebula, step-sisters, who were adopted by Thanos and have since fought against him, Gamora having her entire race wiped out in front of her as a child by Thanos and wanting revenge, and Nebula being tortured by Thanos her entire life, also wants revenge.

The Guardians, as seen in the trailers, will run into an original Avenger, Thor, and take him under their wing. Within his past movie, Thor: Ragnarok (2017), Thor has not only lost an eye and his hair, his hammer, become king, but has also watched his home be destroyed and his father and friends die. His ship, which contains the entirety of his people, was last seen under siege by Thanos and his goons, and is likely doomed, with the peoples on it either dead or flying lifeless throughout the galaxy, including another original Avenger, Hulk. Hulk (Bruce Banner) finds his way back to Earth, crashing into it like a comet. In Ragnarok, Banner realizes he’s been stuck in Hulk form for at least two years (after running away from a relationship with Black Widow), and has been fighting as a gladiator on planet Sakaar this entire time. Banner starts to doubt if he can easily change between Hulk and Banner anymore, so only does so when extremely needed. The Asgardian warrior, Valkyrie, was also on the ship, along with fan-favorites Korg and Miek, but no word has been shared on whether they’d return for Infinity War or not. Thor’s brother, Loki, was also on the ship, but we’ll get to him later.

Now, the villains. First, Thanos, who is the adopted father of Gamora, Nebula, and the members of his Black Order, has been previously spotted in The Avengers (2012), Guardians of the Galaxy, and Avengers: Age of Ultron in a minor role. He is on a quest for the ever-present Infinity Stones (hence the name of the movie), to fill out his Infinity Gauntlet so that he may destroy half of the universe and “bring balance to it.” The Black Order is comprised of four members, husband and wife Corvus Glaive and Proxima Midnight, big brute Cull Obsidian, and the tactical genius Ebony Maw, who are all children of Thanos and loyal to the end of it all. Then there’s Loki, Thor’s off and on evil mastermind of a brother, who looks to be trying to save his skin from Thanos after angering him in The Avengers by giving him something that he’s after.