It’s been confusing to keep track of which film is set in which year, but Redditor brycejm1991 seems to have made good sense of it.
And it all hinges on one otherwise unremarkable prop.
The Marvel expert wrote: “Before I tell you the detail, let me define the timeline as I see it; Iron Man late 2007/early 2008, Iron Man 2/Hull/Thor/Cap 2008, Avengers 2009, Everything else: falls into the years it came out like Marvel says.
“So why move phase one back a few years? Well the two big reasons are points made in Civil War and Homecoming.
“Point 1: In Civil War, Vision says it has been 8 years since Tony came out as Iron Man- for this to be true, Iron Man would have to take place in 2008. Which with my piece of evidence, might very well be true.
“Point 2, Spider-Man Homecoming is set 8 years after the events of Avengers 1, which doesn’t work with the current MCU timeline. According to Marvel, Infinity War will be set four years after Guardians Volume 2. G2 doesn’t take place the year it came out, it takes place in 2014. This means Avengers 1 can’t be set in 2012, it has to be set in 2009.”
They continued: “With all that, what is the piece of evidence I have that supports all this?
“It’s Tony’s cell phone from Iron Man.
“Just after showcasing the Jericho missile, Tony has a face-cam call with Obadiah Stane. The phone Tony is using is an LG vx9400. That model of phone came out on March 13th, 2007.
“So with Iron Man set in mid 2007, about a year later in 2008 the next four Phase One movies still happen inside of that week. And then about year after that, in 2009, Avengers happens, effectively setting the stage for everything else.
“This new timeline also allows for the young kid in Iron Man 2 to still be a young Peter Parker. That kid looks to only be about 6, maybe 7, and if IM2 is in 2008 that make peter 15/16 in 2017.”
Keeping up?
“I realise that this a stretch, to base an entire theory off of a phone in Iron Man 1,” the theorist went on, “but to be honest, Phase 1 is basically a self contained story.
“Yeah Thanos is introduced in Avengers 1, but the argument can be made that they only did that so if they got past Phase 1 they would have a leg to stand on moving forward.”
The explanation seems to have gone down well on the message board, but one person wisely quipped: “I like your theory but honestly I think they just f**ked up the timeline by accident.”
Avengers: Infinity War is out in April 2018 in the UK.