INFINITY10 YEARS. 19 FILMS. MARVEL & CINEMATIC BEYOND UNIVERSE SOARS TO Graphic by Heather Bremer | The Herald Bulletin efore 2008, Iron Man was just another B-list comic book character and no one except the most well-read geeks knew any of the Guardians of the Galaxy. Fast forward a decade and these characters are not only Bhousehold names, they are part of one of the most successful — and profitable — movie franchises of all time. This weekend, more than 20 Marvel mainstays join forces to not only take down the galaxy-hungry Thanos but attempt to steal away the biggest opening weekend of all time from “Star Wars: The Force Awakens.” Here’s what you need to know before seeing “Avengers: Infinity War” ... THE FILMS THE HEROES “Avengers: Infinity War” completes the third phase of MCU films. The first began with “Iron Man,” the second with “Iron Man 3.” z Iron Man (2008) z The Incredible Hulk (2008) THE GAUNTLET z Iron Man 2 (2010) With the Infinity z Thor (2011) Gauntlet, Thanos can destroy the universe in a snap of his fingers. Here are the six stones that power it: SPACE Color: Blue Containment: Tesseract z CCaptainaptain AAmerica:merica: ThThee MINDSTONE More than 20 Marvel heroes (or in the case of Loki and Nebula, characters that can perform heroic acts) First Avenger (2011) Color: Yellow will share the screen in “Infinity Wars.” Here is the known list and the actors who play them ... but don’t be Containment: Chitauri z Marvel’s The Avengers surprised if one or two new characters make an appearance. (2012) Scepter z Iron Man 3 (2013) AVENGERS z War Machine (Don Cheadle) z Doctor Strange (Benedict REALITY z Thor: The Dark World z Captain America (Chris Evans) z Falcon (Anthony Mackie) Cumberbatch) Color: Red (2013) z Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) z Spider-Man (Tom Holland) Containment: Aether z Captain America: The z Thor (Chris Hemsworth) GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY POWER Winter Soldier (2014) z Loki (Tom Hiddleston) WAKANDA z Star-Lord (Chris Pratt) Color: Purple z Guardians of the Galaxy z Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) z Black Panther (Chadwick z Gamora (Zoe Saldana) Containment: Orb (2014) z Black Widow (Scarlett Boseman) z Rocket (Bradley Cooper) TIME z Avengers: Age of Ultron Johansson) z Shuri (Letitia Wright) z Drax the Destroyer (Dave Color: Green (2015) z Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) z Okoye (Danai Gurira) Bautista) Containment: Eye of Agamotto z Ant-Man (2015) z Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) z M’Baku (Winston Duke) z Nebula (Karen Gillan) z Captain America: Civil z Vision (Paul Bettany) z Groot (Vin Diesel) SOUL War (2016) z Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan) MASTER OF MYSTIC ARTS z Mantis (Pom Klementieff) Color: Orange z Doctor Strange (2016) z Ant-Man (Paul Rudd) z Wong (Benedict Wong) Containment: Unknown THE VILLAIN THANOS, often referred to by a fearful universe as the Mad Titan, is a powerful warlord who rules over distant reaches of space. He seeks to use the power of the ancient Infinity Stones to meet z Guardians of the Galaxy his objective of bringing stability to the universe Vol. 2 (2017) ... by exterminating half its population. Having z Spider-Man: sent Loki, Ronan, Gamora and Nebula to do his Homecoming (2017) dirty work, Thanos is fed up with their failures z Thor: Ragnarok (2017) and decides to seek out the stones himself. ACTOR: Josh Brolin FIRST MCU APPEARANCE: “The Avengers” FUTURE OF THE UNIVERSE z Black Panther (2018) z Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018) z Untitled Spider-Man: Homecoming z Avengers: Infinity War z Captain Marvel (2019) sequel (2019) (2018) z Untitled Avengers film (2019) z Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2020).