The X-Men's Cinematic Universe (Earth-10005) is better than you think

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Spider10
Created by Spider10 (User Generated Content*)User Generated Content is not posted by anyone affiliated with, or on behalf of, Playbuzz.com.
On Mar 29, 2017
1

There are "Spoilers" for EVERY MARVEL MOVIE

There are theories here. There are spoilers for almost any marvel character in any movie before X-Men Apocalypse.

2

How will I explain Timelines?

T1 will mean Timeline 1 (Before Days of Future-Past)
T2 will mean Timeline 2 (After Days of Future-Past)

3

What if : The Avengers Had Never Formed?

Let me explain. FOX (owns X-Men Movies) said that the X-Men would cross with the Fantastic Four of 2015 - but that's not going to happen with reviews. But they could exist in the same universe. Wolverine was originally going to help Spider-Man stop the Green Goblin in the 2002 version. (FULL STORY HERE---http://www.cinemablend.com/news/Hugh-Jackman-Planned-Wolverine-Spider-Man-Crossover-You-Never-Believe-Why-It-Didn-t-Happen-39371.html) That means there is a connection between those two characters. Also, in the Spider-Man movie, Jameson says that the name Doctor Strange is taken so they can't give Doc Ock that name. That means Doctor Strange does exist there in the same world as Spider-Man. So that means the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, and Doctor Strange. This also would explain the reboots with Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, Hulk, Daredevil, Captain America, and more. I will have to start with Captain America because he came first. Then I'll go even further. Why does this fit with reboot? It's because of Time Travel.

4

Captain America - Steve Rogers (T1)

In 1945, Steve Rogers is a contemporary man whose father was a early 1940s government agent. The very patriotic attitude of Steve's father earned the nickname "Captain America." His father was soon murdered. Rogers, a former Marine now making a living as an artist and traveling the countryside in a conversion van, is inspired by his father's story to sketch a super-hero with a very patriotic costume.

After receiving potentially fatal injuries in an attempt on his life intended to seem like an accident, he is administered an experimental chemical called the FLAG formula; FLAG is an acronym for "Full Latent Ability Gain," a kind of "super-steroid." Rogers's father had developed the FLAG serum from his own glands. The formula not only saves Roger's life but enhances his strength and reflexes. The new abilities inspire Dr. Simon Mills, the research biochemist and intelligence official behind FLAG who was once a friend of Steve's father, to recruit Steve and give him a costume based on his drawing.

As Captain America, Steve's conversion van is so re-configured that it can launch a high-tech motorcycle. The bike features rocket thrust, a jet booster for rapid acceleration, a stealth setting that reduces engine and road noise, and a detachable wing resembling a hang glider that allows limited gravity-powered flight. In the last scene of the film, Rogers decides to become the same Captain America as his father had been in every way - this means wearing an identical uniform to that which his father had worn, the "classic" Captain America uniform.

In 1946, Steve Rogers sketches a portrait of a Mrs. Shaw, who complains about a gang of muggers that stole the proceeds from cashed Social Security checks; she denies having cashed hers. He bids her do this in order to set a trap for the muggers, and springs the trap as Captain America.

In the meantime, a free-lance revolutionary terrorist calling himself General Miguel, planning to fight an unspecified war, kidnaps a Professor Ian Ilson and forces him to resume his research in manipulative gerontology. Ilson has managed to formulate both a chemical that accelerates aging and the antidote to the same chemical, and Miguel, posing as the warden of a prison in Oregon near Portland, plans to use the chemicals in question to hold Portland hostage for a multi-million dollar ransom.

Ultimately Captain America and General Miguel directly clash face-to-face, and when Miguel throws a glass bottle of the aging acceleration into the air, hoping it will shatter against Captain America's body, the Captain throws his shield into the air, where it shatters the bottle in such a manner that the aging acceleration splashes Miguel instead, aging him to death in less than minutes.

Years later, Steve Rogers is murdered by an unknown assailant, and the mantle of Captain America is passed down to an attorney who is named Grant Gardner.

5

Captain America - Grant Gardner (T1)

In 1953, a rash of suspicious suicides among many scientists and businessmen, all found holding a small scarab, gets attention of Mayor Randolph. He demands that Police Commissioner Dryden and District Attorney Grant Gardner get to the bottom of the case, while openly wishing that Captain America, a masked man who's stopped crime in the past, were around to solve the mystery. Gail Richards, Grant Gardner's secretary, investigates and realizes someone knows of the "Purple Death", a hypnotic chemical responsible for the suicides.

However, a man then pulls out a gun and takes her into another room, and he orders an associate to tie her up. The District Attorney realizes she is there and forces the man to take himself to her. Grant Gardner finds her tied up and gagged, and he frees her. But, the man who then calls himself the Scarab threatens that the purple death will be dropped and kill them all. But Grant Gardner then shoots him and gets out of the room with Gail.

All of the suicides were members of an expedition to some Egyptian ruins. One of the few remaining survivors, Professor Lyman, turns to his friend Dr. Maldor for support.

However, Dr. Maldor reveals that he is the man responsible for the deaths. He wants revenge because he planned and organised the expedition but everyone else claimed the fame and fortune.

However, Lyman has developed the "Dynamic Vibrator" - a device intended for mining operations but one that can be amplified into a devastating weapon. Using his purple death, Dr. Maldor forces Lyman to disclose the location of his plans.

Captain America intervenes as the Scarab's heavies attempt to steal the plans and this leads to a sequence of plots by the Scarab to acquire a working version and other devices, while trying to eliminate the interfering Captain before he succeeds in discovering Dr. Maldor's true identity or defeats him.

Eventually, Dr. Maldor pays the Toll of Doom and is killed in the electric chair at the stroke of Midnight. This takes place after he is captured by Captain America.

6

The Incredible Hulk (T1)

Dr. David Banner is a physician and a scientist searching for a way to tap into the hidden strengths that all humans have.

Then an accidental overdose of gamma radiation alters his body chemistry. And now, when David Banner grows angry or outraged, a startling metamorphosis occurs. The creature is driven by rage and pursued by an investigative reporter.

The creature is wanted for a murder he didn't commit. David Banner is believed to be dead. And he must let the world think that he is dead, until he can find a way to control the raging spirit that dwells within him.

Banner's character and the animalistic nature of the Hulk were frequently explored and expanded upon. The Hulk's personality was shown to still reflect Banner's good and compassionate nature, meaning he will typically restrict his wrath to villains threatening him, but will also restrict himself to simply tossing them aside, instead of killing them.

Although the Hulk's intelligence is low, he retains the same motivations and priorities as Banner, always managing to protect people or objects that Banner deems important as well as attacking those he feels fear or hostility toward. The Hulk also has a soft spot towards women, children and animals.

However, as Banner's normal personality becomes dormant to the Hulk's in that form, he has no memory of the creature's actions, Banner lives in constant worry of what damage the Hulk causes during his episodes, fearing that someday the Hulk may unwittingly hurt or kill an innocent person.

Jack McGee underwent significant development throughout the course of the series. He is initially portrayed as cynical and conniving, while at times, when given the opportunity, actively attempting to capture the Hulk using tranquilizer darts.

However, McGee gradually comes to realize over time that the Hulk may not be as dangerous as he initially thought, particularly following several instances.

On one occasion, his life was saved by the creature in Las Vegas.

On another occasion, McGee was investigating another Hulk sighting and is unknowingly stranded with a facially bandaged David Banner in the wilderness after the crash of a plane that kills the pilot.

Banner was given the name 'John Doe' in the hospital due to his memory loss following a car crash he was in with a woman who had given him a ride, and where the Hulk was sighted.

Banner regains his memory before McGee becomes trapped under a fallen tree during a wildfire and changes to the Hulk to rescue McGee, who finally learns the shocking truth that the creature he has been pursuing for the past two years is actually a man most of the time.

This revelation changes McGee-pursuing-the-Hulk-obsessively dynamic of all time as Banner finds it even more difficult to avoid McGee's pursuits as the latter is now on a constant lookout for both the man and the creature.

McGee hopes to catch the Hulk so that a inevitable media sensation will advance his own dwindling career.

⌛ Hulk has had many adventures with Daredevil and Thor.

Three years later, David Banner masquerades as David Bellamy, a mentally challenged janitor, to gain access to a scientific research facility in Portland, Oregon. He believes that the studies of one of the scientists there, Dr. Ronald Pratt, may hold the key to curing his gamma-induced condition that, in times of stress, turns him into a superhuman green creature known as the Hulk. Pratt takes a liking to the man he sees only as a building custodian.

One night after making a transaction at the bank, David is trapped by street thieves and is beaten and robbed. The stress of his injuries induces another transformation. The Hulk makes short work of the criminals but attracts the attention of authorities before escaping.

The next day, bypassing security, Banner enters Pratt's laboratory and examines the formula on his blackboard, making corrections and filling in gaps. At the same time, a beautiful Russian spy named Jasmin, thinking she has completed her last act of espionage, is approached again by former superior Kasha for one last job: infiltrate Pratt's lab and steal the files on his experiments. When she refuses, Kasha blackmails Jasmin with her sister Bella's life. Jasmin then disguises herself as a club hopper and gets a fingerprint from one of the security guards.

The following morning, Pratt examines the formula on his blackboard and discovers that it is now correct. Determined to find out who is guiding him, he hides out in the lab in wait for his would-be mentor. This time he catches David in the act and asks him to tell him something that would keep him from sounding the security alarm.

Banner reveals his true identity and goes over the events that led to his self-experimentation that resulted in the Hulk. He notes that his condition also dives into Pratt's own research on a human's capacity to heal, for in Hulk-form David's accelerated metabolism allows any wound to close in seconds, leaving him with hardly a scar. Pratt believes he can cure David, but he needs to first study the creature.

Over the course of a week, both scientists, with the help of Pratt's scientist wife, Amy, construct a force field cage and sensors to track Banner's vitals. On the night of the observation, David is rigged with a tranquilizer to sedate him once the readings have been recorded. Banner shocks himself with an electrical rod and Hulks-out. The energy cage holds the creature back until Pratt has his readings and Amy activates the tranquilizer.

Banner reverts to normal and Pratt and Amy photograph the closing puncture wound from the tranquilizer. Banner later watches the video of his transformation – claiming it is the first time he has seen the Hulk – and fails to see any humanity in him despite Amy's beliefs.

The next day, the facility's board announces to Pratt that they are pulling his funding for his lack of results, which forces him to move up his proposed cure for David. An eastern European spy network dedicated to using Pratt's (and Banner's) work for corrupt purposes breaks into the lab, halting the experiment and kidnapping Pratt and Amy. Banner has fallen in love with Jasmin, who returns his affections, and with her help, he helps the Pratts.

While pursuing the kidnappers, Banner and Jasmin learn that her sister, Bella, is the true leader of the spy network, and Banner turns into the Hulk, who tries to protect Pratt and Jasmin. The Hulk runs towards the plane, on which Bella and Zed are attempting to escape, and breaks it open. He climbs aboard before it can take off, enters and stops the two spies. But the plane explodes and the Hulk is thrown into the night, falling onto the concrete. After one last return transformation, Banner dies, telling Jasmin he is free.

⌛ Banner was revived, but was unable to change into the Hulk.

Banner then begins to work for the government in order to prevent accidents like the one that turned him into the Hulk, but is captured by villains and coerced into turning their agents into Hulk-like beings.

Banner would have to be forced to recreate the accident that transformed him into the incredible Hulk in order to stop the villains' plans. However, the Hulk would have Banner's mind.

7

Thor (T1)

Dr. David Banner has been gainfully employed at the Joshua-Lambert Research Institute where he and a team of scientists are putting the final touches on a Gamma Transponder, which he intends to use to cure him of his ability to turn into the Hulk.

He has not changed into the Hulk for two years since he met a young widow, Maggie Shaw, with whom he is romantically involved. By chance, he is recognized by a former student of his, Donald Blake who reveals that, on an expedition in Norway, he was bound into possession of an enchanted hammer containing the soul of Thor, an immortal warrior banished by Odin to Earth. Thor is reluctantly compelled to serve Donald Blake, who is unnerved by this. Thor damages equipment and angers Banner until he turns into the Hulk, who fights him off and leaves.

In the morning, Banner scolds Donald Blake for setting back his experiment and demands that he and Thor make amends. Journalist Jack McGee hears of sighting of the Hulk and attempts to track him down. Thor laments of his banishment from Valhalla and bonds with Blake at a bar, briefly entertaining the possibility of Thor using his powers to fight crime.

A criminal organisation within the Joshua-Lambert Institute seek to kidnap Banner and the Transponder, but the Hulk effortlessly dispatches them. The mob leader LeBeau targets Dr. Shaw instead of Banner. Mob members disguised as police officers ambush Banner and Shaw and kidnap Shaw despite the combined efforts of the Hulk and Thor.

LeBeau blackmails Banner into handing over the Transponder in return for Shaw's life. Banner sabotages the Transponder so it cannot be used as a weapon, removing his chance of a cure. Hulk, Blake and Thor ambush the gang's hideout and fight off a legion of gunmen to rescue Shaw.

McGee is once again the subject of ridicule for his obsession with the Hulk and Thor. Blake and Banner both agree that Shaw has likely figured out that Banner and the Hulk are one and the same and that Banner should leave to protect her. Thor and Blake, now at peace with each other, say their goodbyes to Banner. Banner is forced to end his relationship with Shaw and once again leaves to find a cure.

8

Daredevil (T1)

On the run again, David Banner is working up north under the name David Belson. Disenchanted and at the end of his rope, David makes his way towards Hell's Kitchen with the hopes of renting a room and staying buried. Unbeknownst to him, the city he arrives in is under the control of a powerful underworld kingpin named Wilson Fisk but is protected by a mysterious black-clad crimefighter known as Daredevil.

When two of Fisk's men come onto the commuter subway train after having committed a jewel robbery, one of them takes an interest in a beautiful woman also riding the train and she rejects him. David witnesses an attempted sexual assault by one of Fisk's men, he transforms into the Hulk and things go haywire. A short while later, David is arrested by the police and wrongfully charged with the crime.

While awaiting trial, blind defense attorney Matt Murdock is assigned to David's case. David is uncooperative but Murdock has faith that he is innocent and is determined to prove so. One night while fast asleep, David has a nightmare about his upcoming trial and dreams about transforming into the Hulk on the witness stand. The stress of this causes him to transform in reality and the Hulk goes berserk and breaks free of the prison.

Subsequent events see David Banner team up with Daredevil who reveals his identity as Matt Murdock. Matt tells David about his origins which David has trouble accepting at first.
Daredevil also reveals that he has an ally on the Police force who provides him with information relating to criminal activity.

As Daredevil, Matt goes to investigate a tip provided by his informant. The tip turns out to have been planted by Wilson Fisk and Daredevil is badly injured in an ambush by the Kingpin's men. David rushes to save Matt but he is too late to help, becomes angry, and transforms into Hulk. The Hulk, in turn, smashes in and saves Matt from Kingpin and his men flee. Matt who is barely conscious, traces the Hulk's face as he transforms back to David, thus learning his secret.

Fisk, in the meantime, has the witness to events on the subway abducted from protective custody in order to have her killed but she is saved by the Fisk's assistant who finds her attractive. Wilson Fisk is also planning a major meeting of underworld crime lords in order to propose the consolidation of their operations into a big syndicate with himself as chairman.

David who is trained as a medical doctor, treats Matt's injuries and spreads the cover story that Matt got hurt falling down the stairs. Matt's self-confidence is seriously shaken.

David's confidence on the other hand has been restored by seeing how Matt has embraced his unique gifts also caused by exposure to radiation.

After a little coaxing from David, Matt begins to recover and retrain his body. Soon enough, the two return to work and go to save the captured woman. The two engage the Wilson Fisk and his men and ultimately succeed in beating him. Wilson Fisk and his assistant escape and the prisoner is freed. The two part ways as friends and allies with David planning to head in search of a cure for himself and Matt will stay in the city and protect it.

9

Fantastic Four (T1)

Physicist Reed Richards is convinced evolution was triggered millions of years ago on Earth by clouds of cosmic energy in space, and has calculated that one of these clouds is soon going to pass near Earth.

Together with his friend, astronaut Ben Grimm, Reed convinces Victor Von Doom, his former classmate at MIT and now CEO of Von Doom Industries, to allow him the use his privately owned space station in order to test the effects of a biological sample of exposure to the cloud. Doom agrees in exchange for control over the experiment and a majority of the profits from whatever benefits it brings. Reed brings his ex-girlfriend and Von Doom's chief genetics researcher Sue Storm and her ex-astronaut younger brother Johnny Storm.

The quintet travels to outer space to observe the cosmic energy clouds, but Reed miscalculates and the clouds materialize ahead of schedule. Reed and the Storms leave the shielded station to rescue Ben, who had gone on a spacewalk to place the samples.

Ben receives full exposure in outer space, while the others receive a more limited dose within the station. Back home they soon develop superpowers: Reed can stretch his body like rubber, Susan can become invisible and generate force shields, Johnny Storm can engulf himself in fire and fly unaided, and Ben becomes a rock-like creature with superhuman strength and durability.

Meanwhile, Von Doom faces a backlash from his stockholders because of the publicity from the space mission, and has a scar on his face that came from an exploding control console on the station.

Ben's fiancee Debbie cannot handle his new appearance and leaves him. Ben goes to brood on the Brooklyn Bridge and accidentally causes a traffic pileup while preventing a man from committing suicide. Ben, Reed and the Storms use their various abilities to contain the damage and prevent harm. The media dubs them the Fantastic Four.

They move into Reed's lab in the Baxter Building to study their abilities and seek a way to return Grimm to normal. Von Doom, himself mutating, offers his support but blames Reed for the failure of the spaceflight, which has lost him his company.

Reed tells the group he will construct a machine to recreate the storm and reverse its effects on them, but warns it could possibly accelerate them instead.

Meanwhile, Von Doom's arm has become organic metal, giving him superhuman strength allowing him to produce bolts of electricity, and he begins plotting revenge. He drives a wedge between Ben and Reed, who has rekindled his relationship with Susan Storm.

Using the machine, Von Doom restores Ben to human form, while accelerating Von Doom's condition, causing much of his body to turn to metal. Von Doom knocks the human Grimm unconscious and captures Reed.

Now calling himself Doctor Doom, he puts on a metallic mask and a cloak to hide his disfigurement, Doom then tortures Reed and fires a heat seeking missile at the Baxter Building in an unsuccessful attempt to defeat Johnny. Sue confronts Doom but is outmatched. Ben arrives to assist her, transformed into the Thing again by reusing the machine (speaking his signature line, "It's clobberin' time!" which used in Johnny's action figure).

The battle then gets spilled into the streets and The Storms combine their powers to wrap Doom in an inferno of intense heat, while Ben and Reed douse him with cold water, inducing thermal shock and freezing Doom in the place, defeating him and preventing the destruction of the city.

Grimm informs Reed that he has accepted his condition with the help of Alicia Masters, a blind artist for whom he has now developed feelings, and the team then embraces its role as four superheroes. Reed proposes a marriage to Sue, who accepts.

Meanwhile, Doom's statue-like remains are being transported back to his homeland of Latveria when the dock master's electronic manifest briefly undergoes electromagnetic interference, showing that Doom is still alive.

As Reed Richards and Sue Storm prepare for their wedding, a silver object enters Earth's atmosphere, creating 1 mile wide craters around the world.

General Hager orders Reed to track and identify its movements. He initially refuses, to appease Sue, who feels he is neglecting her for his work. However, he secretly builds a radar tracker to locate the object, as the Army requests.

During the wedding, Reed's systems detect the phenomenon approaching New York City, which suffers a blackout since it emits electromagnetic pulses that cause power outages.

Johnny Storm, the Human Torch, decides to pursue the object, and discovers it to be a silver humanoid on a flying surfboard.

The "Silver Surfer" drags him into the upper atmosphere, suffocating him and drops him.

During his fall, Johnny finds his flame powers fluctuating and barely survives, successfully flying only at the last moment.

Later, Sue and Johnny switch powers when they touch, prompting Reed to deduce that exposure to the Surfer has affected Johnny's molecular structure, allowing him to switch powers with his teammates through physical contact.

Tracing the cosmic energy of the Surfer, Reed discovers that a series of planets the alien has visited have all been destroyed.

Reed and Sue contemplate abandoning their lives as heroes in order to have a normal life and raise a family, but are unaware that Johnny is listening.

With the Surfer creating craters around the globe, Reed determines that the next will appear in London. The team arrives too late to stop the crater, which drains the River Thames, but they prevent the London Eye from collapsing after it is damaged by the quake (though Johnny nearly thwarts their effect in the process when he switches powers with Reed).

Meanwhile, the Surfer's movements around the globe bring him past Latveria, where the cosmic energy affects Victor Von Doom, freeing him from two years encased in metal.

A scarred Doom traces the Surfer to the Russell Glacier and offers to join forces. When the Surfer rebuffs him, Doom attacks. The Surfer retaliates, blasting Doom through the ice, but the cosmic energy of the Surfer's blast heals Doom's body.

Doom leverages his experience into a deal with the American military, who force the Fantastic Four to work with Doom.

Deducing that the Surfer's board is the source of his power, Reed develops a tachyon pulse generator that will separate him from it, while Doom works on a machine whose function he keeps a secret.

In the Black Forest, the Surfer confronts Sue and reveals he is merely a servant to the destroyer of worlds, and regrets the destruction he causes. The military opens fire on the Surfer, which distracts him and allows the Fantastic Four to fire the pulse, separating the Surfer from his board. The military imprisons the Surfer in Siberia, where they torture him for information.

Sue uses her powers to sneak into his cell, where he reveals more information. He tells her his master, known by the people of his world as Galactus, is a massive cloud-like cosmic entity that feeds on life-bearing planets to survive, and that his board is a homing beacon summoning Galactus to the planet. The Silver Surfer has to serve Galactus, who will otherwise destroy not only his loved ones but also his planet.

Using the device he has created earlier, Doom betrays Hager and steals the board from the compound, killing the majority of the Army personnel present there. The Fantastic Four rescue the Surfer and pursue Doom in the Fantasticar, confronting him in Shanghai.

During the battle, Sue is mortally wounded. With the Surfer powerless, Johnny absorbs the combined powers of the entire team in order to battle the now cosmic energy-empowered Doom. Johnny succeeds in breaking Doom's controlling device over the Surfer's board, and Ben Grimm uses a nearby crane to knock Doom into the harbor, drowning him.

However, Galactus arrives just as Sue dies in Reed's arms. The Surfer regains control of his board, restoring his power. He revives Sue and chooses to defend Earth, flying, with an extra boost from Johnny, into Galactus.

The conflict results in a massive blast of energy that engulfs Galactus, and apparently kills the Surfer as well. Johnny has recovered his stable molecular state after touching the Surfer's board.

Reed and Sue get married in Japan, in an abbreviated ceremony. Receiving news that Venice is sinking into the Adriatic, the team heads to Italy.

The Silver Surfer's seemingly lifeless body floats through space. His eyes then open and his board races toward him, showing that he is still alive.

10

Spider-Man (T1)

High-school senior Peter Parker lives with his Aunt May and Uncle Ben and is a school outcast. On a school field trip, he visits a genetics laboratory with his friend Harry Osborn and love interest, Mary Jane Watson.

There, Peter is bitten by a genetically engineered "super spider". Shortly after arriving home, he becomes unconscious.

Meanwhile, Harry's father, scientist Norman Osborn, owner of Oscorp, is trying to secure an important military contract.

He experiments on himself with an unstable performance-enhancing chemical. After absorbing the chemical, he goes insane and kills his assistant.

The next morning, Peter finds that he is no longer near-sighted and his body has metamorphosized into a more muscular physique.

At school, he finds that his body can produce webs and his quickened reflexes let him avoid injury during a confrontation with Flash Thompson. Peter discovers he has developed superhuman speed, strength, the ability to stick to surfaces, and a heightened ability to sense danger.

Brushing off Uncle Ben's advice that "With great power comes great responsibility," Peter thinks of impressing Mary Jane with a car. He enters an underground fighting tournament and wins his first match, but the promoter cheats him out of his money. When a thief suddenly raids the promoter's office, Peter allows him to escape.

Moments later, he discovers that Uncle Ben was carjacked and killed. Peter pursues and confronts the carjacker, only to realize it was the thief he let escape. After Peter disarms him, the carjacker flees, but dies in the process.

Meanwhile, a crazed Norman interrupts a military experiment and kills several scientists and the military's General Slocum.

Upon graduating, Peter begins using his abilities to fight injustice, donning a costume and the persona of Spider-Man. J. Jonah Jameson, a newspaper company headmaster, hires Peter as a freelance photographer, since he is the only person providing clear images of Spider-Man.

Norman, upon learning Oscorp's board members plan to sell the company, assassinates them at the World Unity Fair. Jameson quickly dubs the mysterious killer the Green Goblin. The Goblin offers Spider-Man a place at his side, but Spider-Man refuses.

They fight and Spider-Man is wounded. At Thanksgiving dinner, Aunt May invites Mary Jane, Harry and Norman. During the dinner, Norman sees the wound and realizes Spider-Man's identity. Shortly after he leaves, the Green Goblin attacks and hospitalizes Aunt May.

Mary Jane admits she has a crush on Spider-Man, who has rescued her on numerous occasions, and asks Peter whether Spider-Man ever asked about her.

Harry, who loves Mary Jane, arrives and learns she has feelings for Peter. Devastated, Harry tells his father that Peter loves Mary Jane, unintentionally revealing Spider-Man's biggest weakness.

The Goblin holds Mary Jane and a Roosevelt Island Tram car full of children hostage alongside the Queensboro Bridge. He forces Spider-Man to choose whom he wants to save, and drops Mary Jane and the children. Spider-Man manages to save both Mary Jane and the tram car, while the Goblin is pelted by civilians who side with Spider-Man.

The Goblin then grabs Spider-Man and throws him into an abandoned building where they battle. When the Goblin boasts about how he will later kill Mary Jane, an enraged Spider-Man overpowers the Goblin.

Norman reveals himself to Spider-Man, who stops attacking. He begs for forgiveness, but at the same time controls his glider to impale his foe. Sensing the attack, Spider-Man dodges, and the glider impales Norman.

As he dies, Norman begs Peter not to tell Harry of the Green Goblin's identity. Spider-Man takes Norman's body back to Norman's house. Harry arrives to find Spider-Man standing over his father's body. He seizes a gun, intent on shooting Spider-Man, but Spider-Man escapes and hides the Green Goblin's equipment.

At Norman’s funeral, Harry swears vengeance toward Spider-Man, whom he deems responsible for his father's death, and asserts that Peter is all the family he has left. Mary Jane confesses to Peter that she is in love with him.

Peter, however, feels that he must protect her from the unwanted attentions of Spider-Man's enemies. He hides his true feelings and tells Mary Jane that they can only be friends.

As Peter leaves the funeral, he recalls Ben's words, and accepts his new responsibility as Spider-Man.

Peter Parker struggles to balance his crime-fighting duties as Spider-Man with the demands of his normal life.

Estranged from both love interest Mary Jane Watson and best friend Harry Osborn, Peter additionally discovers his Aunt May is facing foreclosure.

Harry, now head of Oscorp's research division, sponsors the brilliant nuclear scientist Otto Octavius' fusion power project. While handling the equipment, Octavius wears a harness of powerful robotic tentacle arms with artificial intelligence.

In a demonstration, a power spike causes the fusion reactor to destabilize. Octavius refuses to shut down the reactor. Spider-Man arrives and shuts down the experiment before it can do any further damage.

The reactor explodes, killing Octavius' wife and damaging his robotic arms; in the process, the inhibitor chip controlling the arms is rendered useless.

At a hospital, doctors prepare to surgically remove Octavius's harness. However, after the inhibitor chip is destroyed, the arms have developed sentience. They spring to life and attack the medical crew, killing most of them.

Upon regaining consciousness and seeing the carnage, Octavius escapes and hides at a harbor. Becoming increasingly influenced by the arms' AI, Octavius robs a bank to fund another experiment.

When Spider-Man is attempting to save Aunt May, Octavius is upset because he stuck his webs in his business once again. The Daily Bugle subsequently dubs him Doctor Octopus.

Mary Jane becomes engaged to astronaut John Jameson, son of Bugle chief J. Jonah Jameson. Peter suffers an emotional breakdown and temporarily loses his powers. He abandons his Spider-Man identity, returns to his normal life and tries to reconcile with Mary Jane.

A garbageman brings Spider-Man's costume to J. Jonah Jameson, who takes credit for Spider-Man's disappearance. Peter tells Aunt May that his Uncle Ben's death some time ago was his fault. May forgives him, but the rise in New York City crime rate worries Peter.

Octavius needs tritium to fuel his reactor and goes to Harry to demand it. Harry agrees in exchange for Spider-Man's life. He tells Octavius to seek Peter, who is supposedly good friends with Spider-Man. Octavius locates Peter, tells him to find Spider-Man, and captures Mary Jane. Peter's powers are restored, and he steals back his costume from the Bugle and goes after Octavius.

As Spider-Man battles Octavius, they fall onto a rapid transit R train. Octavius sabotages the controls and jumps off, and Spider-Man struggles to stop the train before the track ends. When he faints from exhaustion, the passengers carry him into one of the cars. He comes to and realizes his mask is off, but the passengers promise not to reveal his identity. Octavius returns, easily subdues Spider-Man, and delivers him to Harry.

After giving Octavius the Tritium, Harry prepares to kill Spider-Man, only to be shocked to see Peter under the mask. Saying greater things are at stake, he convinces Harry to reveal Octavius's location.

Spider-Man arrives at the doctor's waterfront laboratory and tries to rescue Mary Jane discreetly. One of Octavius's tentacles senses him, and they fight. Spider-Man ultimately subdues Octavius, reveals his identity, and persuades Octavius to let go of his dream for the greater good.

Octavius finally commands the tentacles to obey him and drowns the fusion reactor, along with himself, in the Hudson River. Mary Jane discovers Spider-Man's true identity and feelings, as well as why they cannot be together. Spider-Man returns Mary Jane to John and leaves.

Harry is visited by a vision of his father, pleading for Harry to avenge his death. Refusing to hurt Peter, Harry shatters the mirror, unintentionally revealing a secret room containing the Green Goblin's equipment. On her wedding day, Mary Jane abandons John at the altar and runs to Peter's apartment. After they kiss, they hear police sirens, and Mary Jane encourages him to respond as Spider-Man.

Peter Parker plans to propose to Mary Jane Watson, who has just made her Broadway musical debut. A meteorite lands near Central Park, and an extraterrestrial symbiote attaches itself to Peter's moped.

Meanwhile, police pursue escaped prisoner Flint Marko, who falls into an experimental particle accelerator that fuses his body with the surrounding sand and allows him to shapeshift at will as the Sandman. Harry Osborn, attacks Peter with new weapons based on his father's Green Goblin technology, leading to partial amnesia, which makes him forget his revenge.

During a festival honoring Spider-Man, Marko robs an armored car. NYPD Captain George Stacy tells Peter and Aunt May that Marko was Uncle Ben's killer, and the deceased Dennis Carradine was only Marko's accomplice.

While a vengeance-obsessed Peter sleeps, the symbiote bonds with him. Peter wakes up hanging from a skyscraper and discovers his costume has changed and his powers have been enhanced, but the symbiote brings out Peter's dark side.

Wearing the new black suit, Spider-Man locates Marko—spiting his Daily Bugle competitor Eddie Brock by breaking his camera—and battles him in a subway tunnel. He discovers water is Marko's weakness and breaks a water pipe to reduce the Sandman into mud, washing Marko away into the pipes, Spider-Man leaving him for dead.

Peter's changed personality alienates Mary Jane, whose career is floundering, and she finds solace with Harry. Harry recovers from his amnesia and, urged by a hallucination of his dead father, compels Mary Jane to break up with Peter.

After Mary Jane tells Peter she loves somebody else, Harry meets with Peter and claims to be "the other guy". Later, Peter, wearing the black suit, confronts Harry and spitefully tells him his father never loved him. Harry throws a pumpkin bomb at Peter, who deflects it back, disfiguring Harry's face.

Under the symbiote's influence, Peter exposes Eddie Brock, a rival photographer at The Daily Bugle, by showing that he submitted doctored photographs showing Spider-Man as a criminal. Furious at having to print a retraction, J. Jonah Jameson sacks Brock.

Soon afterwards, to make Mary Jane jealous, Peter brings Stacy's daughter, Gwen to the nightclub where Mary Jane works. Gwen catches on and leaves. Peter brawls with the bouncers and, after accidentally attacking Mary Jane, he realizes the symbiote is changing him.

Retreating to a church bell tower, he discovers that he cannot remove the suit but that the symbiote weakens when the bell rings. Peter removes the symbiote and it falls to the lower tower, landing on Brock, who is praying for Peter's death. The symbiote bonds to Brock's body, transforming him into Venom. Brock then finds Sandman and offers to join forces.

Brock hijacks Mary Jane's taxi and hangs it from a web hundreds of feet above a sand-filled construction site. Peter seeks Harry's help, but is rejected. While Peter battles with Brock, Harry learns the truth about his father's death and goes to help Peter. Harry subdues the Sandman, while Peter battles Brock. Brock almost impales Peter with Harry's glider but Harry jumps in the way and becomes impaled himself.

Fighting the symbiote, Peter remembers how the church bell weakened it. He grabs pipes and creates a ring around the symbiote, creating a wall of sonic vibrations. The symbiote releases Brock, and Peter uses his webs to pull Brock from it. However, the symbiote has gained enough power from Peter and Brock to live on its own without a host. Peter throws a pumpkin bomb at the symbiote from Harry's glider, but Brock jumps in to save it, and both are killed by the explosion.

After the battle, Marko explains to Peter that he never intended to kill Ben, but only wanted his car and shot him accidentally when Dennis grabbed his arm, and that Ben's death has haunted him ever since. Peter forgives Marko, who dissipates and floats away. Peter and Harry forgive each other, and Harry dies with Mary Jane and Peter at his side. Later at the nightclub, Peter and Mary Jane dance, reconciling their relationship.

11

Punisher (T1)

When Bobby Saint and Mickey Duka meet with European arms dealer Otto Krieg at the Tampa, Florida seaport, the FBI intervenes and Saint is killed while Duka is jailed. "Krieg", supposedly killed in the shootout, is actually undercover FBI agent and former U.S. Army Delta Force operator Frank Castle.

Shortly thereafter, he retires from the FBI and attends a family reunion at his father's oceanside home in Aguadilla Bay, Puerto Rico. Tampa crime boss Howard Saint is enraged by the death of his son, and with right-hand man Quentin Glass bribes the FBI for confidential information about "Krieg".

Saint orders Castle murdered, and Saint's wife, Livia, demands Castle's entire family be killed as well to "settle the score."

At the reunion, gunmen including Glass and John Saint, kill most of the extended family. Castle and his father kill several of the attackers before Castle's father is killed. Castle's wife and son try to escape, but John Saint runs over them with a truck, killing them.

Castle, shot in the chest and blown off a pier in an explosion set by Glass, survives and is nursed back to health by a local fisherman, Candelaria. Once recovered, Castle goes to Tampa and takes refuge in an old tenement where three young outcasts — Dave, Bumpo, and Joan — live. Castle abducts Duka, who fearfully gives up information about the Saints — whom he, too, hates, and so willingly becomes Castle's mole.

Castle starts exacting revenge on the police and FBI agents who have been bribed to close the investigation of his family's murder. In the process, he sabotages Saint's money-laundering business and severs Saint's partnership with Cuban mobsters the Toro Brothers, and starts tailing Livia and Glass, learning in the process that Glass is a closeted homosexual.

Saint, realizing Castle is alive, sends two assassins to kill him. Castle kills the first, guitar player Harry Heck, by shooting a ballistic knife into Heck's throat. The second is "the Russian," a behemoth who beats Castle in a brutal fight but is defeated when Castle throws boiling oil in his face, blinding him long enough for Castle to throw him down a staircase, breaking his neck.

Moments later, Saint's men arrive, led by Glass and John Saint. Dave, Joan and Bumpo hide the injured Castle and refuse to tell Glass where he is, despite Glass sadistically pulling out Dave's multiple facial piercings with a pair of pliers.

They leave a man behind to kill Castle upon his return, but Castle kills him once Glass and the others are gone.

With assistance from Mickey, Castle manipulates Howard Saint into believing Glass and Livia are having an affair. Saint, unaware Glass is gay, and believing Livia to be capable of cheating on him, kills them both personally, neither of them knowing why.

Castle attacks Saint's headquarters, the downtown Tampa nightclub Saints and Sinners, killing many of Saint's henchmen. He kills John Saint by having the crime boss's son hold an eight-pound, trip-wire activated grenade until his arm wearies and the grenade explodes.

Castle wounds Howard Saint with a pistol when Saint attempts to shoot him in the parking lot of the nightclub. Castle then ties Saint by his ankles to the bumper of a slow-moving car, but not before revealing that Glass and Livia were not having an affair, and that he set the whole thing up.

As the car drags Saint through the lot, Castle sets off several hidden bombs; the resulting destruction and wreckage kills Saint and culminate in the shape of the Punisher's iconic skull.

Later that night, Castle returns to his apartment and prepares to commit suicide, but after a brief vision of his wife, decides to continue his vigilante mission against others who in his mind deserve punishment.

Before departing on his next mission, he leaves most of Saint's money for Bumpo, Joan and Dave. On the Sunshine Skyway Bridge, he vows, "Those who do evil to others — the killers, the rapists, psychos, sadists — will come to know me well. Frank Castle is dead. Call me the Punisher."

Later, in a run-down neighborhood, Frank Castle wakes up and exits his van to get his laundry done. On his way to the coin-op laundromat, he witnesses a street gang stop and confront three prostitutes before Goldtooth, the gang leader, takes one of them to a back alley and rapes her.

Despite hearing her screams from a distance, Frank minds his business and places his laundry in a washing machine.

Minutes later, a boy named DeShawn crosses through the neighborhood and is harassed by the gang while Goldtooth offers him an opportunity to sell drugs for them.

When DeShawn refuses, the gang members begin to mug him. After a brief verbal confrontation with Goldtooth, Frank walks to a liquor store across the street to get a bottle of Yoo-hoo.

There, a handicapped store clerk named Big Mike tells him that two years ago, he witnessed a similar situation and insinuates that he wound up crippled for confronting the criminals.

Frank pays for the Yoo-hoo and also buys a bottle of Jack Daniel's, which he uses to club some of the gang members to death, while killing others with their own guns and knives.

After killing the thugs, he breaks Goldtooth's right arm and both legs before asking him if he knows what the difference between justice and punishment is, while pouring the whiskey on him. He then pulls out a lighter, and places it on the ground before returning to the laundromat.

The battered prostitute returns to the scene to pick up the lighter and sets the gang leader on fire as Frank walks back to his van with his laundry. DeShawn approaches him to return a T-shirt he dropped, but Frank tells him to keep it. As Frank drives off, the boy unfolds the shirt to reveal the Punisher symbol.

12

Doctor Strange (T1)

In the Dark Dimension, Dormammu summons his servant - Morgan Le Fay to talk about her failure five hundred years ago where she couldn't overcome a sorcerer that wouldn't allow demons to access to our world. Dormammu tells Morgan Le Fay that the sorcerer is an ancient one, and must transfer his position to a successor. Morgan Le Fay has three days to defeat the sorcerer or kill his successor so she can rule our reality.

Morgan Le Fay possesses the body of a young woman named Clea Lake and uses her as a weapon against Thomas Lindmer, the old sorcerer, who is “Sorcerer Supreme of Earth," meaning that he is its primary defender of our world against threats of a magical nature.

Morgan Le Fay pushes him off a bridge, and he appears to die, before slowly getting up and healing an injury with magic. His friend, Wong, cares for him and locates Clea Lake for him.

Clea Lake, suffering from the psychic aftereffects of possession and haunted in her dreams by Morgan Le Fay, ends up under the care of psychiatrist Dr. Stephen Strange at the psychiatric hospital. Dr. Stephen Strange has the potential to become the next Sorcerer Supreme. Dr. Stephen Strange senses something wrong and shared Clea Lake's nightmare about the previous day's events, but does not recognize what is happening.

Thomas Lindmer contacts Dr. Stephen Strange at the hospital and tells him that Clea Lake cannot be helped with only medicine. Dr. Stephen Strange takes Thomas Lindmer's card, but does not take him seriously. He is intrigued by the fact that Thomas Lindmer's card bears the same symbol as his ring that his father gave him during his childhood.

Morgan Le Fay possesses a cat and tries to have it enter Thomas Lindmer's house, but the magical barriers of the house repel her.

Clea Lake is sedated against Dr. Stephen Strange's directions, causing her to fall asleep, and then seemingly into a coma. Sadly, Dr. Stephen Strange is unable to revive her and then goes to visit Thomas Lindmer. Morgan Le Fay has the chance to kill Dr. Stephen Strange, but she hesitates and he survives.

Thomas Lindmer tells Dr. Stephen Strange that his ignorance is a form of protection, and asks him if he wants to know the truth of his parents or remain in his ignorance. Dr. Stephen Strange demands to know the truth, and Thomas Lindmer says that he knows about how Dr. Stephen Strange's parents died when he was eighteen. He says Dr. Stephen Strange is special, and that his parents died trying to protect him. He says there are different realities, and that Clea Lake is trapped in them and only Dr. Stephen Strange can save her.

Dr. Stephen Strange is goes into the astral plane and confronts the demon Balzaroth that has been sent by Morgan Le Fay in order to stop Dr. Stephen Strange's rescue of Clea Lake who succeeds in returning both of them to the physical world.

Dormammu later questions Morgan Le Fay about how she spared Doctor Strange. She confesses that she is attracted to him, and the demon threatens to make her suffer for all of eternity as an old woman. She vows that she will not fail again.

Dr. Stephen Strange checks on Clea Lake, and agrees to dinner with her later. He goes to see Thomas Lindmer and refuses to accept the reality of magic despite having seen it himself. As he leaves, he can't remove the ring despite his attempts, but he lets the cat into the house that transforms into Morgan Le Fay and defeats Wong, seemingly killing him. She then defeats Thomas Lindmer, but she cannot kill him in this reality, so she summons Asmodeus to transport him to the Dark Dimension.

Dr. Stephen Strange visits Clea, but Morgan Le Fay interrupts. She promises Dr. Stephen Strange that Clea will be unharmed if he comes with her to the Dark Dimension, and he does.

Once there, Doctor Strange appears to be under her command. Morgan Le Fay offers him love, wealth, power, and knowledge. Morgan Le Fay attempts to seduce him, and on the verge of doing so, asks him to remove the ring. Doctor Strange says that only Thomas Lindmer can remove it, but Morgan Le Fay insists that he can do it if he tries. Doctor Strange refuses and defies Morgan Le Fay who then attacks him, but he defeats her.

Afterwards, Doctor Strange rescues Thomas Lindmer, and returns them both to their reality and revives Wong. Dormammu transforms Morgan Le Fay into an old hag.

Thomas Lindmer explains to Doctor Strange that he must choose whether he wants to remain mortal, or to become the Sorcerer Supreme, forgoing ignorance, offspring, or an easy death, but promises that he will have love.

Doctor Strange chooses to protect humanity. Thomas Lindmer's power is transferred to him. Wong then warns him that, while he now has Thomas Lindmer's powers, he does not yet have the knowledge or the wisdom to use them correctly, and that, if he is not extremely careful, he can harm himself or others.

So, Doctor Strange then takes Thomas Lindmer, who is rendered unconscious by the transfer, into his arms, and then takes him to his bedroom to recover from the ordeal.

Dr. Stephen Strange returns to the hospital, where many of his patients have become discharged, because Doctor Strange is intervening magically. He leaves with Clea Lake, who seems to have no memory of what happened, other than the bad dream.

Morgan Le Fay is shown on television, young again, posing as a self-help guru. Clea Lake fails to recognize her. Doctor Strange agrees to meet Clea later, and he then starts playing a trick on a street magician, turning the flowers the magician was going to produce, using sleight-of-hand, into a dove.

13

Team X (T1)

In 1845, James Howlett, a boy living in Canada, witnesses his father being killed by groundskeeper Thomas Logan. The trauma activates the boy's mutation: bone claws protrude from his knuckles, and he kills Thomas, who reveals that he is James's real father. James flees along with Thomas's son Victor Creed, who is thus James's half-brother.

They spend the next century as soldiers, fighting in the American Civil War, both World Wars, and the Vietnam War. In Vietnam, Victor attempts to rape a Vietnamese woman, and kills a senior officer who tries to stop him.

James defends Victor and the two are sentenced to execution by firing squad, which they survive. Major William Stryker approaches them in military custody, and offers them membership in Team X, a group of mutants including Agent Zero, Wade Wilson, John Wraith, Fred Dukes, and Chris Bradley. They join the team for a few years, with James now using the alias Logan, but the group's (especially Victor's) disregard for human life causes James to leave.

Six years later, Logan is working as a lumberjack in Canada, where he lives with his girlfriend Kayla Silverfox. Stryker and Zero approach Logan at work. Stryker reports that Wade and Bradley have been killed, and he thinks someone is targeting the team's members. Logan refuses to rejoin Stryker, but after finding Kayla's bloodied body in the woods, Logan realizes Victor is responsible. He finds him at a local bar, but Logan loses the subsequent fight.

Afterward, Stryker explains that Victor has gone rogue, and offers Logan a way to become strong enough to get his revenge. Logan undergoes a painful operation to reinforce his skeleton with adamantium, a virtually indestructible metal.

Once the procedure is complete, Stryker attempts to betray Logan by ordering that his memory be erased, but Logan overhears this and escapes to a nearby farm, where an elderly couple take him in. Zero kills them the following morning and tries to kill Logan. Logan takes down Zero's helicopter, killing him, and swears to kill both Stryker and Victor.

Logan locates John and Fred at a boxing club. Fred explains that Victor is still working for Stryker, hunting down mutants for Stryker to experiment on at his new laboratory, located at a place called "The Island". Fred mentions Remy "Gambit" LeBeau, is the only one who escaped from the island and therefore knows its location.

John and Logan find LeBeau in New Orleans, then both fight Victor, who kills John and extracts his DNA. Agreeing to help release mutants that Stryker has captured, Gambit takes Logan to Stryker's facility on Three Mile Island. Logan learns that Kayla is alive, having been coerced by Stryker into keeping tabs on him in exchange for her sister's safety.

However, Stryker refuses to release her sister and denies Victor the adamantium bonding promised for his service, claiming that test results revealed Victor would not survive the operation. Stryker activates Wade, now known as Weapon XI, a "mutant killer" with the powers of multiple mutants, who he refers to as the "Deadpool".

While Logan and Victor join forces to fight Weapon XI, Kayla is mortally wounded leading the Island's captive mutants- including a teenager named Scott Summers- to safety. The mutants are subsequently rescued by Professor Charles Xavier.

Logan decapitates Weapon XI, destroying one of the cooling towers in the process. Stryker arrives and shoots Logan in the head with adamantium bullets, rendering him unconscious. Before Stryker can shoot Kayla, she grabs him and uses her mutant power to persuade him to turn around and walk away until his feet bleed. Logan regains consciousness but has lost his memory. He sees Kayla's body, but does not recognize her, and leaves the island.

Stryker is detained for questioning by some MPs in connection with the death of his superior, General Munson, whom Stryker did in fact kill after Munson declared his intention to shut down Stryker's project.

14

X-Men (T1)

A crowd chants to En Sabah Nur, who is using telekinesis to build pyramids as four horsemen watch from nearby.

In 1944, in a German concentration camp in occupied Poland, Nazi scientist Dr. Klaus Schmidt witnesses a young Erik Lehnsherr bend a metal gate with his mind when the child is separated from his mother. In his office, Schmidt orders Lehnsherr to move a coin on his desk, and kills the boy's mother when Lehnsherr cannot. In grief and anger, Lehnsherr's magnetic power manifests, killing two guards and destroying the room.

Meanwhile, at a mansion in Westchester County, New York, child telepath Charles Xavier meets young shapeshifter Raven, whose natural form is blue-skinned and scaly. Overjoyed to meet someone else "different", he invites her to live with his family as his foster sister.

In 1962, Lehnsherr is tracking down Schmidt, while Xavier graduates from the University of Oxford. In Las Vegas, CIA officer Moira MacTaggert follows U.S. Army Colonel Hendry into the Hellfire Club, where she sees Schmidt (now known as Sebastian Shaw), with mutant telepath Emma Frost, cyclone-producing Riptide, and teleporter Azazel. Threatened by Shaw and teleported by Azazel to the Joint War Room, Hendry advocates deployment of nuclear missiles in Turkey. Shaw, an energy-absorbing mutant, later kills Hendry.

MacTaggert, seeking Xavier's advice on mutation, takes him and Raven to the CIA, where they convince Director McCone that mutants exist and Shaw is a threat. Another CIA officer sponsors the mutants and invites them to the secret "Division X" facility. MacTaggert and Xavier find Shaw as Lehnsherr is attacking him, and rescue Lehnsherr from drowning, while Shaw escapes.

Xavier brings Lehnsherr to Division X, where they meet young scientist Hank McCoy, a mutant with prehensile feet, who believes Raven's DNA may provide a "cure" for their appearance. Xavier uses McCoy's mutant-locating device Cerebro to seek recruits against Shaw. Xavier and Lehnsherr recruit stripper Angel Salvadore, cabbie Armando Muñoz, Army prisoner Alex Summers, and runaway Sean Cassidy. They all create nicknames, and Raven dubs herself "Mystique".

When Frost meets with a Soviet general in the USSR, Xavier and Lehnsherr capture Frost and discover that Shaw intends to start World War III and trigger mutant ascendency. Azazel, Riptide and Shaw attack Division X, killing everyone but the mutants, whom Shaw invites to join him. Salvadore accepts; when Summers and Muñoz retaliate, Shaw kills Muñoz.

In Moscow, Shaw compels the general to have the USSR install missiles in Cuba. Wearing a helmet that blocks telepathy, Shaw follows the Soviet fleet in a submarine to ensure the missiles break a US blockade.

Raven, thinking McCoy likes her in her natural form, tells him not to use the cure. When she later attempts to seduce Lehnsherr by taking the forms of various women, Lehnsherr tells her she is beautiful in her blue mutant form. McCoy uses the cure on himself but it backfires, giving him blue fur and leonine aspects.

With McCoy piloting, the mutants and MacTaggert take a jet to the blockade line, where Xavier uses his telepathy to influence a Soviet sailor to destroy the ship carrying the missiles, and Lehnsherr uses his magnetic power to lift Shaw's submarine from the water and deposit it on land.

During the ensuing battle, Lehnsherr seizes Shaw's helmet, allowing Xavier to immobilize Shaw. Lehnsherr tells Shaw he shares Shaw's exclusivist view of mutants but, to avenge his mother, kills Shaw—over Xavier's objections—by forcing the Nazi coin from his childhood through Shaw's brain.

Fearing the mutants, both fleets fire missiles at them, which Lehnsherr turns back in mid-flight. MacTaggert tries to stop Lehnsherr by shooting him but he deflects the bullets, one of which hits Xavier in the spine. Lehnsherr rushes to help Xavier and, distracted, allows missiles to fall harmlessly into the ocean.

Parting with Xavier over their differing views on the relationship between mutants and humans, Lehnsherr leaves with Salvadore, Azazel, Riptide and Mystique.

Later, a wheelchair-bound Xavier and his mutants are at the mansion, where he intends to open a school. MacTaggert promises never to reveal his location and they kiss; later at a CIA debriefing, she says she has no memory of recent events. Elsewhere Lehnsherr, now calling himself "Magneto", frees Frost from confinement.

Decades later, U.S. Senator Robert Kelly attempts to pass a "Mutant Registration Act" in Congress, which would force mutants to publicly reveal their identities and abilities. Present are Lehnsherr, now known as Magneto, and the telepathic Professor Charles Xavier, who privately discuss their differing views on the relationship between humans and mutants.

In Meridian, Mississippi, 17-year-old Marie D'Ancanto accidentally puts her boyfriend into a coma upon kissing him, which is caused by her superhuman ability to absorb the life force and mutant abilities of anyone she touches. In fear, Marie, now going by the name Rogue, runs away to Laughlin City, Alberta.

While at a bar, she meets Logan, also known as Wolverine, who possesses superhuman healing abilities, heightened senses, and metal claws that protrude from his knuckles. While on the road together, they are attacked by Sabretooth, another mutant and an associate of Magneto.

Cyclops and Storm arrive and save Wolverine and Rogue and bring them to the X-Mansion in Westchester County, New York. They're introduced to Xavier, who leads a group of mutants called the X-Men, who are educating young mutants on their powers, and trying to stop Magneto from starting the war with humanity and mutant-kind.

Senator Kelly is abducted by Magneto's allies Toad and the shapeshifter Mystique and brought to their lair, where Magneto uses Kelly as a test subject for a machine that induces mutation.

Kelly uses his new mutant abilities to escape imprisonment. After Rogue uses her powers on Wolverine, she is convinced by Mystique (disguised as classmate Bobby Drake) that Xavier is angry with her and she should leave the school.

Xavier uses his mutant-locating machine Cerebro to find Rogue at a train station. Mystique later infiltrates Cerebro and sabotages the machine.

At the train station, Wolverine convinces Rogue to stay with Xavier, but a fight ensues when Magneto, Toad and Sabretooth arrive and kidnap Rogue.

Kelly arrives at Xavier's school, but dies shortly after due to the instability of his artificial mutation, which causes his cells to break down into a puddle of water.

The X-Men learn that Magneto was severely weakened while testing the machine on Kelly, and realize that he intends to use Rogue's power-transferring ability so that she can power the machine in his place, which will kill her. Xavier attempts to use Cerebro to locate Rogue, but Mystique's sabotage causes him to fall into a coma.

Jean Grey fixes Cerebro and uses it, learning that Magneto plans to place his mutation-inducing machine on Liberty Island and use it to mutate the world leaders meeting for a summit on nearby Ellis Island.

The X-Men scale the Statue of Liberty. Storm electrocutes Toad, and Wolverine stabs Mystique. Magneto transfers his powers to Rogue, and forces her to use them to start the machine.

Cyclops dispatches Sabretooth with help from Jean Grey, who levitates his battle visor. Storm uses her weather powers and Jean Grey uses her telekinesis to lift Wolverine up towards Magneto's machine.

Wolverine saves Rogue when Cyclops blasts Magneto out of the way, and destroys the machine. Wolverine touches the dying Rogue's face, and his healing abilities are transferred to her, causing her to recover.

Professor Xavier recovers from his coma. The group learns that Mystique is still alive, and impersonating Senator Kelly. Xavier tells Wolverine that near where he was found in Canada is an abandoned military base at Alkali Lake that might contain information about his past.

Xavier visits Magneto in a prison cell constructed entirely of plastic, and the two play chess. Magneto warns him that he will continue his fight, to which Xavier promises that he and the X-Men will always be there to stop him.

At the White House, brainwashed teleporting mutant Nightcrawler attempts to assassinate the President of the United States but fails and escapes. Meanwhile, Wolverine returns to Professor Xavier's school for mutants, while fellow X-Men Storm and Jean Grey find Nightcrawler with the help of the mutant-tracking machine Cerebro.

Xavier and Cyclops visit Magneto in his plastic prison cell, inquiring about the assassination attempt, and Xavier discovers that covert government operative, William Stryker, has been extracting information about Cerebro from a brainwashed Magneto using an injectable drug.

Stryker and his assistant Yuriko Oyama capture Cyclops and Xavier and raid Xavier's school. Wolverine kills many of Stryker's men, while Colossus, Rogue, Iceman, Pyro, and most of the students escape through hidden tunnels.

Wolverine confronts Stryker, who fails to shed light on Wolverine's past. Iceman helps Wolverine escape, but Stryker's soldiers succeed in sedating six students and breaking into Cerebro.

Impersonating Senator Robert Kelly and Yuriko, the shape-shifting Mystique gains information about Magneto's prison and helps him escape, and also learns of plans of another Cerebro. Wolverine, Rogue, Iceman, and Pyro visit Iceman's parents in Boston. Responding to a 9-1-1 call from Bobby's brother Ronny, the police arrive just as the group is leaving. Pyro uses his fire-projection power to fend off the police.

The X-Jet arrives to pick them up, and is targeted by two Air Force F-16 fighter jets. They are hit by a missile, but Magneto saves their jet from crashing. Magneto informs them that Stryker orchestrated the attack on the president to provide rationale to raid Xavier's school in order to steal Cerebro's parts, and plans to connect Xavier to another Cerebro rebuilt at a secret base.

The X-Men decide to team up with Magneto and Mystique to stop Stryker. Jean reads Nightcrawler's mind and determines that Stryker's base is inside the dam at Alkali Lake.

Through his son, Jason, Stryker gains control over Xavier, who is brainwashed to use the second Cerebro to find and kill all mutants. Mystique infiltrates Stryker's base by impersonating Wolverine, and Storm and Nightcrawler search for the students.

Jean, Magneto, and Mystique are attacked by a brainwashed Cyclops while trying to rescue Xavier, and cause damage to the generators that keep the dam from collapsing in the process.

The force of Jean's telekinetic blast clashing with Cyclops' optic blast awakens him from his brainwashing, but cracks the dam.

Wolverine finds Stryker in an adamantium smelting room, where he recovers some of his memory. Wolverine fights and kills Yuriko, and finds Stryker on a landing pad, where Stryker bargains for his life by offering to reveal Wolverine's past. Wolverine refuses, and binds Stryker in chains.

Storm and Nightcrawler find the students, while Magneto and Mystique kill the rest of Stryker's men. Magneto stops Jason and Xavier from using Cerebro to kill mutants.

Disguised as Stryker, Mystique uses Jason to convince Xavier to kill all humans instead; she and Magneto, along with new initiate Pyro, use Stryker's helicopter to escape Alkali Lake, after chaining Stryker to concrete rubble. Nightcrawler teleports Storm inside Cerebro, where she creates a snowstorm to break Jason's concentration and free Xavier from his control.

The X-Men flee the base as water engulfs it, and discover that Magneto, Mystique, and Pyro have escaped on the helicopter. Iceman and Rogue arrive with the X-Jet and get everyone on it.

The dam bursts, flooding the landscape and killing Stryker. A malfunction aboard the X-Jet prevents it from taking off; Jean sacrifices herself and uses a telekinetic wall to shield them from the flood. She activates the X-Jet's primary engines and drops the torrent of water down on herself, which 'kills' her.

The X-Men give the President all of Stryker's files, and Xavier warns him that the humans and the mutants must work together to build peace.

Back at school, Xavier, Cyclops, and Wolverine remember Jean, and Wolverine tells Cyclops that Jean chose Cyclops over him. As the film ends, Xavier states he believes everything will be alright, while a Phoenix-like shape forms beneath Alkali Lake.

Worthington Labs announces it has developed an inoculation to suppress the X-gene that gives mutants their abilities, and offer the "cure" to any mutant who wants it.

The cure is created from the genome of a young mutant named Jimmy, who lives at the Worthington facility on Alcatraz Island. While some mutants are interested in the cure, including the X-Men's Rogue, many others are horrified by the announcement.

In response to the news, Lehnsherr, now known as Magneto, reestablishes his Brotherhood of Mutants with mutants who oppose the cure, warning his followers that the cure will be forcefully used to exterminate the mutant race.

With help from Pyro, Magneto recruits Callisto, and several other mutants. They attack the mobile prison holding Mystique to free her, also freeing Juggernaut and Multiple Man. Mystique saves Magneto, by taking a shot of the mutant cure aimed at him, rendering her human.

Hateful of humans, Magneto abandons Mystique, much to her shock. Meanwhile, Cyclops, still distraught over the loss of his fiancée Jean Grey, drives to her resting location at Alkali Lake. Jean appears to Cyclops but, as the two kiss, Jean disintegrates him. Sensing trouble, Xavier sends Wolverine and Storm to investigate. When they arrive, they find only telekinetically floating rocks, Cyclops' glasses, and an unconscious Jean.

When they return to the X-Mansion, Xavier explains that when Jean sacrificed herself, she freed the "Phoenix", a powerful evil personality which Xavier had telepathically repressed, fearing the Phoenix's destructive potential.

Wolverine is disgusted to learn of this psychic tampering with Jean's mind but, once she awakens, he discovers that she killed Cyclops and is not the Jean Grey he once knew. The Phoenix emerges, knocks out Wolverine, and escapes to her old home.

Magneto learns of Jean's resurrection through Callisto, and the X-Men arrive at the Grey home at the same exact time as the Brotherhood.

Magneto and Xavier go in alone, and both vie for Jean's loyalty until the Phoenix resurfaces. She destroys the house and disintegrates Xavier before leaving with Magneto.

The Brotherhood decides to strike Worthington Labs, and the government sends multiple teams to attack the Brotherhood's base in the forest, with information gained from Mystique, furious over Magneto's betrayal.

However, the life forms in the camp are all copies of Multiple Man, and Magneto uses his powers to move the Golden Gate Bridge so he and his army can get to Alcatraz and facilitate the attack on Worthington Labs.

The remaining X-Men confront the Brotherhood, despite being significantly outnumbered, and arrive just as the military troops who thus far have been neutralizing the attacking mutants are overwhelmed by the Brotherhood.

During the fight, Kitty saves Jimmy from the Juggernaut, who had been sent to kill him. Wolverine has Colossus throw him at Magneto and distracting him long enough for Beast to inject Magneto with the "cure" and thus nullifying his powers.

Army reinforcements then arrive and shoots at Jean Grey just as Wolverine had calmed her down. Phoenix is awakened by the attack and disintegrates the troops in retaliation. Phoenix then begins to destroy Alcatraz and all within range of her powers.

Wolverine realizes that only he can stop Phoenix due to his healing factor. Wolverine approaches her and Jean momentarily gains control and begs him to kill her. Wolverine fatally stabs Jean Grey (and thus Phoenix) but mourns for her death.

Sometime later, mutant rights are finally obtained and Xavier's school is still operating with Storm as headmistress.

The President of the United States appoints Beast as ambassador to the United Nations. Rogue tells Bobby Drake that she has taken the cure, much to his disappointment.

Meanwhile, Magneto sits alone at a chessboard in a San Francisco park. As he gestures toward a metal chess piece, it wobbles slightly.

Dr. Moira MacTaggert checks on a comatose patient who greets her with Xavier's voice, leaving her startled.

In 1945, Logan is held in a Japanese POW camp near Nagasaki. During the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, Logan rescues an officer named Ichirō Yashida and shields him from the blast.

In the present day, Logan lives as a hermit in Yukon, tormented by hallucinations of Jean Grey, whom he was forced to kill several years ago.

He is located by Yukio, a mutant with the ability to foresee people's deaths, on-behalf of Yashida, now the CEO of a technology zaibatsu.

Yashida, who is dying of cancer, wants Logan to accompany Yukio to Japan so that he may repay his life debt.

In Tokyo, Logan meets with Yashida's son, Shingen, and granddaughter, Mariko. There, Yashida offers to transfer Logan's healing abilities into his own body, thus saving Yashida's life and alleviating Logan of his near-immortality, which Logan views as a curse.

Logan refuses and prepares to leave the following day. That night, Yashida's physician Dr. Green introduces something into Logan's body, but Logan dismisses it as a dream.

The next morning, Logan is informed that Yashida has died. At the funeral, Yakuza gangsters attempt to kidnap Mariko, but Logan and Mariko escape together into the urban Tokyo.

Logan is shot and his wounds do not heal as quickly as they should. After fighting off more Yakuza on a bullet train, Logan and Mariko hide in a local love hotel.

Meanwhile, Yashida's bodyguard Harada meets with Dr. Green who, after demonstrating her mutant powers on him, demands he find Logan and Mariko.

Logan and Mariko travel to Yashida's house in Nagasaki, and the two slowly fall in love. Meanwhile, Yukio has a vision of Logan dying, and goes to warn him. Before Yukio arrives, Mariko is captured by the Yakuza.

After interrogating one of the kidnappers, Logan and Yukio confront Mariko's fiancée, corrupt Minister of Justice Noburo Mori. Mori confesses that he conspired with Shingen to have Mariko killed because Yashida left control of the company to Mariko, and not Shingen. Mariko is brought before Shingen at Yashida's estate when ninjas led by Harada attack and whisk her away.

Logan and Yukio arrive later and, using Yashida's X-ray machine, discover a robotic parasite attached to Logan's heart, suppressing his healing ability. Logan cuts himself open and extracts the device.

During the operation, Shingen attacks but Yukio holds Shingen off long enough for Logan to recover and kill Shingen. Logan follows Mariko's trail to the village of Yashida's birth, where he is captured by Harada's ninjas.

Logan is placed in a machine by Dr. Green, who reveals her plans to extract his healing factor and introduces him to the Silver Samurai, an electromechanical suit of Japanese armour with energized swords made of adamantium. Mariko escapes from Harada, who believes he is acting in Mariko's interests, and manages to free Logan from the machine. Harada sees the error of his ways and is killed by the Silver Samurai while helping Logan escape.

Meanwhile, Yukio arrives and kills Dr. Green as Logan fights the Silver Samurai. The Silver Samurai severs Logan's adamantium claws and begins to extract Logan's healing abilities, revealing himself to be Yashida, who had faked his death. Yashida starts to regain his youth, but Mariko intervenes and stabs Yashida with Logan's severed claws while Logan regenerates his bone claws and kills Yashida.

Logan collapses and has one final hallucination of Jean, in which he decides to finally let go of her. Mariko becomes CEO of Yashida Industries and bids farewell to Logan as he prepares to leave Japan. Yukio vows to stay by Logan's side as his bodyguard, and they depart to places unknown.

Logan returns to the United States two years later and is approached at the airport by Erik Lehnsherr, who warns him of a grave new threat to the mutant race, and Charles Xavier, who Logan previously thought was dead.

Sentinels begin exterminating mutants and their human allies. The Sentinels are invincible because they possess many ways of adapting to any mutant and uploading it to a data system.

However, the X-Men will reunite and have a plan to send a mutant from the future to the past to stop the threat in only a couple of days. If they fail, no one will survive the apocalypse.

15

The Days Of Future-Past

In the future, Sentinels are exterminating mutants and their human allies. The Sentinels were almost invincible as they possessed Mystique's powers of transformation.

This technology was made possible following research performed on Mystique when she was captured during the assassination of Dr. Bolivar Trask, creator of the Sentinels.

A band of mutants, including Kitty Pryde, Colossus, Iceman, Bishop, Warpath, Blink and Sunspot, convene with Wolverine, Storm, Professor Charles Xavier, and Magneto in a hideout in remote China.

Kitty Pryde sends Wolverine's consciousness back to 1973 in order to prevent Mystique from assassinating Trask, which led to her capture and revealed the possibility that mutants can pose as normal humans and have their abilities.

At the X-Mansion in 1973, Wolverine encounters Xavier and Hank McCoy. Xavier, a broken man, has been overusing a serum that allows him to walk but suppresses his telepathy.

Wolverine explains his mission and persuades Xavier to help free Magneto from a prison cell beneath The Pentagon, where he is being held for assassinating President John F. Kennedy. They rescue Magneto with some help from Peter Maximoff - Quicksilver, a mutant with super speed.

In Washington, D.C., Trask unsuccessfully tries to sway Congress to gain support for his Sentinel program.

Meanwhile, in Saigon, Mystique prevents William Stryker from appropriating a group of mutant G.I.s for Trask's research.

Xavier, Magneto, Beast, and Wolverine fly to Paris to intercept Mystique, who is impersonating a North Vietnamese general to infiltrate the Paris Peace Accords.

The group arrives as Mystique is about to kill Trask. Magneto tries to kill Mystique to ensure her DNA cannot be used for the Sentinels, but she escapes. The fight spills onto the street in view of the public, allowing Magneto and Mystique to escape.

Trask is saved, but the world is horrified by the existence of mutants. President Richard Nixon approves Trask's Sentinel program and arranges an unveiling ceremony. Trask's scientists recover Mystique's blood from the street.

Meanwhile, Magneto—who has recovered his telepathy-blocking helmet—intercepts the prototype Sentinels in transit and laces their polymer-based frames with steel, enabling him to control them.

At the mansion, Xavier stops taking his serum and slowly regains his telepathic powers, while losing the ability to walk. Through Wolverine, Xavier speaks to his future self and is inspired to work for peace between humans and mutants once again. He uses Cerebro to track Mystique, who is heading to Washington, D.C.

As Xavier, Wolverine, and Beast search for Mystique, Nixon unveils the Sentinel prototypes at the White House. Magneto commandeers the Sentinels and attacks the crowd, then sets the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium around the White House as a barricade.

Nixon and Trask, accompanied by the Cabinet, Secret Service officers, and Mystique (disguised as a Secret Service member), are taken to a safe room. Wolverine and Beast try to stop Magneto, but he pits a Sentinel against them and then throws Wolverine into the Potomac River.

In the future, the X-Men make their final stand as a large army of Sentinels attack the monastery.

In 1973, Magneto pulls the safe room from the White House and prepares to kill Nixon and his Cabinet. Mystique, who is really disguised as Nixon, incapacitates Magneto with a plastic gun. Xavier persuades Mystique to spare Trask and allows her and Magneto to flee.

Mystique's actions are seen as a mutant saving the President, leading to the cancellation of the Sentinel program. Trask is arrested for trying to sell American military secrets. In the future, Mystique's actions save Xavier, Magneto, and Pryde just as a group of Sentinels reach them.

Wolverine wakes up back in the future to find Iceman, Rogue, Colossus, Pryde, Beast, Storm, Jean Grey, Scott Summers, and Xavier are all alive. He then proceeds to explain to Xavier about his experience.

In 1973, Mystique, impersonating Stryker, takes custody of Wolverine, who has been fished out of the river.

▶ The time-travel creates a butterfly effect that causes what many would call reboots. Only some mutants such as Deadpool know of these changes.

16

Captain America (T2)

In Fascist Italy in 1936, the government kidnaps a boy, Tadzio de Santis (Massimilio Massimi), and kills his family. The child is needed for an experimental project to create a Fascist super-soldier. Dr. Maria Vaselli objects to using Tadzio, and, under the cover of gunfire, flees to the United States to offer her services to the Americans.

Seven years later, the American government finds a volunteer in Steve Rogers, a soldier who is excluded from the draft because of his polio. The formula successfully transforms Rogers into a superhero, but before any more super soldiers can be created, Vaselli is murdered by a Nazi spy.

Meanwhile, Tadzio has become the Red Skull and is planning to launch a missile at the White House. Rogers, code named Captain America, is sent in to defeat the Skull and deactivate the missile.

Steve Rogers penetrates the launch compound, but after an initial battle, the Red Skull defeats Captain America and ties him to the missile as it is about to launch. Captain America grabs the Red Skull and forces him to cut off his own hand to avoid being launched along with Rogers. While the missile is over Washington, D.C., a young boy named Thomas Kimball takes a photograph as Captain America forces the missile to change course and land somewhere in Alaska, where he remains frozen for fifty years until 1993.

Thomas Kimball becomes a Vietnam War hero and is elected the President of the United States of America. A year into his term, he pushes for pro-environmentalist legislation that angers the military-industrial complex, who hold a secret conference in Italy led by the Red Skull.

Following the war, Red Skull had extensive plastic surgery to partially alter his disfigured features, raised a daughter, Valentina, and became the leader of a powerful crime family.

In the 1960s, this American military-industrial complex hired the Red Skull and his thugs to murder various Americans who were against their militarism and Red Skull's fascism, such as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., President John F. Kennedy, and Robert Kennedy. Now, Red Skull targets Thomas Kimball by kidnapping and brainwashing him.

Researchers find Steve Rogers' frozen body, and he awakens still thinking that it is the 1940s.

After battling some of the Red Skull's thugs, he then brushes off Sam Kolawetz, a reporter and old friend of President Kimball, and hitchhikes his way back to his wartime girlfriend, Bernice, in California. While Bernice still lives at her old residence, she has long since married and raised her own daughter, Sharon Carter, who gives Steve Rogers a series of VHS history tapes to watch.

Meanwhile, Red Skull's thugs, led by Valentina, break into Bernice's house, kill her, and cause her husband to have a heart attack during their efforts to find Steve Rogers.

Steve Rogers and Sharon Carter visit the secret underground base where he gained his superpowers to recover Vaselli's diary and learn the original name of Red Skull.

Although Steve Rogers and Sharon Carter find the diary, the Red Skull's thugs grab it. Steve Rogers and Sharon Carter vow revenge and to rescue the recently kidnapped president.

They travel to Italy and, in the Red Skull's home, locate an old recording of the murder of his parents. Sharon Carter agrees to be kidnapped to allow Steve Rogers, who once again dons his costume, to enter the Red Skull's castle.

In the midst of their battle, the Red Skull pulls out a trigger for a nuclear bomb, but Steve Rogers uses Sharon Carter's recording of the murder of Red Skull's family fifty-seven years earlier to distract him.

While the Red Skull is lost in thought, Captain America uses his shield to send Red Skull off a cliff before the bomb can be set off. As Valentina prepares to kill Rogers, she is then decapitated from behind by his returning shield.

The United States Marines arrive to save the President and arrest the Americans involved in the kidnapping.

Some time later, Captain America makes a plea to support the United States Environmental Protection Act of 1990.

17

Hulk (T2)

Scientist David Banner introduces the idea of creating super soldiers by introducing modified DNA sequences extracted from various animals to strengthen the human cellular response, making them effectively impervious to any weaponized agent, but General Thaddeus Ross denies him permission to use human subjects.

Banner subsequently conducts the experiments on himself. After the birth of his son Bruce, he finds that his son may have inherited the effects and seeks a cure, but is stopped in the process. Bruce remembers nothing of the incident after a traumatic event, and has been raised by the Krenzlers.

Years later, Bruce is a geneticist working with his ex-girlfriend Betty Ross, within the Berkeley Biotechnology Institute on nanomed research. The pair hope to achieve instantaneous cell repair by using low level Gamma radiation exposure to activate the nanomeds once they are introduced into a living organism.

During routine maintenance of their Gamma Spectrometer, a circuit shorts and triggers the experiment's program sequence. Unable to prevent the machine from firing, Bruce throws himself in front of his colleague to shield him and is exposed to incredibly toxic levels of Gamma.

Betty visits Bruce in the hospital and remarks that he should be dead, but Bruce feels great. A new janitor at the lab claims that he is Bruce's real father, of whom Bruce has no recollection.

When under extreme stress, Bruce transforms into the Hulk who destroys the laboratory, though he has no memory of the incident. General Ross suspects Bruce of collaborating with his father but then deduces Bruce has repressed memories. He orders Bruce to be put under house arrest.

Through a phone call with his father, Bruce learns that the radiation unleashed something that was already in his DNA, and that David Banner plans to have Betty killed by his dogs, which now have similar powers to the Hulk (thanks to David mutating them with gamma radiation), and he is attacked by Major Glenn Talbot, leading to a transformation into the Hulk.

The Hulk seriously injures Talbot before leaping to save Betty from the dogs. The Hulk kills David's dogs and changes back into Bruce before being captured by the military the next morning.

Kept at a secret desert base, Bruce is kept under observation while Talbot intends to weaponize the Hulk's powers. David Banner tries to recreate Bruce's failed experiment, but instead of turning into another Hulk he finds himself able to absorb any materials and energy he touches, and hands himself over to the military after telling Betty that he murdered his wife in front of the child Bruce.

Bruce has a nightmare about the event which leads to a more powerful transformation of the Hulk. Talbot is killed in an explosion of his own making. The Hulk escapes the base and rampages his way across the desert to San Francisco, battling army forces sent after him.

When Betty calms him into his human form, General Ross realizes that the Hulk cannot be controlled and that Bruce should be executed.

At their mutual execution, David Banner tries to taunt his son into transforming into Hulk, but fails. He then decides to "go first" and bites an electrical cable absorbing all the electricity in San Francisco. The electricity hits Bruce, triggering the Hulk.

A brutal fight ensues between David and the Hulk, with David absorbing Hulk's energy during the fight. David finds that the Hulk's energy is too much for him to handle and he is killed by an army missile at the height of his weakness.

One year later, even though Bruce Banner is presumed dead, General Ross mentions apparent Hulk sightings and Betty Ross admits her love for Bruce Banner.

In a South American jungle, Bruce has become a doctor and is approached by rebel militants who want to take medical supplies from the poor. Bruce's eyes turn green and a scream of the Hulk is heard.

18

Daredevil (T2)

Matt Murdock is a blind lawyer in New York City's Hell's Kitchen neighborhood, where he runs a firm with "Foggy" Nelson.

As a child, Matt was blinded by a toxic waste spill. The accident enhanced Matt's other senses and gave him sonar to "see" via sonic vibrations. Matt's father, boxer Jack "The Devil", was killed after refusing to turn in a fixed fight for the mobster who had employed him earlier.

After his father's death, Matt promised to stop all crime that controlled Hell's Kitchen, New York as the vigilante crime-fighter "Daredevil".

Matt meets Elektra Natchios, daughter of Nikolas Natchios, a businessman who has dealings with Wilson Fisk, a rich executive who is also the criminal leader known as the Kingpin.

When Nikolas tries to end his relationship with Fisk, the mobster hires the Irish hitman Bullseye, who has preternatural aim, to kill him. Matt tries to stop Bullseye, but Bullseye ultimately succeeds in killing Nikolas and framing Matt in the process.

Elektra then vows to exact revenge, while reporter Ben Urich discovers his secret identity.

Believing Matt has done many good things for Hell's Kitchen, Ben Urich tells Matt that Bullseye is going after Elektra next.

Matt tracks Bullseye, but is attacked by Elektra, who plans to use her own training in martial arts to avenge her father's death. She defeats and injures Matt; when she manages to remove his mask, she discovers Matt's secret identity.

Forced to fight Bullseye alone, Elektra is overpowered and killed by the hit-man.

A wounded Matt makes his way to a church, where he is looked after by his confidante, Father Everett, who knows his secret identity. After recovering slightly, Matt fights Bullseye, who had followed him to the church.

Bullseye discovers that loud noise is Matt's weakness and prepares to kill him with a spiked piece of wood after incapacitating him. Matt blocks the attack and hears an FBI sniper stationed on the neighboring building preparing to fire.

As the bullet is fired, Matt moves out of the bullet's path and pulls Bullseye's hands into it. When Bullseye pleads for mercy, Matt throws him from the church's steeple. Bullseye lands on the hood of Urich's car, severely injured but alive.

Upon discovering Fisk is the Kingpin and Bullseye's employer, Matt makes his way to Fisk's office. There, Matt and Fisk begin a fierce fight; however, Fisk proves to be a surprisingly powerful combatant due to his size and brute strength, and he dominates Matt for most of the fight.

Lying on the floor, Matt questions Fisk as to why he killed the people Murdock loved, including Jack Murdock years before: Fisk replies it was just business, for he had worked under Fallon at the time he killed Jack, and Elektra was "at the wrong place at the wrong time."

Angered, Matt regains his strength and breaks Fisk's legs, but refrains from killing him, instead allowing him to be arrested by the police, who have discovered his criminal connections.

Before being taken away, Fisk — who had also discovered Matt's secret identity after overpowering him — swears revenge on Matt, who points out that Fisk cannot reveal Matt's secret identity because the humiliation of having been beaten by a blind man will cause him to be perceived as weak by other prison inmates.

Having gained closure over his father's murder, Matt returns to his day-to-day routine, and meets Urich one last time, in which Urich assures him he will not publish his article about Matt's true identity.

Bullseye, having been moved to a prison hospital and severely bandaged after his confrontation with Matt, is shown to still have his perfect aim after he impales a fly with a syringe needle and says "Bullseye."

19

Elektra (T2)

After being killed by Bullseye, Elektra Natchios is revived by a blind martial arts master called Stick. She is brought to his training compound to learn Kimagure, an ancient martial arts discipline that provides its practitioners with precognition as well as the ability to resurrect the dead.

Elektra was soon expelled because of her inability to let go of her rage and fear from seeing her Mother's killer as a child. She leaves and uses her training to become a contract killer.

Years later, Elektra infiltrates a heavily guarded area, kills the guards, and manages to slay her target DeMarco. Elektra's agent McCabe receives an unusually large offer from an anonymous client wishing to hire Elektra's services. The only stipulation; she must spend a few days in a rented home on the island where the assassination is to be performed before the names of the targets are revealed.

During the wait, Elektra finds a girl Abby who tried to swipe Elektra's Mother's necklace and Elektra sends her away. While meditating, Elektra meets and befriends Abby's father Mark Miller. Abby later invites Elektra to dinner on Mark's behalf.

Later that day, Elektra discovers that Abby, like Elektra herself, has obsessive-compulsive disorder. Elektra develops a romantic interest in Mark, but soon learns he and Abby are the targets she has been hired to kill. Elektra spares them and leaves, but later returns in time to protect them from assassins sent by The Hand, a crime syndicate of ninja mercenaries.

Meanwhile, Roshi, master of The Hand, learns of the failed attempt and permits his son Kirigi to lead a new team of assassins to kill Elektra and return with Abby, referred to as "The Treasure". Elektra tries to leave Abby and Mark with Stick, but he scolds her into protecting them herself.

She then drives Mark and Abby to McCabe's country house, but is followed by Kirigi, Typhoid, Stone, Kinkou, and Tattoo. Elektra flees with Mark and Abby through a secret underground exit to the orchard, while McCabe sacrifices himself to allow them to escape.

Kirigi and the assassins hunt down Elektra, Mark, and Abby in the forest nearby. Elektra manages to kill Stone, while Abby and Mark kill Kinkou with one of his own daggers.

As Elektra is distracted by the revelation that Abby has martial arts skills, Typhoid gives Elektra the "Kiss of Death". Abby is captured by Kirigi. Suddenly, Stick and his Chaste ninjas arrive, forcing Kirigi, Typhoid, and Tattoo to retreat. Stick manages to save Elektra from death and takes them under his protection.

Stick confirms Abby is a martial arts prodigy which is the "Treasure" of martial arts whom the Hand seek to use. Elektra learns that she was a Treasure herself and her mother was a casualty of the fight between The Chaste and The Hand with her as the reason. She guesses that Stick set up the hit on Mark and Abby in order to test Elektra's propensity for compassion.

Elektra is not pleased, but does not follow up with that line of inquiry after getting the comment that some lessons must be lived. Elektra astrally projects herself to a meeting with Kirigi and challenges him to a fight; the winner claiming Abby for their own purpose.

Elektra returns to her childhood home to face Kirigi, and finally remembers he was her mother's killer; whom she had been seeing as a horned demon in nightmares all this time.

Elektra is at first defeated by Kirigi, but Abby arrives and engages him long enough for Elektra to recuperate. Elektra and Abby then escape and hide in a hedge maze but are separated when Abby is captured by snakes dispatched by Tattoo. Elektra finds Tattoo and snaps his neck, freeing Abby in the process. Elektra engages Kirigi a second time and manages to stab and kill him. Typhoid poisons Abby, the same way she did to Elektra earlier, killing her in the process.

Elektra throws her sai into Typhoid killing her and successfully resurrects Abby, overcoming her rage. When Mark comes to take Abby, he and Elektra kiss and go their separate ways.

Just as Elektra leaves the grounds of her childhood home for the final time, she meets Stick and the two exchange words to each other. Elektra departs, knowing Abby and Mark will be safe.

20

Ghost Rider (T2)

The Devil, Mephisto, sends his bounty hunter of the damned, the Ghost Rider, to retrieve the contract of San Venganza for control of a thousand corrupt souls. Seeing that the contract would give Mephistopheles the power to bring Hell on Earth, the Rider refuses to give him the contract.

In 1986, Mephistopheles reaches out to 17-year-old stunt motorcycle rider Johnny Blaze, offering to cure his father's cancer in exchange for Blaze's soul to which he hastily accepts.

The next morning, Blaze awakes to discover that his father's cancer is cured, but his father is killed that same day in a motorcycle stunt in which he falls into the ring of fire he is jumping through. Blaze accuses Mephisto of causing his father's death, but Mephistopheles considers their contract to be fulfilled and promises to one day see him again.

Today, Blaze has become a famous stunt motorcycle rider known for surviving numerous deadly crashes. Blaze meets his lifelong sweetheart Roxanne Simpson, now a news reporter, whom he abandoned after his father's death.

He convinces her to attend a dinner date. Meanwhile, Blackheart, the demonic son of Mephisto, comes to Earth, along with three fallen angels who bonded with the elements Air, Earth and Water.

They are tasked to find the lost contract of San Venganza. In response, Mephisto makes Blaze the new Ghost Rider and offers to return his soul if he defeats Blackheart.

Blaze is driven to the station on his "first ride", where he transforms into Ghost Rider and kills the Earth Angel Gressil.

The next day, he meets a man called the Caretaker, who seems to know all about the history of the Ghost Rider. He tells him everything that happened wasn't a dream and that it will happen again, especially at night when he is near an evil soul.

When he arrives home, Blaze finds Simpson and reveals himself as the Devil's bounty hunter. Unconvinced, she walks away in disbelief.

After a brief imprisonment for the murders that Blackheart committed, Blaze kills the Air Angel Abigor and goes back to the Caretaker who tells him of his predecessor, Carter Slade, a Texas Ranger who hid the contract of San Venganza.

Blaze returns home to find that Blackheart has killed his friend Mack and has taken Roxanne captive, threatening to kill her if Blaze does not deliver the contract.

Blaze returns to the Caretaker and obtains the contract. The Caretaker reveals that he is Carter Slade. Slade tells Blaze that he is more powerful than his predecessors since he sold his soul for love instead of greed. Slade leads Blaze to San Venganza, then gives Blaze a lever action shotgun before fading away.

After killing the Water angel Wallow, Blaze gives the contract to Blackheart. He quickly transforms into Ghost Rider in an effort to subdue Blackheart, but dawn arrives and he is rendered powerless.

Blackheart uses the contract to absorb the thousand souls into his body. He attempts to kill Blaze, but is distracted when Simpson uses Blaze's discarded shotgun to separate them.

After Blaze tries to kill Blackheart with the shotgun, he moves in and uses his Penance Stare to render him catatonic, burning all the corrupt souls within Blackheart.

Mephisto appears and returns Blaze his soul, offering to take back the curse of the Ghost Rider. Determined not to make another deal; Blaze declines, saying that he will use his power against him, and against all harm that comes to the innocent.

Infuriated of being robbed of the power, Mephisto vows to make Blaze pay, but Blaze tells Mephisto that he is not afraid. Mephisto then disappears, taking Blackheart's body with him.

Later, Simpson tells Blaze that he got his second chance before sharing a final kiss with him. Blaze then rides away on his motorcycle, turning into the Ghost Rider.

n Eastern Europe, a French priest named Moreau warns the monks of a monastery about an impending attack by the devil's forces to obtain a boy named Danny.

The monastery falls under attack; Moreau tries to help the boy and his mother Nadya escape, but the distrusting mother shoots at Moreau and flees with her son.

Moreau manages to distract the men chasing Danny and Nadya, but nearly dies in the process and loses them. He believes that only the Ghost Rider is capable of protecting the boy. He finds the Rider and seeks his help.

Five years have passed since the events with Johnny Blaze making a deal with the demon Mephisto, and becoming the Ghost Rider — a vengeful, fiery spirit who feeds on the evil of his victims and consumes the souls of sinners. No matter how small the infraction — anything from genocide to a white lie — the Rider does not differentiate.

This drives Blaze into hiding, fighting the evil spirit within him. Moreau finds him with some ease and convinces him to save the boy in exchange for his priesthood's ability to restore Johnny's soul and remove the Ghost Rider's curse forever.

Meanwhile, pursuers force Nadya and Danny from the road and bring them to their leader: her former boyfriend Ray Carrigan. Carrigan has Danny tied up and is about to execute Nadya when the Ghost Rider appears; the Ghost Rider kills several of Carrigan's men and then moves in on Danny. Nadya distracts the Ghost Rider, who then is shot with grenades into submission. Carrigan leaves with Danny in tow.

Johnny awakens the next morning in a hospital.

On the way out, he convinces Nadya not to trust him, but to accept his help to find Danny.

However, Carrigan tells Roarke about the Rider, and Roarke speaks an incantation to Danny via phone; this, in effect, puts up a "firewall" preventing the Rider from sensing his location. He warns Carrigan it will not shield him from being sensed and gives him instructions to deliver Danny.

Nadya later tells Blaze that as she lay dying, she made a deal with Roarke: her life in return for him impregnating her with Danny, making Danny a direct vessel for Roarke and the potential for him to have unlimited power on the surface world. Roarke lacks this power so far from Hell.

Danny nearly escapes, but breaks his ankle and is recaptured. That night, Nadya and Johnny interrogate a known contact of Carrigan's. Johnny takes off ahead of Nadya to deal with Carrigan. Nadya saves Danny as the Rider converts a mining machine into a massive fiery machine, destroying their hideout complex and mortally wounding Carrigan.

When Ghost Rider catches up to Nadya and starts to use his Penance Stare on her, Danny is able to stop the rider with a word, exercising his hidden power.

Moreau catches up with the group as they ride off. Roarke is not done with Carrigan; using his power, he turns Carrigan into a demon called Blackout capable of instantly decaying anything he touches while shrouded in darkness.

Johnny and Nadya bring Danny to Moreau's monastery with warm reception. Moreau delivers on his end of the bargain and, after explaining that the Ghost Rider is the twisted incarnation of the Spirit of Justice, Zarathos, after being captured and tortured to madness while in Hell, he exorcises Johnny of the spirit and Johnny becomes human again. The head monk Methodius proclaims that Danny will never be safe from the influence of evil and says he must die, taking Johnny, Moreau, and Nadya captive in order to execute the boy.

Carrigan intervenes, however, killing the monks and taking Danny captive again to deliver to Roarke. The others follow, with Johnny not wanting to desert Danny after having promised to protect him.

With the ritual to transfer Roarke's spirit and power into Danny underway, the three infiltrate the compound to save him. Carrigan kills Moreau, but Danny, who Roarke states has the same powers as he does, gives Johnny back the power of the Ghost Rider. Roarke manages to escape with Danny, and the Ghost Rider and Nadya give pursuit.

After a vehicular struggle, Ghost Rider manages to defeat Carrigan and causes the SUV carrying Roarke and Danny to crash. The Ghost Rider sends Roarke back into hell while Danny, who died in the accident, is returned to his mother.

Channeling the blue flame of Zarathos, Johnny manages to revive Danny and assures him of his safety.

Ghost Rider, covered in blue flames, rides on his motorcycle, saying "My name is Johnny Blaze. I'm the Ghost Rider."

21

The Punisher (T2)

Frank Castle, who by now has been the Punisher for five years, assaults a party for mob boss Gaitano Cesare, in which he kills him and the guests in the party gruesomely.

Billy "The Beaut" Russotti escapes to his recycling plant hideout, and Detectives Martin Soap and Saffiotti, who were staking out the party, inform Castle.

Castle infiltrates Russoti's hideout, and after a brief firefight, Russoti is thrown into a glass-crushing machine that leaves him hideously disfigured. Russoti later refers to himself as "Jigsaw" because the stitches in his face resemble puzzle pieces. Castle, who takes cover behind the body of Nicky Donatelli, discovers that Donatelli was really an undercover agent.

Agent Paul Budiansky, the deceased agent's partner, joins the NYPD's "Punisher Task Force", partnering with Soap to help bring Castle to justice. Meanwhile, Jigsaw frees his deranged and cannibalistic brother, "Loony Bin Jim," who especially has a taste for kidneys.

Distraught over killing the agent, Castle attempts to make reparations to Donatelli's wife, Angela, and daughter, Grace, to no avail. Castle threatens to retire from the vigilante business, but his armorer, Microchip, forces him to reconsider, telling him Jigsaw will go after Donatelli's family for revenge.

Jigsaw, Loony Bin Jim, and two goons, Ink and Pittsy, break into Donatelli's house and hold the family hostage. The Punisher tracks down Maginty, a known associate of Jigsaw, executing him after extracting the information before being apprehended by Budiansky and Soap.

Castle tells him Jigsaw went after Donatelli's family, and Budiansky sends a police car to check on the Donatelli house, intending to turn the Punisher in.

When the patrol car fails to respond, Budiansky checks on the house, where he is captured by Ink and Pittsy. Soap frees the Punisher, who kills Ink and Pittsy before leading Donatelli's wife and daughter away. Budiansky arrests Jigsaw and Loony Bin Jim after a short gunfight.

Jigsaw and his brother bargain with the FBI for their release by giving up Cristu Bulat, who was smuggling in a biological weapon destined for Arab terrorists in Queens, New York.

The brothers are granted immunity, plus the US$12 million Bulat was paying to use Jigsaw's port, and a file on Micro. They take Micro hostage, killing his mother in the process. They once again take the Donatellis hostage, after critically injuring Micro's associate Carlos, whom Castle had left to protect them.

Castle later arrives at the hideout, and euthanizes Carlos. Jigsaw sets himself up in the Bradstreet Hotel, putting together a small army of gangsters who want to see the Punisher dead. Castle enlists the help of Budiansky, who informs Cristu's father, Tiberiu Bulat, where Jigsaw is located. Tiberiu's goons start a shootout in the hotel lobby, affording Castle a distraction.

Castle enters through a second-floor window, leading to a firefight with Jigsaw's hired guns. Afterward, Castle engages Loony Bin Jim in hand-to-hand combat; realizing he will probably not survive the brawl, Jim runs away.

Castle chases him and confronts both him and Jigsaw, who are holding Micro and Grace Donatelli at gunpoint. Jigsaw gives Castle a choice: If Frank shoots Micro, Jigsaw will let the others go free. Micro bravely offers his life to save the girl, but Castle chooses to shoot Loony Bin Jim instead.

As a result, Jigsaw kills Micro. Enraged by the loss of his partner, Castle attacks Jigsaw, eventually impaling him with a metal rod and throwing him onto a fire.

As Jigsaw burns to death, Castle calmly tells him, "This is just the beginning." Outside, Angela forgives Castle, who bids farewell to Budiansky and the Donatelli family.

As Castle and Soap leave together, Soap tries to convince Castle to give up his vigilante status after having "killed every criminal in town." Soap changes his mind when he's held up by a mugger who quickly becomes another victim of the Punisher.

22

Spider-Man (T2)

A young Peter Parker discovers his father Richard Parker's study has been burgled. Gathering up hidden documents, Peter's parents take him to the home of his Aunt May and Uncle Ben, then mysteriously depart.

Years later, a teenaged Peter attends Midtown Science High School, where he is bullied by Flash Thompson and has caught the eye of the beautiful Gwen Stacy. At home, Peter finds his father's papers and learns he worked with fellow scientist Dr. Curt Connors at Oscorp. Sneaking into Oscorp, Peter enters a lab where a "biocable" is under development from genetically modified spiders, one of which bites him. On the subway ride home, he discovers that he has developed spider-like abilities, such as sharp senses, reflexes and speed.

After studying Richard's papers, Peter visits the one-armed Connors, reveals he is Richard Parker's son and gives Connors his father's "decay rate algorithm", the missing piece in Connors' experiments on regenerating limbs. Connors is being pressed by his superior, Dr. Ratha, to devise a cure for the dying (but unseen) head of Oscorp, Norman Osborn. In school, Peter gets into trouble after a basketball challenge with Flash in which Peter accidentally shatters the backboard glass. His uncle changes work shifts to meet with the principal and asks Peter to replace him walking home with May that night. Peter gets distracted and helps Connors regenerate the limb of a laboratory mouse. Peter's failure causes an argument with Ben and he leaves. At a nearby deli, a cashier refuses to let Peter buy milk when Peter is two cents short; when a thief suddenly raids the store, Peter indifferently observes. While searching for Peter, Ben attempts to stop the thief and is killed. The thief escapes as Peter finds Ben on the sidewalk.

Afterward, Peter uses his new abilities to hunt criminals matching the killer's description. After a fall lands him inside an abandoned gym, a luchador-wrestling poster inspires him to create a mask to hide his identity. He adds a spandex suit and builds mechanical devices to attach to his wrists to shoot a biocable "web". Peter accepts a dinner invitation from Gwen, where he meets and has a tense conversation with her father, police captain George Stacy, over Spider-Man's motives. After dinner, Peter reveals his identity to Gwen and they kiss.

After seeing success with the mouse using lizard DNA, Ratha demands Connors begin human trials immediately if Osborn is to survive. Connors refuses to rush the drug-testing procedure and put innocent people at risk. Ratha fires Connors and decides to test Connors' serum at a Veterans Administration hospital under the guise of a flu shot. In an act of desperation, Connors tries the formula on himself. After passing out, he awakens to find his missing arm has regenerated. Discovering that Ratha is on his way to the VA hospital, Connors, whose skin is turning green and scaly, goes to intercept him. By the time he gets to the Williamsburg Bridge Connors has become a violent hybrid of lizard and man, tossing cars, including Ratha's, over the side of the bridge. Peter, now calling himself Spider-Man, snatches each falling car with his web-lines.

Spider-Man suspects Connors is Lizard and unsuccessfully confronts the creature in the sewers. Lizard learns Spider-Man's real identity via the name on an abandoned camera and follows Peter to school where they fight. In response, the police start a manhunt for both Spider-Man and Lizard. The police corner Spider-Man and Captain Stacy discovers that he is really Peter. Lizard plans to make all humans lizard-like by releasing a chemical cloud from Oscorp's tower, to eliminate the weaknesses he believes plague humanity. Spider-Man eventually disperses an antidote cloud instead, restoring Connors and earlier victims to normal, but not before Lizard mortally wounds Captain Stacy. Before his death, Captain Stacy requests Peter to leave Gwen out of it to keep her safe. Peter initially does so, but later at school suggests to Gwen he may see her after all.

In a mid-credits scene, Connors, in a prison cell, speaks with a man in the shadows who asks if Peter knows the truth about his father. Connors replies, "No", and demands Peter be left alone before the man disappears.2

OsCorp scientist Richard Parker records a video message to explain his disappearance. Later, he and his wife, Mary, are aboard a private jet hijacked by a man sent to assassinate Richard. The plane crashes, killing both Richard and Mary, after he uploads the video.

In the present, Richard's son Peter continues to fight crime as Spider-Man. He pursues and apprehends Aleksei Sytsevich. Later, Peter meets with Gwen at their high school graduation ceremony and, insisting he keep his vow to her father, ends their relationship. Peter's childhood friend, Harry Osborn, returns to Manhattan to see his terminally-ill father, Norman, CEO of OsCorp. Norman explains his illness is genetic, and Harry is at the age where it first develops. Norman gives Harry a small device he claims contains his life's work. The next day, Norman dies and Harry is appointed the new OsCorp CEO.

While working in an OsCorp laboratory, electrical engineer Max Dillon shocks himself by accident and falls into a tank of genetically-engineered electric eels. They attack him, and he mutates into a living electric generator. Meanwhile, Peter attempts to maintain a friendship with Gwen, but she reveals that she may move to England for schooling. Before they can discuss it, Dillon wanders into Times Square, accidentally causing a blackout, and is stopped by Spider-Man after a battle. Dillon is taken to Ravencroft Institute, where he is studied by German scientist Dr. Kafka. Meanwhile, the first symptoms of Harry's illness are showing, and he uses the device Norman gave him to deduce that Spider-Man's blood could help save him. He asks Peter, who has been selling photos of Spider-Man to the Daily Bugle, to aid him in finding Spider-Man. Peter refuses, unsure of what effects the transfusion would have. Although he later comes to Harry as Spider-Man, he still refuses, and Harry develops an intense hatred towards Spider-Man. The OsCorp board-members, in particular the vice-president, Donald Menken, frame Harry for covering up Dillon's accident, and remove him as CEO. Harry's assistant, Felicia Hardy, informs him of equipment that could help him, so he makes a deal with Dillon, who now calls himself "Electro," to get him back inside the OsCorp building. There he finds a suit of armour and other equipment made by Norman, as well as venom from the now-destroyed genetically-altered spiders. The venom accelerates Harry's illness and transforms him into a goblin-like creature, but the suit's built-in emergency protocol restores his health and cures his disease.

Peter uses information left by his father to locate the video message in an abandoned subway station's hidden lab. Richard explains he had to leave because he refused to cooperate with Norman's biogenetic weaponization plans. Peter then hears a voicemail from Gwen, telling him she was offered the British scholarship and is heading to the airport earlier than expected. He manages to catch her and professes his love for her, and, vowing to go wherever she goes, they agree to go to England together. Electro causes another blackout, and Peter heads off to fight him as Spider-Man. Gwen follows, and together they restore power and overload Electro's body, killing him. Afterward, the transformed Harry, who now calls himself "Green Goblin," arrives equipped with Norman's armor and weaponry; upon seeing Gwen, Green Goblin deduces Spider-Man's secret identity and, swearing revenge for being refused the blood transfusion, kidnaps her. He fights Spider-Man at the top of a clock tower but is knocked unconscious and defeated. Despite Spider-Man's attempts to save Gwen, she falls to her death after webbing breaks in the clock tower. Distraught, Peter ends his career as Spider-Man.

Five months later, Harry is coping with the aftereffects of his transformation while incarcerated at Ravencroft. His associate, Gustav Fiers, visits Harry and the pair discuss forming their own team in order carry out their own ends. Harry orders Fiers to start with Sytsevich, and Fiers breaks Sytsevich out of prison. Equipped with electromechanical suit armor, Sytsevich calls himself the Rhino and rampages through the streets. Peter, inspired by Gwen's graduation speech, resumes his career as Spider-Man and confronts him.

23

Fantastic Four (T2)

Childhood friends Reed Richards and Ben Grimm have worked together on a prototype teleporter since youth, eventually attracting the attention of Professor Franklin Storm, director of the Baxter Foundation, a government-sponsored research institute for young prodigies.

Reed is recruited to join them and aid Storm's children, scientist Sue Storm and brother Johnny Storm, completing a "Quantum Gate" designed by Storm's wayward protégé, Victor von Doom, who agrees to help due to his unrequited feelings for Sue.

The experiment is successful, and the facility's supervisor, Dr. Allen, plans to send a group from NASA to venture into a parallel dimension known as "Planet Zero".

Disappointed at being denied the chance to join the expedition, Reed, Johnny, and Victor along with Ben use the Quantum Gate to embark on an unsanctioned voyage to Planet Zero, which they learn is a world filled with otherworldly substances.

Victor attempts to touch the green-lava like substance, causing the surface they are on to collapse and the ground to erupt. Reed, Johnny, and Ben return to their shuttle just as Sue brings them back to Earth.

Victor is seemingly killed after he falls into the collapsing landscape. The machine explodes, altering Reed, Sue, Johnny, and Ben on a molecular-genetic level, affording them superhuman abilities beyond their control: Reed can stretch like rubber, Susan can become invisible and generate force shields, Johnny can engulf his entire body in fire and fly, and Ben becomes bigger and develops a rock-like hide which gives him superhuman strength and durability.

They are then placed in government custody and confinement to be studied and have their conditions and abilities tested.

Blaming himself for the accident, Reed escapes from the facility and tries to find a cure for their changes.

One year later, Reed is now a fugitive and has built a suit that is able to adapt to his body's plasticity and help him control his ability. Hiding in Central America, he is eventually found by the United States military with Sue's help and captured by Ben, who has become a military asset along with Johnny and Sue.

Johnny and Sue have been outfitted with specialized suits designed to help them stabilize and control their abilities. Reed is brought to Area 57, where Dr. Allen conscripts him to open another portal to Planet Zero in exchange for giving Reed the necessary resources to find a cure.

Arriving in Planet Zero, Dr. Allen's explorers find Victor, who has been fused to his spacesuit and controls the elements, as well as having telekinetic abilities, and bring him back to Earth.

Believing the human race needs to be destroyed so he can rebuild Planet Zero in his image, Victor kills scientists and soldiers in the base including Dr. Allen and Professor Storm and returns to Planet Zero using the Quantum Gate, with Ben, Johnny, Reed, and Sue in pursuit.

Now dubbing himself "Doom", Victor activates a portal on Planet Zero using the Quantum Gate II, and a structure consisting of the rock formations in Planet Zero he made while in the realm, that begins consuming the landscape of the Earth.

He is confronted by the four and, after a lengthy battle, Ben punches Doom into the portal's energy beam, disintegrating him while Johnny closes the portal.

Returning to Earth, the group is rewarded for their heroics by being given a new base of operations by the US military known as "Central City" to study about their abilities. They decide to use their powers to help people and adopt the mantle of the "Fantastic Four".

24

Deadpool (T2)

Wade Wilson is a former special forces operative who works as a mercenary in New York City. He meets escort Vanessa Carlysle at a local bar and they become romantically attached. One year later, Wilson proposes to marry her and she accepts, but he suddenly collapses. Wilson is diagnosed with terminal cancer, and though Vanessa remains by his side, he does not want her to watch him die.

A mysterious recruiter from a secret program approaches Wilson, offering an experimental cure for his cancer. He reluctantly decides to leave Vanessa and undergo the procedure. At a laboratory, Wilson meets Ajax and Angel Dust, whom he instantly resents. Ajax injects Wilson with a serum designed to awaken latent mutant genes, and then subjects him to days of torture to induce stress and trigger the mutation, but without success. Ajax straps Wilson into an airtight chamber which raises and lowers the oxygen level to keep Wilson constantly on the verge of asphyxiation. Before leaving him over the weekend, Ajax reveals to Wilson that their true purpose is to make super-powered slaves to be sold to wealthy customers. While inside the chamber, Wilson develops a mutant healing factor that cures his cancer but leaves him severely disfigured with burn-like scars over his entire body as a side effect. He escapes from the chamber and attacks Ajax, but relents when told that his disfigurement can be cured. Ajax subdues Wilson, impales him with a piece of rebar and leaves him for dead in the burning laboratory.

Wilson survives the ordeal and attempts to return to Vanessa, but is afraid of her suffering because of his appearance, and stays away from her. After consulting his best friend Weasel, Wilson decides to hunt down Ajax and cure his disfigurement. He becomes a masked vigilante, takes the alias "Deadpool", and moves into the home of an elderly blind woman named Blind Al. Following a string of leads, Wilson tracks down Ajax to a convoy of cars on an expressway. He kills everyone but Ajax, and demands a cure to his disfigurement. The confrontation is interrupted by the two X-Men members Colossus and Negasonic Teenage Warhead, who have been trying to recruit Wilson to join the team. Taking advantage of the distraction, Ajax escapes. Colossus handcuffs his and Wade's wrists together and drags him away, planning to take him to Professor Xavier back at the X-Mansion. Wilson severs his hand to escape, and his hand slowly regenerates overnight.

Ajax goes to Weasel's bar and learns about Vanessa. Weasel calls Wilson and tells him Vanessa is in danger. Wilson goes to the strip club where she works, but he hesitates before he can face her, allowing Ajax to kidnap her. He and Angel Dust tell Wilson to meet them on a decommissioned helicarrier in a scrapyard.

Wilson convinces Colossus and Negasonic to help him, and the trio take a cab to the scrapyard. While Colossus and Negasonic battle Angel and several soldiers, Wilson fights his way through Ajax's henchmen, and eventually engages him in a lengthy and violent fight. After Angel defeats Colossus, Negasonic attacks her and accidentally destroys the equipment holding the helicarrier upright. As the helicarrier tips over, Colossus carries Negasonic and Angel to safety, while Wilson saves Vanessa. Ajax survives and resumes fighting Wade. After being subdued, Ajax reveals that he lied and that is no cure for Wade's disfigurement. Ignoring objections from Colossus, who wants Wade to spare his enemy's life, Wade summarily executes Ajax with a revolver. Vanessa is angered that Wilson left her, but still loves him. The two reconcile and kiss.

In a post-credits scene, Wilson tells the audience that the film is over and announces a sequel featuring Cable.

25

X-Men (T2)

A crowd chants to En Sabah Nur, who is using telekinesis to build pyramids as four horsemen watch from nearby.

In 1944, in a German concentration camp in occupied Poland, Nazi scientist Dr. Klaus Schmidt witnesses a young Erik Lehnsherr bend a metal gate with his mind when the child is separated from his mother. In his office, Schmidt orders Lehnsherr to move a coin on his desk, and kills the boy's mother when Lehnsherr cannot. In grief and anger, Lehnsherr's magnetic power manifests, killing two guards and destroying the room.

Meanwhile, at a mansion in Westchester County, New York, child telepath Charles Xavier meets young shapeshifter Raven, whose natural form is blue-skinned and scaly. Overjoyed to meet someone else "different", he invites her to live with his family as his foster sister.

In 1962, Lehnsherr is tracking down Schmidt, while Xavier graduates from the University of Oxford. In Las Vegas, CIA officer Moira MacTaggert follows U.S. Army Colonel Hendry into the Hellfire Club, where she sees Schmidt (now known as Sebastian Shaw), with mutant telepath Emma Frost, cyclone-producing Riptide, and teleporter Azazel.

Threatened by Shaw and teleported by Azazel to the Joint War Room, Hendry advocates deployment of nuclear missiles in Turkey. Shaw, an energy-absorbing mutant, later kills Hendry.

MacTaggert, seeking Xavier's advice on mutation, takes him and Raven to the CIA, where they convince Director McCone that mutants exist and Shaw is a threat.

Another CIA officer sponsors the mutants and invites them to the secret "Division X" facility. MacTaggert and Xavier find Shaw as Lehnsherr is attacking him, and rescue Lehnsherr from drowning, while Shaw escapes. Xavier brings Lehnsherr to Division X, where they meet young scientist Hank McCoy, a mutant with prehensile feet, who believes Raven's DNA may provide a "cure" for their appearance.

Xavier uses McCoy's mutant-locating device Cerebro to seek recruits against Shaw. Xavier and Lehnsherr recruit stripper Angel Salvadore, cabbie Armando Muñoz, Army prisoner Alex Summers, and runaway Sean Cassidy. They all create nicknames, and Raven dubs herself "Mystique".

When Frost meets with a Soviet general in the USSR, Xavier and Lehnsherr capture Frost and discover that Shaw intends to start World War III and trigger mutant ascendency. Azazel, Riptide and Shaw attack Division X, killing everyone but the mutants, whom Shaw invites to join him.

Salvadore accepts; when Summers and Muñoz retaliate, Shaw kills Muñoz. In Moscow, Shaw compels the general to have the USSR install missiles in Cuba. Wearing a helmet that blocks telepathy, Shaw follows the Soviet fleet in a submarine to ensure the missiles break a US blockade.

Raven, thinking McCoy likes her in her natural form, tells him not to use the cure. When she later attempts to seduce Lehnsherr by taking the forms of various women, Lehnsherr tells her she is beautiful in her blue mutant form.

McCoy uses the cure on himself but it backfires, giving him blue fur and leonine aspects. With McCoy piloting, the mutants and MacTaggert take a jet to the blockade line, where Xavier uses his telepathy to influence a Soviet sailor to destroy the ship carrying the missiles, and Lehnsherr uses his magnetic power to lift Shaw's submarine from the water and deposit it on land.

During the ensuing battle, Lehnsherr seizes Shaw's helmet, allowing Xavier to immobilize Shaw. Lehnsherr tells Shaw he shares Shaw's exclusivist view of mutants but, to avenge his mother, kills Shaw—over Xavier's objections—by forcing the Nazi coin from his childhood through Shaw's brain.

Fearing the mutants, both fleets fire missiles at them, which Lehnsherr turns back in mid-flight. MacTaggert tries to stop Lehnsherr by shooting him but he deflects the bullets, one of which hits Xavier in the spine. Lehnsherr rushes to help Xavier and, distracted, allows the missiles to fall harmlessly into the ocean. Parting with Xavier over their differing views on the relationship between mutants and humans, Lehnsherr leaves with Salvadore, Azazel, Riptide and Mystique.

Later, a wheelchair-bound Xavier and his mutants are at the mansion, where he intends to open a school. MacTaggert promises never to reveal his location and they kiss; later at a CIA debriefing, she says she has no memory of recent events. Elsewhere Lehnsherr, now calling himself "Magneto", frees Frost from confinement.

En Sabah Nur, a powerful being believed to be the first mutant on Earth, rules over ancient Egypt until he is betrayed by a rebellion. His four lieutenants die, using their powers to safeguard him.

Awakened in 1983, he observes the new world and believes that humanity has lost its way without his presence. CIA agent Moira MacTaggert, who has researched the cult that's dedicated to his second coming, observes the event while on assignment.

Aiming to destroy the modern world to remake it, En Sabah Nur recruits Cairo pickpocket Ororo Munroe, who can manipulate weather elements, and upgrades her power.

In East Berlin, the shape-shifting mutant Raven Darkhölme investigates an underground fight club and discovers mutant champion Angel, who possesses a pair of large feathered wings on his back, and Kurt Wagner, who can teleport. Raven frees them and employs the services of black marketeer Caliban to transport Kurt to America.

Apocalypse recruits Caliban's enforcer, Psylocke, who leads him to Angel. Apocalypse then enhances both their powers, turning Angel's wings to metal and amplifying Psylocke's psionic skills.

Alex Summers discovers that his younger brother, Scott, is manifesting his mutation of powerful optic energy. Alex takes Scott to Professor Charles Xavier's educational institute in Westchester County, New York, in hopes that Xavier and Hank McCoy will teach him how to control his abilities.

Scott meets the telepathic and telekinetic Jean Grey, and the two develop an attraction. Raven brings Kurt to the institute. En Sabah Nur's awakening has caused disturbances around the world, leading Xavier and Alex to consult with Moira, whose memory of them had previously been erased by Xavier.

In Poland, the metal-controlling mutant Erik Lehnsherr lives under an alias with his wife and their young daughter, Nina. He uses his powers to save a co-worker, prompting police to come capture him. They accidentally kill both mother and child when Nina inadvertently releases her mutant powers; Erik retaliates, killing them.

En Sabah Nur later approaches the heartbroken Erik and takes him to Auschwitz, where Erik's power first manifested. After his powers are enhanced, Erik destroys the camp and joins him.

En Sabah Nur enters Xavier's mind while Xavier is using the mutant-locating computer Cerebro and, co-opting Xavier's powers, forces all global superpowers to launch Earth's entire nuclear arsenal into space to prevent interference. He and his new personal guard arrive at the mansion and kidnap Xavier. Attempting to stop them, Alex throws an energy blast that accidentally causes an explosion.

Peter Maximoff — having learned that he is Magneto's son, and hoping that Xavier can help to find him — arrives in time to use his super speed to evacuate everyone just before the explosion destroys the mansion, but Alex is presumed dead.

Colonel William Stryker's forces subsequently arrive and capture Hank, Raven, Peter, and Moira, taking them to a military facility for interrogation. Scott, Jean, and Kurt covertly follow and liberate their comrades by releasing Stryker's mind-controlled and brainwashed experiment, Weapon X. Jean partially restores Weapon X's memories before he escapes.

At En Sabah Nur's behest, Erik uses his power to control Earth's magnetic poles, causing widespread destruction across the planet and mass casualties.

En Sabah Nur plans to transfer his consciousness into Xavier's body and use Xavier's power to enslave the minds of the survivors. Xavier secretly sends a telepathic distress call to Jean, and the others travel to Cairo to battle Apocalypse and his followers. They rescue Xavier, his hair already burned away, as the process nears completion.

Angel is bested and incapacitated in the battle. Erik and Ororo spot En Sabah Nur's true colors when he assaults Mystique for her interference in the order to kill Peter and they change sides as a result. Together, the mutants keep him occupied physically while Xavier fights him telepathically in the astral plane. Hank escorts Raven and the others to safety.

Finally, Xavier encourages Jean to unleash the full extent of her powers, incinerating En Sabah Nur's body. In the ensuing chaos, Psylocke flees.

Afterwards, Xavier restores Moira's memory and they rekindle their relationship. Erik and Jean help reconstruct the school, but Erik refuses Xavier's offer to stay and help teach, and Peter decides not to tell Erik yet that he is Erik's son.

The X-Men are formally revived, with Hank and Raven training new recruits Scott, Jean, Ororo, Kurt, and Peter for the battles ahead.

Men in suits visit the Weapon X facility to retrieve data on Stryker's mutant research, including an X-Ray and a blood sample marked "Weapon X", on behalf of the Essex Corporation.

In the near future, Wolverine wakes up to find Iceman, Rogue, Colossus, Pryde, Beast, Storm, Jean Grey, Scott Summers, and Xavier. He then proceeds to explain to Xavier about his time-travel experience.

26

Conclusion

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