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Despite being part of the same cosmos , Marvel Phase 1 was an entirely different beast to what the Marvel Cinematic Universe is today - and look back , callingCaptain Americathe " First Avenger " can be considered an revilement to Tony Stark / Iron Man . Not long after Hollywood learn success with superhero adaptations like Sam Raimi ’s Spider - Man and Bryan Singer ’s X - Men serial , Marvel decide to forge their own path beginning with Jon Favreau’sIron Manin 2008 . That was the true start ofMarvel ’s dominancein the manufacture .
Over a decennium and almost two 12 motion picture later , the Marvel Cinematic Universe is a effect to be reckoned with , having nabbed multiple patch on the list of the highest - grossing motion picture . Much of that is owed to Iron Man , whose forfeiture inAvengers : Endgameis a import that still brings binge to fans ' centre upon rewatch . And that only work because of the years spend establish up to that instant . That ’s not to say other hoagy ' write up or moment stand for any less , but the MCU - and the Avengers , for that matter - would n’t exist either thematically or literally without Iron Man ( he was personally supporting the team ’s operations , financially ) .
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Nick Fury ’s first brush with otherworldly military unit encounter inCaptain Marvel , but it was n’t until Iron Man ’s intro in 2008 that he put forth a actual design for forge the Avengers . Iron Man ’s inclusion in the end led to others joining , something hinted at in The Incredible Hulk ’s post - credits panorama , and he became one of the squad ’s co - senior pilot ( alongside Steve Rogers ) . But despite lead the team with Captain America , he was the individual at the helm pickings charge of all aspects of the Avengers ' beingness . It all fell on his shoulders , even when Cap abandoned his duties inCaptain America : Civil War .
Captain America was a one - time hero who press during World War II , but his days as a hero were behind him until he was discovered and thawed out of the ice decades later . In that time , Iron Man had successfully privatized world pacification , and he occasionally worked alongside SHIELD in maintaining that pacification . Vision acknowledge this when he gave his address inCivil Warabout how the world commute when Tony Stark outed himself as Iron Man . Every hero and outcome that do before Iron Man were one - offs , but he changed all of that .
But beyond the elaborateness of who became the earth ’s first superhero , can Captain America even be considered the first Avenger when the full term Avenger was n’t coined until the nineties ( one ofCaptain Marvel ’s legion retcons ) ? He ’s not even Marvel ’s oldest hero , since Thor has been around for a lot long than he has and it ’s possible the Eternals have been on Earth for centuries . But regardless of the in - universe chronology , Iron Man is responsible for the Avengers as a squad , in the modern years . Sure , it made sense at the prison term to name Captain America ’s first moving picture as The First Avenger , feed his comic chronicle , but in retrospect , that assignment belongs to Iron Man .
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