A Brief History of Marvel Movies Before the MCU

MarvelOpens in a new tab movies weren’t always as good as they are now. In fact, before the Marvel Cinematic UniverseOpens in a new tab some of them were downright terrible. This period consisted of a weird, convoluted web of movies that largely arose from Marvel selling off the rights to its characters to different studios in the mid ’90s to help save the company from bankruptcy. The results were…well, they’re legally movies, so there’s that!

Some are great, some are not, but they’re all part of the rich legacy of superhero cinema. So on today’s episode of The Dan CaveOpens in a new tab, which just so happens to be the 200th episode of the series (!), we’re going to take a walk down memory lane with a brief history of Marvel movies before the MCU.

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This isn’t even counting Marvel’s countless TV movies or some of the questionable non-MCU movies that came afterwards, but at least now we have 18 interconnected movies to make the Marvel Universe come alive on the big screen like we always imagined. Which of these is your favorite? Which haunts your dreams? Let me know in the comments below and give me a historically awesome thumbs up while you’re there.

Dan Casey is the senior editor of Nerdist and the author of books about Star WarsOpens in a new tab and the AvengersOpens in a new tab. Follow him on Twitter (@DanCaseyOpens in a new tab).

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