10 MCU Moments That Were Way More Important Than You Ever Realized

One of the best things about the US Marvel Cinematic Universe is the franchise’s ability to see small details that have massive implications for the universe, whether they’re easy to notice or not. Like any film, the storytelling of the MCU movies is at their best when they can pay off something that was established much earlier. As such an expansive franchise, the MCU can afford to seed tiny elements of the plot, whose ramifications are only seen a few movies later, which end up being much more important moments than originally thought.

The little bits that end up being much more important than they seemed are everywhere in the early Marvel Cinematic Universe. Back when the franchise had a more defined direction with the culmination of the Infinity Saga storyline, the MCU films were excellent at teasing the direction of future characters with now obvious foreshadowing. Other times, as is the case with the Disney+ Marvel shows, it’s clear that the significance of the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it scenes only retroactively matter with new information.

10

Hulk responds to being called by his own name

Iconic moment was in Thor: Ragnarok

The Hulk is an interesting supporting character in the early days of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Both he and Dr. Bruce Banner are defined by the one body they share, clearly two different entities, though other characters sometimes struggle to tell which is which.

Throughout the MCU’s films, The Hulk’s level of anger can easily be defined by whether those around him refer to him as Bruce Banner or not. Thor repeatedly makes this mistake during the arena fight with Hulk in it Thor: Ragnarok, Earning a vicious beating for his troubles.

Tony is smart enough to realize his mistake when he does the same right before the Hulkbuster fight in Avengers: Age of Ultron, But his efforts are too little, too late. Meanwhile, Hulk shows much more respect to Captain America, Black Widow, and Valkyrie, even willing to follow their orders because they are polite enough to call him “Hulk” or even simply “Big Guy.”

9

Captain America gets Loki to take Earth seriously

Iconic moment during The Avengers

Not every little ounce of detail in the MCU movie serves to set up a bigger payoff multiple films later. Sometimes a small detail that is easily overlooked has its own special significance, as is the case with Captain America’s first encounter with Loki in The Avengers. At this point in Loki’s MCU journey, the trickster god is still very much a villain, giving in to his delusions of grandeur in an attempt to conquer Earth for himself.

At first, Loki makes a big point of referring to humans as inferior, clearly not threatened by anything they could hope to do to him. That is, until he is immediately confronted by Captain America, who punches him in the jaw without a moment’s notice.

The look on Tom Hiddleston’s face quickly changes from smug superiority to sudden fear, Surprised that no man was able to let such a literal impact on him. It’s a small, but important moment that quickly sells Loki on just how dangerous humanity can be as captors if left unchecked.

8

Agatha all along calls back to the black heart of WandaVision

Iconic moment was in Agatha all along

While the best garbage moments with deeper hidden meanings occur in the earlier stages of the MCU’s pop culture dominance, some of them have only cropped up in recent years. In the series’ first Disney+ streaming show, windovision, Precedents for imagery were set that had a valuable meaning years later. This is the case for a seemingly insignificant visual detail in the show, a small black heart, which has taken on a new meaning in the current release. Agatha all along.

in windovision, While still trapped in their idyllic sitcom lifestyle, Wanda and Vision schedule a meeting on their calendars with the Hart family, which the occasion features a simple black heart evocative of their last name. This picture comes in again Agatha all the same, Where Agatha uses a black heart seemingly as a placeholder for Mrs. Hart’s name on her list of coven members to recruit, despite her apparent lack of magical abilities. The welcome callback helps tie the two shows together with a shared acknowledgment of their returning cast members.

Iconic moment during Captain America: The Winter Soldier

Occasionally, the Marvel Cinematic Universe will fondly bring back minor side characters to keep their shared world feeling alive and dynamic. One of the most subtle examples of this is first seeded in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, When rogue HYDRA agent Brock Rumlowe, aka Crossbones, tries to launch SHIELD’s helicarriers for nefarious purposes.

He orders an unnamed technician to do this, but in a constant display of courage, the worker refuses to comply, despite being threatened with a gun to the head. The SHIELD technician’s name turns out to be Cameron Klein, showing up again Avengers: Age of Ultron.

here, It is revealed that Cameron has been promoted for his bravery by Nick Fury, now working directly under him in a more noteworthy position. While many viewers likely won’t recognize Cameron, his small character arc is indicative of the MCU’s commitment to attention to detail.

6

Ho Yinsen tells Tony about his hometown

Iconic moment was in Iron Man

Another instance in which an easily-missed detail paid off in the same film it was introduced in, Ho Yinsen’s origins in Iron Man They are hard to catch on a first viewing. The brilliant engineer who helped Tony Stark become Iron Man and influenced his rise to heroism, Ho Yinsen is quite an important, but overlooked figure in the MCU mythos.

While trapped in the cave with Tony, Jensen tells him where he comes fromA village taken over by the ten rings in Afghanistan called Gulmira. Jensen describes Golmira as a beautiful place, but once the ten rings descended on him, it was different.

In one of his first outings as Iron Man, Tony actually comes to the village specifically to wipe out the terrorists with his own company’s weapons. The location of the area is only briefly mentioned in a faint news report about the strike Tony watches later, getting revenge for his friend by liberating his hometown.

5

Loki’s first fakeout death

Iconic moment was in Thor

Loki has had many fakeout deaths in the MCU, tricking Asgard into believing he died twice before actually dying for real, only for a past version of him to escape into the TVA. This variant’s journey ends with becoming the God of Stories, sacrificing his life to become a living time-loom that holds the branches of the multiverse together.

amazingly, The moment in which Loki makes the sacrifice is hinted at in his very first appearance back in the original Thor. Loki ends the film dangling off the Cosmic Frozen Bridge.

In the finale of his own show, Loki repeats these lines, only in a much more obscure context, as he gives up any chance to see his loved ones ever again in favor of doing what needs to be done. This is just one of many smart ways Lokis final references the first Thor.

4

Red skull accurately predicts the future

Iconic moment during Captain America: The First Avenger

The Red Skull is one of the most underrated villains in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, especially when it comes to his powers of perception. During his final confrontation with Captain America in 1942, the Red Skull mocks his opponent for his naive ideas of nationalism. The HYDRA leader mocks Steve Rogers for wearing a flag and serving a country, stating “I have seen the future, Captain. There are no flags!“

As it turns out, the Red Skull isn’t lying about seeing the future. Captain America ends up losing the stars and stripes he once wore when he becomes a fugitive from the US. Captain America: Civil War. Not only that, but the formation of the flag smashers in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier Implying that the world was largely stateless during the five-year “blip” in which Thanos’ cap removed half of the population.

3

Odin’s battle with the frost giants happened in New Asgard

Iconic moment was in Thor

The Asgardians have had a rather difficult journey throughout the MCU. Witnessing countless invasions, one of the first things the series shows about the Asgardians is Odin’s battle with the Frost Giants on Earth thousands of years ago in 965 AD. Here, the menacing army of monsters attack the Norwegian town of Tønsberg, prompting a response from Odin and his army. He then leaves the Tesseract hidden in a church there, only for it to be found by Red Skull in 1942.

But Tønsberg would come into play again in Avengers: Endgame, After the events of Thor: Ragnarok. After the destruction of the original Asgard, it is revealed that the few remaining survivors establish New Asgard on the same site they once defended in Norway, a city that is apparently ready to accept the foreign refugees with open arms. In this way, Tønsberg has consistently been one of the most important locations in the MCU despite its remoteness.

2

Thor’s visions walked him through multiple movies

Iconic moment during Avengers: Age of Ultron

While the series enjoys sowing small seeds of foreshadowing from time to time, it’s rare that a full-on vision sequence gives a more blatant hint to upcoming events in the MCU. That being said, this is exactly what happens to Thor during the hallucinations Scarlet Witch gives him in Avengers: Age of Ultron. Although there was no way of knowing it at the time, Thor was assaulted with a kaleidoscope of visions that all ended up coming true in the near future.

First, a visit from Heimdall specifically calls Thor a firstborn son, rather than simply the eldest sibling, implying the existence of his sister, Hela, whom he would only learn of in Thor: Ragnarok. Then, the events of the Infinity Saga are briefly touched upon, with Heimdall’s own death and the Infinity Stones falling into Thor’s vision. Finally, Thor gets a sneak preview of a later scene in the same film, with Vision’s eyes snapping awake to punctuate his glimpse of the future.

1

Erik Selvig accurately describes his place in the multiverse

Iconic moment was in Thor: The Dark World

Thor isn’t the only character from his solo movies who has a knack for predicting the future. The oft-sidelined character Erik Selvig doesn’t appear in the MCU very often, but when he does, he usually brings a stunning revelation with him. Selvig begins Thor: The Dark World Internment in a mental institution, with its cryptic research streak about it implies a state of mental instability.

However, buried in Selvig’s notes is an important note that describes something important about the MCU’s reality long before it was confirmed as canon. A blink-and-you’ll-miss-it note on Selvig’s chalkboard mentions that all realms exist in the “616” universe, referencing Marvel’s base universe, Earth-616. This critical piece of MCU Lore fell into the background of the 2013 film long before it was hard confirmed by official sources that the MCU takes place on Earth-616, with the series being referred to by other numbers before.