Watch The History Of The Marvel Cinematic Universe In 13 Minutes

Avengers: Age of Ultron finishes off Marvel's big second phase of films by putting the company's big heroes, and a few new characters, through an intense ringer. The film's events rely very much on what has gone before in Marvel films, in part because the past eight years worth of movies has brought all the characters to the point they're at now. That's a lot of history, and it's pretty easy to forget some little bit of it.

You won't need a brief refresher if you've gone back to marathon all the previous films before seeing Age of Ultron, but in the event you don't have that much time to spare, here's a 13-minute Marvel Cinematic Universe history lesson. It is super-detailed, which makes up for some of the humor that doesn't always land. 

This video comes from The Verge, and is based in part on the Marvel timeline above, though a lot more has happened since that was created.

Oh, and before you go taking away no-prizes for the fact that the video misidentifies Xandar in the Guardians of the Galaxy bit, know that the Verge has already owned up to it.

And if you want to spend even less time with your recap but get in a lot more characters, here's a tribute to all the Marvel heroes on film so far — many of which sadly will never interact with the Marvel Studios stable.

Avengers: Age of Ultron is in theaters everywhere now, but you probably already knew that.