Name another movie series that has taken a decade to pay off a storyline. I’ll wait.

As a life-long comic book fan, I never could have imagined a world where people anxiously await the next Marvel Film. I also couldn’t have imagined a world where all of the films are connected and a big purple guy will be the big bad we crept towards for a decade. But, finally, here we are. By the time Avengers: Infinity War hits theaters next May, it will have been 10 years and 18 films, and we will finally be seeing so many stray threads brought together to put Thanos in front of us as a force of evil that will take every MCU character to defeat.

Yep, even the Guardians are coming along to play.

Somehow Marvel was able to take the formula of comic books and perfectly bring it to the screen. The massive crossover storylines of yore projected on a screen, and the audiences have bought into it without blinking an eye. If for no other reason, no matter what you think of the quality of Marvel films, you have to applaud them for pulling this off. This all kicked off on May 2, 2008 with Iron Man, and on May 4, 2018 we will see the beginning of the end of the first wave of the MCU.

What comes next? Your guess is as good as mine, but I’m all aboard.