Film guide · 2012
The whole film, start to finish, told scene by scene in words. Read this and you'll know everything that happens.
Contains every spoiler, up to the ending.
Somewhere in space, Loki makes a deal with a mysterious power and its messenger: he'll deliver the Tesseract from Earth, and in return he gets the Chitauri army to conquer it.
At a S.H.I.E.L.D. research facility, the Tesseract suddenly flares. Loki steps out of the light and uses his scepter to take control of Dr. Selvig and master archer Clint Barton. He escapes with the Tesseract as the base collapses.
Natasha is pulled off a mission and sent to India, where Bruce Banner is hiding out as a doctor, to ask him to help track the Tesseract.
Steve, newly awakened after 70 years, is alone in a gym, pounding a punching bag. Fury asks him to help save the world.
Tony and Pepper are celebrating his new tower in New York when Coulson arrives with files on the team and the Tesseract research. Tony agrees to help.
Steve and Bruce are brought aboard the Helicarrier, an enormous flying aircraft carrier.
In Germany, Loki forces a crowd to kneel, telling them they were made to be ruled. When an old man refuses, Captain America steps in, Iron Man joins, and they take Loki prisoner.
Thor drops onto the jet and grabs Loki. He wants to take his brother back to Asgard, and fights Iron Man in a forest until Captain America breaks it up.
Loki is locked in a special cell aboard the Helicarrier. Natasha, talking with him, realizes his plan is to unleash the Hulk.
The heroes discover S.H.I.E.L.D. was using the Tesseract to build weapons and start turning on each other. With Loki's scepter in the room, the argument escalates.
The brainwashed Clint leads an attack on the carrier. Caught in an explosion, Bruce turns into the Hulk, chases Natasha and fights Thor. Tony and Steve fix a dead engine to keep the carrier from falling.
Loki escapes, traps Thor and drops him from the sky. Coulson tries to stop him and is stabbed. He goes down cracking a joke, still holding a gun on Loki.
Fury tells the heroes Coulson is dead and shows them his Captain America trading cards, giving them a reason to fight together. Clint, freed from Loki's control, joins them.
On top of Stark Tower, Loki uses the Tesseract to open a portal in the sky. The Chitauri army and giant flying creatures pour into the city.
All six assemble, and Captain America gives the orders. Bruce arrives on a motorbike, says his secret is that he's always angry, and turns into the Hulk on the spot, stopping a giant creature with one punch.
Inside the tower, Loki shouts that he is a god. The Hulk slams him into the floor over and over.
Officials above Fury fire a nuclear missile at the city. Tony grabs it and carries it through the portal into space, where it destroys the enemy mothership and the whole army.
Natasha closes the portal with the scepter just as Tony falls back through, unconscious. The Hulk catches him and roars, and Tony wakes up.
Battered, Loki looks up at the heroes standing over him and says he'll have that drink now. Thor takes him and the Tesseract back to Asgard.
The heroes go their separate ways. Tony and Bruce drive off together. Fury is confident they'll come back when they're needed.
The messenger who sent the Chitauri reports their defeat to his master. The master turns and smiles: it is Thanos.
The exhausted heroes sit in a wrecked shawarma restaurant, eating in silence.