<P> The Tesseract from the Thor post-credits scene appears as a MacGuffin in Captain America: The First Avenger . In the film, Dominic Cooper portrays a young Howard Stark, the father of Tony Stark, who hosts an early version of the Stark Expo, the fair Tony hosts in Iron Man 2 . The final scene of the film includes a brief appearance by Jackson's Nick Fury followed by a teaser trailer for Marvel's The Avengers after the credits . </P> <P> Nick Fury, the director of S.H.I.E.L.D., gathers the superheroes Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, the Hulk, Black Widow and Hawkeye to fight Thor's brother Loki, who plots to subjugate the Earth . </P> <P> Zak Penn, who wrote The Incredible Hulk, was hired to write a script for The Avengers in June 2007 . In April 2010, Joss Whedon closed a deal to direct the film, and to rework Penn's script . Marvel announced that Edward Norton would not be reprising the role of Bruce Banner / Hulk, and in July 2010, Mark Ruffalo was cast in his place . Downey, Evans, Hemsworth, Johansson, Renner, Hiddleston and Jackson reprised their respective roles from previous films . Principal photography began in April 2011 in Albuquerque, New Mexico, before moving to Cleveland, Ohio in August, and New York City in September . The premiere was held on April 11, 2012 at the El Capitan Theatre in Los Angeles, California, and the film was released in North America on May 4 . </P> <P> Gwyneth Paltrow, who portrayed Pepper Potts in Iron Man and Iron Man 2, was included in the film at Downey's insistence . Prior to this, Whedon had not intended the film to include supporting characters from the heroes' individual films, commenting, "You need to separate the characters from their support systems in order to create the isolation you need for a team ." Avi Arad said that Sony Pictures and Disney discussed incorporating the OsCorp Tower from The Amazing Spider - Man into the climax of The Avengers, but Feige said that "the deal was never close to happening ." The supervillain Thanos appears in a mid-credits scene, portrayed by Damion Poitier . </P>

Marvel movies in order as they came out