MCU: The Saddest Quote From Each Phase One Movie

From the promising groundwork laid by the first Iron Man movie to the ambitious crossover event pulled off by the first Avengers movie, the films of Phase One successfully established the Marvel Cinematic Universe and set the stage for the biggest movie franchise of all time. With Tony Stark’s one-liners in the Iron Man series and the God of Thunder’s fish-out-of-water antics in the original Thor movie, Phase One had plenty of Marvel Studios’ signature humor.

But there were also a lot of heartbreaking dramatic moments in the MCU’s Phase One entries, from Yinsen’s final words to Tony in Iron Man to Loki confessing his true motives in Thor to Steve Rogers lamenting his lost love in Captain America: The First Avenger.

6 Iron Man – “Don’t Waste It.”

In the first Iron Man movie, Tony Stark constructs his clunky Mark I armor with the help of fellow Ten Rings prisoner Yinsen. Tony thanks Yinsen for saving his life and making the ultimate sacrifice to allow him to escape from the cave. With his dying breath, Yinsen tells Tony not to waste that sacrifice.

Given that he spent the next decade fighting arms dealers and alien invaders and ultimately gave his life to save the entire universe, it’s fair to say that Tony did not waste Yinsen’s sacrifice. He took this advice to heart, became a much better person, and used his wealth and resources to make a positive change in the world.

5 The Incredible Hulk – “Leave Me Alone!”

The Hulk can’t speak anywhere near as articulately as his better half Bruce Banner, but when he feels strongly enough about something, he can string together a few words to express those feelings. When he thrashed Loki around in The Avengers, he mustered up the hilarious descriptor of “puny god.” In The Incredible Hulk, as General Thunderbolt Ross and his forces relentlessly try to take him down, the Hulk growls at them: “Leave me alone!”

The Hulk doesn’t want to hurt anyone; he just wants to smash things and for the government to leave him be, but they naturally refuse to do so. The Hulk is a quintessential sympathetic monster in the mold of Brundlefly or the Wolf Man or Dr. Frankenstein’s diabolical creation.

4 Iron Man 2 – “What Is, And Will Always Be, My Greatest Creation… Is You.”

There’s a ludicrous, beyond-the-pale twist in Iron Man 2 that sees Tony Stark creating a brand-new chemical element from scratch. But there’s a heartwarming father-son story baked into that absurd plot point. Tony is inspired to create this new element by a series of videos in which his father Howard tried and failed to do so years earlier. In the videos, he addresses Tony directly and tells him that he’s limited by the technology of his time, and that Tony can finish his work when he grows up.

Tony always thought his father didn’t love him. He tells Nick Fury as much during one of their meetings. But he learns from the home movies that Howard left behind that he loved his son more than anything, but was too much of a workaholic to be there for him. He considered Tony to be his “greatest creation.”

3 Thor – “I Never Wanted The Throne, I Only Ever Wanted To Be Your Equal!”

The first Thor movie primarily acts as an origin story for the God of Thunder, but it also covers the origin story of his resentful adopted brother, the God of Mischief. As detailed in the original Thor film, Odin adopted Loki from the Frost Giants. All throughout his life, Loki felt like his father preferred his biological son Thor over the trickster he adopted from the bad guys. As he reveals in one of the movie’s saddest moments, Loki isn’t a straightforward villain who wants to usurp Odin, seize the throne of Asgard, and consolidate power.

All along, he just wanted to be accepted into the family as much as Thor was. When Odin dies a couple of movies later, he confirms that he always loved them both equally when he refers to Thor and Loki as “my sons.”

2 Captain America: The First Avenger – “I Had A Date.”

The final act of Captain America: The First Avenger completes Steve Rogers’ origin story by explaining how a World War II-era super-soldier ends up being recruited by Nick Fury to fight alongside Iron Man and the Hulk in the present day. When he finds himself aboard a plane full of W.M.D.s, Steve doesn’t hesitate to down the plane in the ice and seemingly give his own life to save the world. As the plane goes down, Steve arranges a date with the love of his life, Peggy Carter, over the radio.

When he awakens in the present day, having been cryogenically frozen in the plane crash, Steve finds himself in a futuristic metropolis he doesn’t recognize. He’s dismayed to learn that everything and everyone he ever cared about is a forgotten relic of the past. But there’s just one thing on his mind: “I had a date.”

1 The Avengers – “I Put A Bullet In My Mouth And The Other Guy Spat It Out!”

After struggling with his Jekyll-and-Hyde duality all throughout The Incredible Hulk, by the time the first Avengers movie has rolled around, Bruce Banner has just about managed to keep his Hulk persona at bay. He’s living off the grid, providing medicare for people who can’t afford it. When Natasha Romanoff recruits him for the Avengers Initiative, Banner reveals how difficult it was to fend off the Hulk.

In one of the film’s most shocking moments, Banner reveals that in the darkest days of his struggle to get the Hulk under control, he attempted to take his own life and his green, musclebound other self wouldn’t allow it.