Avengers: Age of Ultron comes out tomorrow, and it's clearly their biggest effort yet. But with so many interlocking stories, it's hard to keep up with how things got to where they are and where they're heading. Frankly, there's no way to head into Ultron without having a general sense of the overall Marvel mythos, but unless you're willing to shell out a bunch of money to either rent all 11 movies on iTunes or sit through an endless marathon (we're not sure how Ross Miller will survive...), you're gonna be sorely underprepared heading into the theater.

Luckily, we're huge nerds.

Marvel was so kind as to provide a timeline that led up to the Avengers before its release. It's an excellent starting point, since it dives deeply into when things happened in the Marvel Universe and why: