Now over a decade after the launch of Marvel Studios, it is easy to look back and say that they were likely going to succeed, but that is an extreme case of hindsight being 20/20. You only have to look at The Mummy or Green Lantern to know that having the intent to launch an interconnected film universe does not mean that it will actually work out once the first film is released. Luckily for Marvel, 2008's Iron Man was a smash success and the rest of Marvel's Phase 1 soon followed suit, culminating in the release of what became, at the time, the most successful superhero movie of all-time, Marvel's The Avengers.

However, before the Marvel Cinematic Universe became such an integral part of popular culture, there were many decisions to be made about the looks and designs of the initial films in the MCU. Many different concept art designs were made for each film and the designs that were not used could have taken the MCU in many different directions. Examining those unused concept art pieces opens up a whole world where you could ask the very Marvel question of, "What If...?"

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IRON MAN (2008)

Since Iron Man was the first film of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it naturally set the tone for the rest of the movies to come. That put a lot of pressure on people like Head of Visual Development Ryan Meinerding, the man mostly responsible for what Iron Man's armor would look like in the film. Recently, Meinerding spoke to CBR about the challenges inherent in the film:

We were starting off trying to look at making Iron Man the most grounded superhero. He was the hero that was going to be able to base his powers in technology, so we could actually make it feel real. So, all the focus on designing the different circuitry around the boots, trying to figure out the RT, trying to make all that stuff feel as rounded as possible was the most important sort of touch down at the beginning, down to how they filmed it…

From a design point of view, it really always was just about the most real we could make the hero. Transitioning into the films that came after it, that sort of stayed as a hallmark. How real could we get it with as much detail as well? Like trying to push the limits of what people would expect for a superhero movie, so trying to find touch downs for each of the heroes that had kind of tech basis but also just felt like something that always existed in the world that they came from.

One of the areas where you could see this at play is the decision of how bulky to make the armor. This one piece of unused concept art shows them debating whether it would make more sense to go with a much less sleek version of the classic look...

Besides the bulk of the armor, another debate within the design stage of the film included how resilient the armor would be in the film. As you can see from this Adi Granov concept art, at one point, the armor would show a lot more visible damage within the film...

The final villain in the movie was the Iron Monger, but at one point, it seemed as though Iron Monger would be called Crimson Dynamo, instead...

Finally, while Tony Stark showed up at a party in the film driving a 2008 Audi R8, originally, he was going to have his own Iron Man-style car, designed by artist Harald Belker!

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THE INCREDIBLE HULK (2008)

With the Incredible Hulk, Marvel did not have to come up with as much original design work, since the 2003 Hulk film did a lot of the groundwork for what a film Hulk would look like. Obviously, though, Marvel Studios had its own particular look for the Hulk. The design, though, was established early on and was mostly followed throughout the process.

One of the few exceptions, though, was what the Hulk's haircut would be in the film. Concept artist Aaron Sims went through a few different hairstyles for the Jade Giant...

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Similarly, the Abomination's look was refined fairly early on in the process, but Sims did do at least one other different approach to the Abomination's design...

Likely the biggest design change from the concept art stage was the final size of the characters. In the early art for the movie, the Abomination was going to be much bigger than the Hulk, giving the final fight in the movie a bit of a "David vs. Goliath" feel...

Ultimately, though, the two characters ended up at roughly the same size.

IRON MAN 2 (2010)

At one point in the Iron Man sequel, we see that other countries have tried to come up with their own version of the Iron Man armor. We only see a few of them, but concept artist Scott Patton was commissioned to come up with a bunch more that did not make it into the film. A few of them include China's version...

Canada's...

and Iran's...

Perhaps the biggest source of difference between the final film and the concept art came with the villain of the film, Whiplash. The film makers clearly were not sure which direction that they wanted to take the character in at first. Early concept art went for a very old school comic book-esque design for the character...

However, that was dropped in favor of a more stripped down version. Even there, though, the design differed a lot with what made it into the movie...

Ryan Meinerding did some concept art for a major sequence that was cut from the film, where Vanko would capture Pepper Potts and hold her hostage.

That version of the ending of Iron Man 2 was even filmed, but ultimately that "damsel in distress" approach was dropped and the film makers instead went for a more action-packed battle between Iron Man and War Machine and Vanko's many drones.

Meinerding also did some early concept art for the Black Widow for Iron Man 2 that had her wear a more generic S.H.I.E.L.D. outfit. This was dropped in favor of Widow's sleeker costume...

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THOR (2011)

Our whole view of Asgard might have been completely different if Marvel had gone with Charlie Wen's concept art for Asgard. The artist had a much more futuristic take on Thor's homeworld...

Wen later recalled, "I was envisioning Asgard as a realm centered around the mind of Odin. The layout is as interconnected as the knotting of Norse symbols & the Asgardian costumes, reflected in Thor, Loki, Odin, and the Warriors 3 costumes."

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With that version of Asgard in mind, it is only natural that Wen's version of Thor's costume was also a lot different than what we finally ended up with in the finished film. Here, Wen takes a different color approach to Thor's look, very much in keeping with his Asgard design...

Similarly, Warren Manser's concept art for Loki took the character in a drastically different direction from the final film. Where the film ended up with a regal but sinister Loki, Manser's look has more of an action-oriented Loki.

The final version of Loki that made the film was the type of god who would plot your death behind your back, while this Loki looks like he would go right at you.

Manser was also responsible for a piece of concept art that suggested a tangent in the film that we never got to see. His design of young versions of Thor and Loki certainly makes it out as though the original version of the film had sequences set in the past, showing the early stages of the enmity between the two brothers. Manser really nails the younger selves of both characters in this piece...

Finally, this Ryan Meinerding piece comes the closest to how the characters would look in the final film, which makes sense, since Meinerding's work tends to be the direction most Marvel films go in, but it is worth noting that even here, there was a lot more work to be done from his early designs, with Thor's final costume having less of a mono-chromatic look and Loki's costume being much more regal than this casual tunic...

CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER (2011)

Ryan Meinerding began concept art for Captain America as early as 2008...

However, when that design was turned into a color look, Marvel Studios ultimately decided that it was a bit too ostentatious for a soldier in the battlefield.

Therefore, the final design in the movie went with more of a subtle approach, with Captain America wearing his costume under his soldier uniform for most of the war sequences in the movie.

The Red Skull in the movie went through a number of variations, as well, with Charlie Wen delivering a very creepy, but perhaps too skeletal version of the villain...

Ryan Meinerding came up with this more regal version of the villain that would probably have been used for a portrait within the movie, but it was dropped...

You could almost look at the Wen and the Meinerding Skull designs as what the Skull wishes he looks like versus what he actually looks like.

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MARVEL'S THE AVENGERS (2012)

One of the biggest issues with the Avengers was some early concerns over whether Scarlett Johansson would sign on for the movie at all. Joss Whedon recalled, "We went through a lot of insane iterations of what might be. At the very beginning, I wrote entire drafts that had no bearing on what I would eventually film. There was a moment where we thought we weren’t gonna have Scarlett [Johansson], and so I wrote a huge bunch of pages starring The Wasp. That was not useful."

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As a result, there was early storyboard artwork for the film that included the Wasp as part of the team...

Phil Saunders did a number of new Iron Man armor designs for the film. He did commentary for each of the unused designs.

"The first was actually a revision of a design I had been thinking of initially for Iron Man 2 before ultimately choosing another project. It was a lighter, more streamlined version of what had come before, trying to integrate a flowing theme wrapping around the ‘RT’ on the chest and mirroring that fast line through the body. This was more of the evolutionary design, and ultimately was approved pretty much immediately as a starting point for the Mk 7."

"The next design was playing around with the stance of the suit toward more of a brawler attitude, somewhat beefier and less aircraft-like"

"Lastly was a more extreme departure, trying to create a very different silhouette, sort of the Stark Industries answer to a more heavily militarized suit like War Machine, but drawing from Air Force form language instead of Army."

He ultimately noted, "The function of the suit in the script lead to the idea of having a more armored suit that over the course of battle would shed its ammo packs and additional armor.” Going on to use some of the styling elements from the first and third concepts, which were then integrated into the new design."

Saunders also came up with his own spin on the early design for the alien invaders in The Avengers, before Ryan Meinerding came up with the final design for the film. Saunders' Chitauri had an even more horrific look than they ultimately had in the finished movie....

Finally, we have Charlie Wen doing a more "urban" version of Hawkeye's costume for The Avengers, which was ultimately rejected...

As you can see, the Marvel Cinematic Universe almost looked a whole lot different, but it seems, for the most part, that the right calls were made for the final films.