Technically, yes.

Quick little bit here, but over on Jon Favreau’s Twitter page, a fan posed the question of whether IRON MAN 2 takes place before or after THE INCREDIBLE HULK (remember, Tony Stark made a cameo at the end of that flick). Favreau simply replied with “before”.

That answer actually throws a couple of things into question, like is Tony a member of the Avengers Initiative in IRON MAN 2 or is Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) still trying to get him to join? After all, at the end of HULK, it appears that Stark is recruiting General Ross (William Hurt) to possibly hunt down the Hulk who’s on the run, therefore meaning that Stark is now, apparently, an Avengers recruiter. Does this mean that the AVENGERS pic will have Stark, Thor, Captain America and Nick Fury hunting the Hulk? Who knows, but it’s pretty fun to speculate.

Regardless of whatever the answer means, I’m really digging the fact that all the Marvel Studios movies are inter-connected. Now, if only Marvel Studios could wrangle back the rights to X-MEN and FANTASTIC FOUR from Fox and SPIDER-MAN from Sony.

Thanks to /film for the info!