In fact, the whole 'Second Age' business has many people asking why 'second?' Is there something before that? As it turns out, the answer is yes. Of course, the backward momentum doesn't stop there, either. This is thousands of years before the events of the LotR and Hobbit, which occur at the end of the 3,000-year-long Third Age.
Amazon brought this into focus when they announced they'd acquired the rights to produce a multi-season series set in the Second Age of Middle-earth.
