Infinity Stones

Thoughts and ramblings on the introduction of the remaining Infinity Stones (Gems in Earth 616)

* Update 12/9 — I have moved this blog to MCUExchange.com**

For those who stayed for the mid-credits scene after Thor — The Dark World, you were greeted with the confirmation that the Infinity Gauntlet story is the underlying plot of the first 3 Phases (at least) of Marvels Cinematic Universe. With that in mind, let’s look at what we know for sure and what we can deduce with that information.

The Tesseract/Space Stone

In Captain America — The First Avenger we were first introduced to The Tesseract, an ancient artifact which we’re told was the prize of Odin’s treasure room. For unknown reasons it has been kept hidden on Earth (Norway to be specific) for what we can only assume has been hundreds or thousands of years.The Red Skull steals it, uses it to build Hydra weapons until Captain America defeats him and then promptly crashes his plane into the ice with The Tesseract in tow, you’ve all seen it so no need to rehash the entire plot. Howard Stark finds it while searching for Captain America’s plane and it remains in S.H.I.E.L.D. possession until The Avengers 70 some odd years later in present day. In The Avengers, The Tesseract is used 3 times to create portals in space (Loki’s arrival on Earth, Chituari invasion and Loki/Thor returning to Asgard) rather than to power weapons like in Captain America — The First Avenger. The Tesseract is returned to Asgard at the end of The Avengers and that is where it currently remains.

While this is all interesting and definitely a cool way to tie in 2 different MCU movies, it’s importance isn’t fully realized until the Thanos introduction in the after-credit scene in The Avengers and more importantly details revealed throughout all of Thor — The Dark World. The Thanos reveal showed that he was behind Loki’s entire invasion of earth and that Marvel Studios was setting him up as a future bad guy. This, coupled with the brief glimpse of The Infinity Guantlet (pictured above) we got in Thor 1 got the internet buzzing about the potential of its usage in future movies. All of this was merely speculation about how they would use Thanos unti Thor — The Dark World. Here we learn about the 6 ancient artifacts that have existed before the creation of the universe and that The Aether(we’ll get to that later) is one of them. The mid-credits scene of Thor — TDW is the most relevant reveal about The Tesseract though. We are told by Volstagg that it’s not safe to keep 2 Infinity Stones so close to one another and gives The Collector The Aether for safe keeping. This is important because it’s stated that The Tesseract (which was just recently brought back from Earth) is the other Infinity Stone that he mentions. With all that in mind, we are now able to start putting the pieces together in terms of which artifact represents which stone/gem from the comics.

The manipulation of space by The Tesseract puts most people (myself included) in the camp that it is the Space Stone. This was the widely accepted theory for all of 2 days until head honcho of the MCU Kevin Feige flat out admitted that it IS the Space Stone. So that essentially puts the discussion to rest and we can move on to the juicy details that were revealed in Thor — TDW. The only other information to note is that by confirming that The Tesseract is indeed the Space Stone, they are ruling out the idea that all of the stones will match up color wise to their comics counterparts (see image above). The Tesseract is blue and the Space Gem/Stone is Purple.

The Aether/Power Stone

We are introduced to The Aether at the start of Thor — TDW with Anthony Hopkins narrating a battle that involved his father Bor and the Dark Elf Malekith. Bor defeats Malekith, lets him get away and then “buries it where no one will find it”. It’s then re-introduced during the beginning part of The Convergence when Jane Foster randomly stumbles upon it while playing real-life Portal. Again, you’ve all seen it so lets just touch on the important bits revealed.

First off, The Aether is not a solid object, it is shown as a red fluid energy of sorts that can inhabit a being and wield destructive power. This is a big change from the standard comics version of any of the Infinity Stones, which you can deduce by the usage of the term stones. This is important to remember because it leaves the future potential of the other 5 stones wide open in terms of how they can introduce it. An important quote by Odin helps us understand the concept; “While the other relics are often appear as stone, the Aether is fluid and ever changing”

The second thing to note is how The Aether is used throughout the movie. While it inhabits Jane Foster, it’s shown to be a powerful and destructive force that seems to be protecting itself and while it’s within Malekith it’s shown similarly but on a much larger scale. Malekiths usage of The Aether while he tries to reshape the Universe is demonstrated as a powerful red energy and most folks are assuming (again, myself included) that it represents the Power Stone. Another not as well accepted theory was that it could be the Reality Stone, seeing as he’s attempting to reshape the universe or reality. I personally feel that one is a bit of a stretch but I wouldn’t rule it out. Regardless, most of us are currently operating under the idea that it’s the Power Stone based on its color and how it was used.

While the concept of The Aether as the Power Stone is by no means confirmed, I am going to continue on with the rest of this article assuming that it’s the case.

Time Stone

Comicbookresources just posted an article similar to this one and their theory for the Time Stone was it being introduced in Captain America — The Winter Soldier. This is not a theory I really support for a number of reasons, but I’ll cover most of that as I go on. My feeling is that it will be introduced in Guardians of the Galaxy next August.

As shown on the left, Star-Lord is holding something in his hand. We now know that all of these “stones” aren't necessarily just that, so a glowing blue ball could be anything at this point. The log line for GoTG mentions that the team has “something everyone wants”, so this could very well be an Infinity Stone and would be a great way to tie in the existing worlds we know with the new ones introduced in GoTG.

Another detail that leads me to believe the Time Stone is involved is the appearance of Walk-Man (pictured below) that was on display with Star-Lords gear at Comic Con this year. The Walk-Man is obviously 15-20 year old technology and we are told that GoTG takes place in modern day. For those unfamiliar with Star-Lord, he is born on earth with the name Peter Quill. There are a few variations of his origin so it’s hard to guess how exactly Marvel plans to introduce him but I have a few ideas.

My theory is that Peter Quill somehow comes across the Time Stone in the 80's or 90's, transports himself into the Future, stashes it somewhere and is promptly picked up by Nova Corps. He escapes somehow, goes on the run for a number of years and becomes Star-Lord. Gamora is sent to find him by Thanos (to collect Infinity Stones) but ends up helping him, teaming up with the other GoTG and retrieving the Time Stone from wherever he stashed it. I believe it will end with one of the members of GoTG taking the stone to The Collector as well. The Collector plays the important role of connecting Thor and GoTG and none of the characters from either films will have any inclination that The Collector has nefarious intentions. As we know from the mid-credits scene in Thor — TDW, The Collector seems to be gathering the Infinity Stones from his statement of “1 down, 5 to go”. This information leads me to believe he is working for Thanos rather than attempting to collect the stones himself. Assuming thats the case, Thanos would have 2 of the 5 stones by the end of GoTG and would know where a 3rd is (The Tesseract in Odin’s treasure room). That leaves 3 more.

Soul Stone

The obvious conclusion here is that it will be introduced via the rumored Doctor Strange movie because of the obvious Mystical origins of Steven Strange. This seems to be the easiest way to go about this, but where does the Stone come from?

Before Thor — TDW, many people thought that the Eye of Agamotto or Orb of Agamotto could contain the Soul Stone and that Doctor Strange would have to obtain either/or to properly do his origin. With the reveal in the mid-credits scene of Thor — TDW, we now know that no other Infinity Stones are in Odin’s Trophy Room, so this rules out it being either of those. It’s also important to know that the items glimpsed in Thor 1 (pictured above) may not even be the Eye or the Orb. Apparently the writing above both artifacts reveal that what we assumed was the Eye is actually labeled “The Warlocks Eye” and the Orb is actually labeled “tuning fork”. While the official Marvel Wiki does note that the Orb is in fact the Orb of Agamotto, it really doesn’t help us in deciphering the origin of the Soul Stone.

The simple solution would be to weave a story around Doctor Strange’s origins in which the Soul Stone is already on Earth and he has to seek it out to become the Sorcerer Supreme. I don’t like this idea for the same reason I don’t agree with CBR’s theory of the Time Stone being involved in Captain America — The Winter Soldier, and thats the convenience of having multiple stones on Earth already, it’s too much of a cop out in terms of story telling. I don’t think Marvel will go this route.

My thinking is that they will do a story similar to the Doctor Strange animated movie Marvel put out a few years ago, but in this case Dormammu’s power emanates from the Soul Stone. They wouldn’t need to change a ton and could go with the general plot of that film already. This not only keeps the stone technically off earth, but it introduces the idea of Multiple Dimensions.

Reality Stone

This is the one that I didn’t really have much of a theory on until recently, and it’s still not very solid. The Reality Stone can be summed up by this paragraph taken from Marvel’s Wiki — “The reality gem allows its user to alter reality to what one wants or break the laws of reality and logic such as making 2 + 2 = 5. Minor uses allow one to resurrect the dead, distort reality around someone so it is incomprehensible, or other things that would normally be impossible.” If you are wondering why that sounds a bit familiar, it’s probably because its very similar to the powers/abilities of the recently announced newest member of the cast of Avengers 2, Scarlet Witch.

Wanda Maximoff aka Scarlet Witch and Pietro Maximoff aka Quicksilver are set to be introduced in Avengers 2 — Age of Ultron. In the comics, they are the children of Mageneto but due to issues with rights to certain characters, Marvel will not be able to reference Mutants or Magneto in their movies. This will leave both of their origins wide open for interpretation and I believe the Reality Stone will play a big part. Scarlet Witch’s abilities have been changed and upgraded over the years but one underlying character always remains, her ability to control/manipulate reality and probability.

Obviously this covers neither how she comes upon the Stone (and why it’s even on earth!) or how Pietro get’s his powers, but I think there is a good chance it’s introduced in some form via Wanda in Avengers 2.

Mind Stone

First and foremost, Loki’s Scepter in The Avengers is NOT the Mind Stone. It was obviously just a staff powered by the Tesseract and nothing more. This is easily proven by Volstagg’s mention of not wanting 2 Infinity Stones near one another, and we are shown Loki and Thor returning to Asgard post Avengers with the Scepter most likely in tow. Based on what we’re told in Thor — TDW we are shown that Odin is more than familiar with the Infinity Stones and he would have surely known the Scepter was one if that was the case. It would also make you wonder why Thanos would give Loki 1 Infinity Stone on the off-chance he could take over earth and then return both the original stone and The Tesseract. It just makes no sense.

Unfortunately, based on what we know to be in development, there really is no good opportunities so far to really introduce the Mind Stone in my opinion. I think they will either have to bring in another Cosmic character such as Nova or Captain/Ms Marvel, or they will have to give us a few scenes showing us that Thanos is already in possession of the Mind Stone. I really don’t have a good theory on this one, but given what we know right now I’d say that Thanos is already in possession of it and it’s the reasoning/motivation for him to collect the rest after witnessing the power of just one.

Update: Another good theory has popped up over @ /r/Marvel from a user named /u/Random_Avenger who theorized that, the Mind Stone could be introduced in Captain America — The Winter Soldier. In the original Brubaker story, Bucky was brainwashed using the cosmic cube to do all kinds of bad things. Writers would simply have to replace the cube with the Mind Stone and they could follow a lot of the same story. This again brings up issues of so many stones being on Earth already, its far too convineant. Regardless, it’s a good theory that could easily bring a cosmic aspect to the next Captain America movie without feeling forced.

That’s all for now, I ended up writing way more than I had planned and hopefully some of you enjoyed it. A lot of this has been formulatted over months of discussion over at /r/MarvelStudios, lots more interesting stuff there. Thanks for stopping by!

For Discussion and Comments head over to this reddit post