For the majority of the Marvel moives the glue that has tied them all together has been SHEILD. With the events of “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” that is no longer the case. Marvel has made a subtle shift to using the Infinity Stones instead. Unless you are an avid reader of comics you probably don’t know what the Infinity Stones are or what they can do.
It wasn’t until the latest Marvel movie “Guardians of The Galaxy” that they were really talked even about in depth. So with that in mind here is what you need to know about them.
There are six stones all together and each one has enormous power. Each stone or gem as they are called in the comics has it’s own name and power. They are:
- Soul Gem: Can be used to attack or steal someone’s soul or spirit.
- Power Gem: Increased strength and enhances any know superhuman ability.
- Reality Gem: Alters all of reality.
- Time Gem: Time manipulation including slowing down and speeding up time and aging. It also lets you see into the past and future.
- Mind Gem: Almost limitless psychic abilities
- Space Gem: Travel through space usually by teleportation.
The gems themselves are remnants of one of the earliest beings from the time of the universe’s creation. It was feeling lonely and split itself into six different fragments. Thanos, who we actually get to see in “Guardians of The Galaxy” gathers all the gems and puts them into the Infinity Gauntlet, which you can see in Odin’s vault in Thor, giving Thanos supreme control.
The “Infinity Gauntlet” in the background as the frost giants get melted by “The Destroyer.”
So far in the movies we have seen three confirmed stones though some fans of both the movies and comics argue it’s four (more on that in a second.) The stones we have seen and the movies they are in and where they are now are as follows:
The Tesseract–Space Stone-“Captain America: The First Avenger”, “Thor” and “The Avengers” it is used to open portals from one world to another. It was used to take Loki and Thor back to Asgard.
Aether-Reality Stone-“Thor: The Dark World” it is used to try and change the reality across the nine realms by Malekith. Was given to The Collector by Sif and Volstagg who say it wouldn’t be too smart to keep two Infinty Stones in one place. After they leave The Collector says “One down, five to go.”
The Orb (the purple stone inside it)-Power Stone-“Guardians of the Galaxy” used by “Ronan the Accuser” in an attempt to destroy the planet Xandar. Once the stone is recovered Nova Prime locks it in a secure vault on the planet Xander.
Fans of the comics and movies feel that the blue stone in Loki’s staff is the Mind Stone. This theory makes sense seeing as how with only a touch he is able to take control of someone. However others argue that Thanos wants all six stones and would never give one of them to someone else to use. The staff is seen at the end of “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” in the hands of HYDRA more specially Baron Strucker.
I am one of those fans who think that it is an Infinity Stone and Thanos simply underestimated what humans could do. He never thought that Loki would lose his battle and in turn also lose the stone.
What all of this hopefully means is that Thanos will eventually get all of the Infinity Stones and try and destroy the universe. He’s not called “The Mad Titan” for nothing. There’s a hint at the end of “The Avengers” when one of Thanos’ lackeys speaks of Earth. He says to attack again “would be to court death.” This gets comic geeks like me excited because Thanos actually tries to win Death’s love by destroying life in half the universe.
There are at least two more stones to be revealed before the big show down. I hope we see one in “Age of Ultron” maybe it’s his power source or a weapon he uses to fight the Avengers. How and when they will be revealed, I don’t know but one thing for sure is that Marvel is gaining steam with each new movie and when we do eventually get to that epic show down in “Avengers 3” it will be glorious.
The next Marvel Cinematic installment comes to us is “Avengers: Age of Ultron” and it comes May 1, 2015.