Fanboys Anonymous

For the comic book geeks among us, we all know where the Marvel Cinematic Universe is leading up to: Thanos wreaking havoc with the Infinity Gauntlet in Avengers 3. But just how are they going to get to that point?


First off, let's give this whole scenario a little backstory. Thanos is one of the biggest threats in the Marvel universe and his two primary features in terms of storylines have been an infatuation and obsession with Death as well as wielding the Infinity Gauntlet. The first is a lot more complicated to break down, but all you need to know is that the line at the end of The Avengers where The Other says "to challenge them is to court death", which seemed to please Thanos, makes perfect sense. Whether or not this love story comes into play, we'll have to wait and see.

Translation: Fucked.

On the other hand, it's a lot easier to trace the path ahead of us for the Infinity Gauntlet. This is a glove worn by Thanos (or anyone else) that has six stones or Infinity Gems on it that all have different powers. When combined, they're referred to as the Infinity Gauntlet, allowing the wearer to essentially control everything in the entire universe. They are not omnipotent, but they might as well be. In the comic book storyline, Thanos wiped out nearly all life in the universe before he was stopped and everything reverted back to normal. Life is about to really suck for the Avengers, right?

Our first look at it was in Thor, specifically Odin's trophy room or armory, whatever you may call it, where he stored the Casket of Ancient Winters and other cosmic weaponry.

The Casket of Modern Winters is nowhere near as impressive looking

It's a fleeting background cameo that most people (myself included) missed when originally seeing the film, as it doesn't beat you over the head with the fact that it is there. If you blink, you'll miss it, but here it is in case you didn't see it:


This would make you think that all Thanos has to do is break into the vault and steal this, but the Marvel films have retconned several other things from their continuity, so it's not beyond the realm of possibility for them to ask us to ignore that they threw this little Easter egg in there.

Instead, we're given a true indicator of what road lies before us at the end of Thor: The Dark World, where Benicio Del Toro's character Taneleer Tivan (also known as The Collector) tells us what's going on. The MacGuffin of that particular film is The Aether, a red wispy energy that Malekith tries to use to destroy the universe. Volstagg and Sif give it to The Collector and state that they don't think it is wise to have TWO infinity gems in close proximity to one another. This Aether is apparently the Power Gem of the infinity gauntlet, which houses the ability to control all energy that has or ever will exist as well as essentially "power-up" the other gems.

"One down, five to go" is how The Collector explains his possession of the Aether Power Gem. The other stone referenced here as being in the hands of the Asgardians is the Tesseract or Cosmic Cube, which we all know was the driving force behind Captain America: The First Avenger as well as The Avengers itself. That has been speculated to be the Space Gem, which has powers of reality warping and worm holes amongst other things. Kevin Feige has said that the colors might not necessarily match up, so despite it normally being purple, the blue tint doesn't negate it.


That leaves us with four other gems...possibly. It's up in the air as to whether or not the original speculation is true that the blue stone on Loki's staff in The Avengers is actually the Mind Gem, which grants mental powers. It would appear to be so, considering the events that transpire in the film as well as The Other stating that Thanos gave Loki the scepter. If that is indeed true that the Mind Gem has already been seen in this film, then we are down to three others.

Those three are the Soul Gem (green), Time Gem (orange) and Reality Gem (yellow). How are they going to come into play with the rest of Phase 2 and Phase 3 of the Marvel film franchise?

It's very unlikely that we'll see any involvement of the stones in Captain America: The Winter Soldier as we need that film to tag team with Iron Man 3 to help set up Avengers: Age of Ultron. We probably won't see anything happen in Ant-Man, either, as that's such a huge stretch to take the character. This leaves us with a few films left that can tackle the other three missing stones.

The most obvious of these is Guardians of the Galaxy, a space-based film that will provide a lot of backstory to Thanos and the cosmic playground that we're working with. With references to Peter Quill's character being obsessed with the '80s and the time frame being different from "modern day", it seems clear that the Time Gem will play some part in this film. We could see the use of the time travel powers coming out of this and bringing that cast of characters into our current timeline.

The Soul Gem, which has the ability to influence living or dead souls and acts as a gateway to a pocket universe, is a perfect fit for the rumored Doctor Strange movie that will likely be a part of Phase 3, coinciding with a third Thor movie, a third Captain America, the Ant-Man feature, Avengers 3 and whatever two or three other films Marvel has in store (Inhumans? Black Panther?)

The tricky part is where to fit the last one: the Reality Gem, which grants wishes. My guess is that we'll see that either already obtained by Thanos or he'll capture it at the beginning of Avengers 3 in some kind of throwaway sequence to establish the character quickly. I can't imagine that having any part in Age of Ultron or something like the third Captain America film. If it does have some kind of setup, it will have to be in the third Thor film as a source of power that Loki gets his hands on to prevent Ragnarok or something of the sort.

All in all, this is going to lead up to our big team of superheroes taking on the incredibly overpowered Thanos in Avengers 3, and I'm going to go so far as to predict that Captain America saves the day at the end of that film, proving the Mad Titan wrong. Why? Because he's the heart and soul of the team and not only has he cheated death, but he is the most incorruptible of the bunch and a big enough character to carry that weight. He is the "first Avenger", so he gets that distinction, and not everything can be saved by Tony Stark, who looked like the top guy in the first film and probably will in the second.

Whatever ends up happening to set up the Infinity Gauntlet and watch it unfold, fans of the comics and the movies alike have a lot to look forward to.