Alright, people, let’s dig in to this whole mess.
We’re about a month away from Avengers: Infinity War, a movie the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been building to for almost a decade.
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Other than who’s going to die (cough Loki), the last big mystery going into Infinity War is how Thanos, the mad titan, will get ahold of the Infinity Stones.
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Even if you’ve been sort of half-following the Marvel movies, you probably know what that Thanos wants to complete the Infinity Gauntlet — basically a big magic glove that needs six magic stones to fully power it.
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The first time we see Thanos put on the gauntlet is during a post-credit scene in Avengers: Age Of Ultron.
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Short answer: It’s in Wakanda. We’ll walk through why, but first, let’s rule out another popular theory.
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Obviously, fans are obsessed with the stone’s location. The most prominent theory is the “T.H.A.N.O.S. theory” — that Thanos’ name is actually an acronym for the location of all the stones.
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The “T.H.A.N.O.S. theory” seems to point in the direction of Heimdall from the Thor films being the “H” and having the Soul Stone. Which seems like it makes sense.
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We know Asgardians have been trying to lock up Infinity Stones for millennia. Also, Heimdall has glowing orange eyes, which is the color of the Soul Stone.
And glowing eyes do seem to be a symptom of Infinity Stone possession.
In Thor: The Dark World, Heimdall says he can see all the souls in the nine realms, explaining his omniscience.
Also, during Thor’s vision in Age Of Ultron (that totally wasn’t just an Infinity War trailer), Heimdall is blind.
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Fans have taken this to mean that Thanos will remove the Soul Stone from him and he’ll lose his vision.
But other than that, Heimdall’s powers don’t really line up with the properties of the Soul Stone.
In the comics, the Soul Stone has some very specific properties:
• It’s sentient.
• It can attack someone’s soul.
• It can use an ability called “Cold Light of Truth,” to reveal information about someone’s soul.
• It can trap souls inside of itself in an idyllic pocket dimension.
• Its wielder can access the memories and skills of those imprisoned within the pocket dimension.
• It can also revert beings to their natural state.
(Note: in the comics, the Infinity Stones are called Infinity Gems and they have different colors than they do in the movies.)
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Heimdall (or anyone) secretly being an Infinity Stone doesn’t also really fit the pattern of how the Marvel films introduce Infinity Stones, though. First up was the Space Stone.
We first see the Space Stone in Captain America: The First Avenger. Hydra agents discover the stone in Norway and become obsessed with using its container, the Tesseract, as a really powerful battery. Captain America shows up, flings the Red Skull into space, and then leaves it on the bottom of the ocean.
Howard Stark finds the Tesseract, says probably the worst thing you can possibly say in the Marvel universe, “Seems harmless enough,” and then starts trying to use it to power S.H.I.E.L.D. technology. Loki steals it from S.H.I.E.L.D. in the first Avengers movie, opens a portal to space above New York, a lot of people get hurt, and then finally, it ends up back in Odin’s vault on Asgard.
Except, before Asgard gets destroyed in Thor: Ragnarok, Loki steals it again, and uses it to teleport himself on to the Asgardian refugee ship.
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The next stone introduced was the Mind Stone.
The Mind Stone is kept in a Chitauri scepter, which Thanos gives to Loki after Loki’s kicked out of Asgard. After the Battle Of New York, the scepter is scooped up by S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, ends up with HYDRA scientists in Sokovia, and is used to give superpowers to Wanda and Pietro Maximoff, as seen in Age of Ultron.
Then, finally, the scepter is destroyed and the Mind Stone inside of it gets put in the Vision, where it’s been ever since.
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Then there’s the really weird sorta-stone, The Aether.
The Aether is the super weird one. It’s the Reality Stone and it’s typically presented as floaty red liquid. In fact, until Thor has his magic bath time in Age Of Ultron, The Aether is never presented as a stone.
Jane Foster finds The Aether in London in Thor: The Dark World during the Second Dark Elf Conflict. She accidentally frees it from its container, the Aether Chamber. A bunch of South London gets destroyed, Thor briefly rides the tube, the Dark Elves are defeated, and then the Asgardians manage to contain the Reality Stone and get it to The Collector, who’s had it ever since.
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The Infinity Stone we know the most about is the Power Stone.
We first see The Orb when Star-Lord steals it at the beginning of Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 1. Then Ronan The Accuser, at first working for Thanos, gets ahold of it, frees the Power Stone from The Orb, puts it in his hammer, and plans to destroy Xandar with it. Star-Lord and the Guardians stop him, get the Stone back into The Orb, and give it back to the Nova Corps, who have it locked in a vault on Xandar.
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And finally, we’ve got the Time Stone.
The Time Stone was locked inside The Eye Of Agamotto by the first Sorcerer Supreme, as seen in Doctor Strange. Doctor Strange returns The Eye back to Kamar-Taj after his battle with Domammu, believing he wasn’t ready to fully control it.
Although! Strange is wearing The Eye when he meets Thor in Thor: Ragnarok, which seems to imply he’s figured out how to properly use it now.
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Infinity Stones are usually introduced first by their containers. They also appear to have the ability to affect their environments. Like the weird glitchy carpark in Thor: The Dark World.
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Or like when the Scepter starts to infect everyone’s minds when they’re onboard the Helicarrier in The Avengers.
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Heading into Infinity War, we’ve got a stone with the Asgardians, another in Vision’s head, one with The Collector, one on Xandar, and one in Manhattan.
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In the Infinity War trailer, Thanos is only shown with the Power Stone and the Space Stone. RIP Xandar and the Asgardians, I guess.
Guys, seriously, Loki is so dead in this movie.
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And it looks like the Black Order, Thanos’ goon squad, will strip Vision of his Mind Stone.
This shot also gets in the way of the Heimdall as the Soul Stone theory. Having two Infinity Stones pulled out of people in one movie would be a bit much.
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We also know from the Infinity War trailer that Thanos goes to Wakanda.
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When Thanos is shown fighting Cap, the same two stones are in his gauntlet. It’s safe to assume there’s a reason Thanos goes to Wakanda. Like, you know, to get an Infinity Stone.
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Alright, cool, how are you doing? Everyone still with me here? All of this brings us to Black Panther.
Now, Black Panther does have some characters who have appeared in previous MCU movies, like Martin Freeman’s CIA agent, Everett Ross, and Andy Serkis’ Ulysses Klaue. Also, T’Challa was a huge part of Captain America: Civil War. But it may be following a pattern that has emerged in the second and third phases of the MCU.
If a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent or an Avenger doesn’t show up in the movie, an Infinity Stone usually does.
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And so far there has only been one thing in the MCU that comes close to matching the description in the comics of the Soul Stone: vibranium.
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It would make complete sense that the Soul Stone’s container was the vibranium that crashed in Wakanda.
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The vibranium meteorite being the Soul Stone’s container would also explain the mutated flowers in Wakanda that are used during the heart-shaped herb ceremony.
The heart-shaped herb checks off a bunch of properties the Soul Stone has in the comics:
• It can trap souls inside of itself in an idyllic pocket dimension, like the Lion King dimension T’Challa goes to during the herb ceremony.
• Its wielder can access the memories and skills of those imprisoned within the pocket dimension, like T’Challa’s conversation with his dead father.
• It can also revert beings to their natural state, like removing T’Chall’s powers.
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In this scene, T’Challa has literally been stripped of all of his powers, inside of a pocket dimension, accessing the memories of his dead father.
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Also, in this scene, T’Challa comes across Bast, the Wakanda panther god.
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One of the major themes of the MCU is that ancient religions were based on alien races. It would actually make less sense if Bast turned out to be a real deity and not an alien life form.
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(That and Loki is totally not surviving Infinity War.)
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