The final trailer for Avengers: Infinity War was released recently and I couldn’t help but shout like a madman. I bet you did too.
We get to see Thanos taking the matter into in his own hands (or hand) after seeing his subordinates fail continuously. His thirst to reach World domination has forced all the mighty heroes to combine and fight against the Mad Titan.
Infinity Wars has generated massive hype and understandably so, as Marvel has worked really hard to build towards this climax. 10 years of hard work, the intertwining of movie storylines, crossovers, and several post-credit scenes have finally led us to “The Final Chapter”.
After watching the trailer for the 1000th time I decided to read more on the infinity stones and the origins of each.
So, here is an easy guide to the core of this movie – the infinity stones!
What are Infinity Stones?
The soul gems, as they were known in the comics first appeared in the 1972 issue of Marvel Premiere 1#. The stones predate creation itself and are six in number.
At the time when the universe was created, some powerful singularities got concentrated into these ingots or stones.
All six stones have unique powers and have been used by civilizations knowingly or unknowingly time and again over the millennia.
Let us take a look at the stones, their powers and how they would help Thanos become the most powerful being in the universe.
The Space stone
Let’s start with the most familiar stone.
We saw it first in Captain America when Red Skull was going all red (pun intended) in search of Tesseract. The cube resurfaced in Avengers and showed us more of its power. The stone opened the portal from where Loki invited the alien party who were beaten fair and square by the Avengers.
This implies that the stone can open a portal in space and time, if and when required. This stone would effectively allow Thanos to teleport anywhere on earth at a moment’s notice and have the ability to conjure an army or backup at any time and place!
The Reality Stone
This stone first appeared in Thor: The Dark World but not in its concentrated form. We saw it as the fluid which was named aether. This movie showed us the sentient nature of the stone as it chose Jane Foster as its host. And as the Dark Elf Malekith told us, the reality stone could change all matter into dark matter. It is unclear to us since neither Jane nor Malekith could use this stone to its full potential. The stone has the power to alter reality- which means Thanos can easily create a world full of illusions at his own will.
Power Stone
This stone made its debut in the Guardians of the Galaxy. The power stone is nothing but raw power stored in a stone. Therefore, it can’t be wielded by everyone. It can destroy anything – the bigger the object calls for a greater destruction. It gives the wielder greater physical strength as we saw in the case of Ronan. The trailer shows that Thanos already has the power stone on his infinity gauntlet. Thus, we can easily assume that he has already taken it from Xandar. The already powerful and mad titan will become even more powerful with the power stone on his hand. He would use this power to nullify any kind of attack from the Avengers ( even Hulk for that matter).
The Mind Stone
Situated conveniently on Vision’s forehead, the Mind Stone is one of the most powerful infinity stones. The most basic function of this stone is to control minds. It gives Vision his consciousness, it gave the Scarlett Witch her power and Ultron used it to destroy Earth. It turned Hulk crazy enough to destroy a city! The Mind Stone can be used to manipule people, capture emotions and channel them into power. Furthermore, the stone allows access to one’s dreams, fears, fantasies and you can bet that Thanos will use this tactical advantage to one-up our heroes.
The Time Stone
Located at Kamar Taj, the Time stone was introduced in Dr Strange where he did some strange things (pun intended, again) to defeat Dormammu. Called the Eye of Agamotto, Dr Strange used its power to freeze and reverse time. Its working is fairly easy to understand since the stone played a major plot device in the movie itself.
Strange used it to create an infinite loop to make Dormammu realize the value of time. However, it remains to be seen how Thanos will use it and whether he will wield it better than Stephen Strange.
The Soul Stone
This is the least known Stone till now. We haven’t been introduced to the soul stone yet and as we can see from the trailers, it’s orange and it’ll make its appearance in Infinity War. Lots of theories have surfaced on the internet regarding the location of the Soul Stone. Some of the believable theories suggest that it’s either Heimdal’s soul itself or it’s in Wakanda. Some even suggest that the Heart shaped herb which gives Black Panther his powers can be possibly powered by the soul stone itself. The Soul Stone gives the wielder the essential power over death – the wielder can capture and torture souls and allows the wielder to bring fallen souls to life. This mastery of death would allow Thanos to resurrect countless numbers from his fallen army.
We can’t wait for Infinity Wars to see how the earth’s heroes stand up to an all-powerful God bent on destruction. Can you?!