Marvel Cinematic Universe spoiler-heavy speculation thread

They could be dummy "place-holder" gems to make the gauntlet look more shelf-attractive. I'd think having the gauntlet sitting there with other "infinity gems" in place would be pretty damn reckless. There being more than one gauntlet makes sense and sort of clears up one of the questions I had as this goes forward (how/when Thanos gets the gauntlet.)

So we know Thanos has the (a) gauntlet but he still needs to acquire all of the gems (the most he has access to is two, the Tesseract from Loki on Asgard and possibly getting the Aether from The Collector on Knowhere) but he still has to get the Orb -secured on Xandar-, the Scepter gem is in Vision's forehead (so how can it be recovered without killing Vision?) and the other two stones not only need to be introduced but he needs to get those too.

 

I kind of question whether this is actually a thing at all. The Tesseract and the Aether are clearly names given to the stones, but the 'Orb' and the 'Sceptre' seem most likely to be just descriptions of the containers, not actual names for the stones themselves.

 

Sort of my thoughts too, though you could argue the Space Gem is inside a tesseract and the Reality gem is in an aether a mythological "element" that supposedly was the medium through which light, and other things, traveled by in space. So, the Tesseract and the Aether are both infinity gems named for the container they're in. The Power and Mind gems just aren't in fancy containers.

Soul Gem will be in a Handbag and the Time Gem in a Nail Box.

 

But as we saw in AoU, the Tesseract was just a construct with the space stone inside and the Aether dissipated revealing the (reality?) gem. So yeah, it seems those are all names of the containers/power harnesses.

IIRC all the gems in the gauntlet seen in Odin's vault were all clear, not coloured, so they're either for display purposes or more likely (since this is a weapons vault) a means to disable the gauntlet and prevent it from ever being used.

To me the more interesting thing is that one exists in Odin's possession at all. From what I've read, in the comics the gauntlet was made by Thanos himself, so this makes it appear as if he made a run at the stones before and someone (likely Bor or Buri) stopped him.

 

Yup, the Power stone is never named but always called "The Orb" because that's all people ever knew of it before.

It's the first one we see denuded of any container and look directly at the stone itself. The Mind stone interestingly when freed from the staff is the same size and shape of cut stone.

The "ingots" in their crude form look to have been distilled down into proper gems by the Eternals. So when the Tesseract is broken open and the Aether condenses around the others(?) we should expect to see similar gems.

I've seen a few remarks on wiki's etc that the Tesseract is the stand in for something called the cosmic cube in the comics. Should we consider the hypercube exterior to be the cosmic cube built around the Space stone so that both technically exist?

 

Well that's exactly what we did see in AoU. It flashes by quite quickly so it's easy to miss exactly what it is you're seeing.

From what I gather the cosmic cube is functionally very different from what we saw the Tesseract do. IIRC it's a container that can warp reality to the user's will. More the kind of thing you would have expected from the reality stone.

Also, there's more than just one of them. So I suppose the Tesseract could have been *a* cosmic cube that just so happened to contain the space stone. It also means another one may crop up at some point.

 

Ah okay, the story of the stones for the movies is essentially it's own thing, that makes it easier.

But in Thor's vision I remember them showing the 4 known stones are their crude ingots from GotG, not shiney stones. Not sure how you get an ore from a collapsed singularity anyway.

As for the green and orange, I'll assume we haven't seen them at all yet. Still think the Soul stone could have something to do with Mjolnir, unless it turns out Bor brought them together in the Gauntlet to create it then distributed them away again.

 

Well they're supposedly from whatever universe preceded ours so our laws of matter energy or even dimensions need not apply. Words like "ores" and "gems" are clearly just analogue terms because that's just what they look like, not what they actually are since we don't have a real frame of reference.

As for the other two, I can't see Mjolnir having anything directly to do with them. It's a big universe as as we saw in Odin's vault and Taneleer Tivan's collection there's plenty of weird and exotic artefacts out there that aren't anything to do with the infinity stones.

It's almost a given that one will show up in Doctor Strange and they may save the last one for the Infinity War proper. That's assuming the first movie will be a race to get to it before Thanos or something along those lines. If not then the most likely candidates are Captain Marvel or Thor 3.

 

They're introducing them at 2 a phase so that's probably how they'll do it. Although with one of them in the Vision, they could just have him coming to collect it last.

 

Nice one Samurai8472.

 

The last one would be the Time gem, and my money is still on Guardians 2 for that.
Wasn't there some rumors that the second part would feature the far future or something like that?
A time ravel story would connect to that quite well.

 

I'm not discounting the possibility, but I'd rather the second Guardians movie not have an infinity stone as the Macguffin twice in a row.

Plus the last we saw of Thor he was determined to figure out what's going on out there, so it's also a strong possibility that Thor 3 might figure into it somehow.

Honestly though, I think it pretty much has to be either Captain Marvel or Infinity War itself.

 

I'd argue the Infinity Gems aren't MacGuffins. MacGuffins are things the characters in a movie or show seek for no other reason than the plot demands it. MacGuffins are often looked over, dismissed or are otherwise ultimately unimportant to what is going on. They're an excuse for things to happen, not strictly a "reason" for it. The best example(s) comes from the later seasons of 24 where the goal of the season (or a segment of the season) was to get hands on some object that could mean potential danger to the country. It didn't strictly matter what it was to the point where in those later seasons the object/goal constantly shifted around, it was just an excuse for the characters to have something to do.

In the Marvel movies so-far all of the movies centered around an Infinity Gem the gem served a plot purpose and posed a real threat that was the focus through the entire movie; and, further, we know it. The Infinity Gems serve an even greater purpose in the overall MCU through the last two Avenger movies.

So while re-using an Infinity Gem in the second GotG movie would certainly be derivative we know there's a greater point behind it other than it just being an excuse to have things happen so it's not a MacGuffin.

 

GOTG 2 is two years away, I suspect we'll know more as teh time draws near but I do believe that somehow Adam Warlock will show up and take a part in the storyline. And I too think the Doctor Strange movie will involve the time gem. However I don't know what to make of the news of two Infinity Gauntlets, I quess that too will be revealed in time.

 

I'm curious who owns the character of Warlock filmwise.

I'm presuming that like Ronan, the Kree, Black Panther, and the Inhumans, despite debuting/appearing in the Fantastic Four comics and often being a large part of their lore (Crystal, for instance, has been a member of the FF a few times), they're not included in Fox's deal, which seems to mainly consist of the FF themselves, Doctor Doom, Mole Man, Galactus and the Silver Surfer, Frankie Raye, Alicia Masters as well as some other characters (Not sure about the Skrulls).


Although the Warlock character seen in those FF issues ("Him"), and what later became of the character, are very different interpetations.

 

My counter argument would be that while yes, the stones are important in a larger sense, taking the individual movies on their own, they're still functionally MacGuffins. Did it matter to Rogers that Tesseract was a cosmic device from beyond time and space? No, it was a thing his enemy acquired to further his power. Cap's interest in it began and ended (in that movie) with getting it out of the Red Skull's hands.

Likewise the Aether was just a reason for Jane to be at all involved in the plot and the Orb one could argue was the quintessential MacGuffin in a heist/caper movie. In short, they only become meaningful in the larger context of the MCU, but then you could just as easily say that even in that context, they're simply components of a larger MacGuffin (the gauntlet) who's only purpose is to put every hero in the MCU on a collision course with Thanos for the Infinity Wars.

To that end, having a second one appear in GotG2 would be redundant. They're already involved in that plot so it makes more sense to the remaining two to instead tie-in at least two of the new Phase 3 heroes. Strange is a no-brainer and Captain Marvel seems the most likely of the remaining possibilities.

 

The Captain Marvel movie comes out after Infinity War part I so it's unlikely her storyline would involve an infinity gem. It's more likely another one would appear in GOTG2 since the earthbound storylines outside of Thor won't be dealing with Thanos and the gauntlet. As of yet nobody knows that it's Thanos who's the puppet master in getting the gems, Thor knows something's going on now but not who's behind it all.