Since 2011, Marvel Studios has been working to set up this summer’s ‘Avengers: Infinity War’. The most visible of the ways they’ve gone about doing this has been to seed the Infinity Stones throughout the Marvel Cinematic Universe. With some notable exceptions, this has largely been dealt with in the ‘Thor’, ‘Avengers’, and ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ films, as those have been the series best equipped to explore the cosmic side of the MCU. You can find a handy guide to the current status of each stone here.
With the release of ‘Infinity War’ fast approaching, some fans came to believe that the Soul stone was located in Wakanda. This was s seemingly based on little other than the fact that we have yet to see that particular stone and (at the time) ‘Black Panther’ was the only pre-‘Infinity War’ film left. Of course, if you’ve seen ‘Black Panther’, you know that didn’t exactly pan out. But the theory persisted thanks to a scene in the ‘Infinity War’ trailer that shows the Avengers squaring off with Thanos’s forces in Wakanda. So they must be protecting something, and what might Thanos want more than the missing Infinity Stone?
Well, we can finally put that particular theory to bed, as co-director Anthony Russo has confirmed to Entertainment Weekly just what it is that the Avengers are defending in that sequence. The fans, it turns out, were half right. The Outriders (Thanos’s foot soldiers) are after an Infinity Stone, but it’s not the Soul stone. Rather, it’s the Mind stone, which brought Vision to life and currently resides in the android’s forehead. As Russo explains:
“Cap makes the decision to bring [Vision] here to Wakanda. Earth is making its last stand to keep the stone from Thanos. It’s the best place to make your last stand.”
“Vision is a living MacGuffin. Obviously, that raises the stakes because Vision’s life is in danger, and his life is in conflict with Thanos’s goals, so something’s got to give.”
Directed by the Russo brothers from a script by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, ‘Avengers: Infinity War’ marks the culmination of a decade-long effort by Marvel Studios, and the Avengers team up with the Guardians of the Galaxy to go head to head with Thanos. The film, which stars Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, Chris Pratt, Tom Holland, Karen Gillan, Paul Rudd, Chadwick Boseman, Benedict Cumberbatch, Elizabeth Olson, Sebastian Stan, and too many others to count, is due to arrive in theaters on April 27, 2018.
