Thanos, the Infinity Stones & the Gauntlet

This year's Blog Marathon by Blog-A-Rhythm -  #Barathon - is themed around 'Seven' so I figured I would make lists of seven for the next seven posts. And for the first post, I decided to go back to what I do best: geek trivia.

Today's class? The Six Infinity Stones and the Gauntlet that will be extremely important next year when you go to watch the culmination (yes, culmination!) of a decade of Marvel movies.

Since 2008, whether you wanted to or not, you have been sucked into the world of Marvel Cinema with its buffet of heroes, beginning a decade ago with a very cocky billionaire Tony Stark being held hostage in a cave by terrorists and presently going far across the galaxy alongside a talking raccoon and a walking tree.

Yes, we've seen it all, haven't we?

 And yet, even now, if I ask you about Thanos and the Infinity Stones, some of you may scratch your head and go, "huh?"

It is not your fault. Marvel has been sly in their ways, slowly dispersing bits and pieces of the puzzle starting from way back in Captain America as the Red Skull searched for the Tesseract to the present day where Dr Strange used the Eye of Agamoto (no relation to the Ajinimoto of the roadside momo) to really screw around with the villain in his movie. We have even seen that big purple guy Thanos in the background of many movies now (Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxy, Avengers 2) as he tries to collect these 6 stones.

Why does he want them?

Well, here is where the 'comic book creativity' comes in. Thanos is fascinated with nihilism and death and falls in love with the physical version, Mistress Death. In the comics, Thanos gets all 6 stones and places them in that big glove we saw him retrieve at the end of Avengers 2. It is called the Infinity Gauntlet and with the power of all the stones combined, he becomes strong enough to wipe away half the population of the universe, all just to impress Mistress Death, hoping she will fall for him.

Ah, young love.

(Update: Based on the second Avengers: Infinity Wars trailer that landed in March 2018, in the movies, it appears that Thanos is bent on his own twisted scheme of population control across the universe, looking to half the population of all species - something which again Thanos did successfully do in the comic books with a literal snap of his finger, once he had all the stones which makes Gamora's words at the start of the trailer all the more ominous.)

What is the big deal about those stones?

Well, each stone has a specific power. And whether you realized it or not, they have actually been shown to you over the course of these movies.

1. The Tesseract - The Space Stone (Captain America: The First Avenger & The Avengers) - Opened portals across different points in space, allowing the Chitauri army to attack in the Avengers movie.
2. The Aether - The Reality Stone (Thor: The Dark World) - gives the wielder the ability to control dark matter and manipulate reality. 
3. The Orb - The Power Stone (Guardians of the Galaxy) - Could decimate an entire planet just with a touch. 
4. The Scepter - The Mind Stone (Avengers, Age of Ultron) - Used by Loki to control the minds of Hawkeye and Dr Selvig. The gem presently rests on the head of the android, Vision.
5. The Eye of Agamoto - The Time Stone (Doctor Strange) - Used by Doctor Strange to manipulate time.
6. The Soul Stone (Not shown yet) - Most likely to now feature in Thor: Ragnarok later this year.

Weirdly enough, the letters to the objects that hold the stones spell out 'Thanos'

That is some subtle creativity there by the screenplay writers.

Why is this relevant?

The next Avengers movie releases in 2018 and is titled Avengers: Infinity Wars. The general arc is likely to be around Thanos this time as he gets the stones and fulfills his comic book destiny.

This movie (and the immediate sequel in 2019) supposedly ends Phase Three, completing the huge story line that began in 2008 with 'Iron Man' and starting a new story arc after that.
So this could be the last time we get to see Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr), Captain America (the Chris Evans version at least), Thor (Chris Hemsworth) and a few others of the first batch of Avengers on the big screen!

Sigh. I am gonna miss them. Damn these big orange purple-headed leaders and their destructive antics, eh?

You can find other posts of Day 1 of the #Barathon here.

My posts in this challenge have been:
1. Thanos & the Infinity Stones (Marvel Movie Trivia)
2. 14 Movies Better than the Book
3. 14 Dishes of Malabar Cuisine
4. Top Disney Songs Over the Last Three Decades
5. Top 28 Suspense Movies That Will Keep You Guessing Till the End
6. Which Movies Do You Enjoy Watching Over and Over?
7. Seven acts of Kindness from around the World