At the end of Avengers: Age of Ultron, there was a post-credit sequence that showed the villain Thanos, who has already appeared briefly in the first Avengers film as well as Guardians of the Galaxy. He had this weird glove and said that he was "going to do the job himself". What is this job, and how will it affect the Marvel Cinematic Universe? The answer is in a big, big way, and this is what is known about The Avengers: Infinity War Parts 1 and 2 with its release date.
So what is this glove that Thanos was wielding? This is used to hold the Infinity Stones, these six incredible objects are the most powerful in the universe, and gathering all together will make the bearer god-like.
These objects have been revealed already as follows according to ScreenRant:
- The Tesseract that this controls space. It was first seen in Captain America: The First Avenger, and it made an appearance in The Avengers, and was seized by Nick Fury to be taken to parts unknown.
- Loki's Chitauri Scepter is the Mind Stone. It certain did a great job at controlling minds in the first Avengers movies, and then dissembled to be used on Vision's head in the second Avengers movie.
- The Infinity Stone that controls Reality is the Aether. This was introduced in Thor: The Dark World, and wielded by Malekith.
- The one that controls power is the Orb. This is the purple sphere that was revealed in Guardians of the Galaxy.
This means that there are two more Infinity Stones to be revealed. They could be unveiled with Doctor Strange, Thor Ragnarok, or Guardians of the Galaxy 2, and it appears the color scheme in the comics is different than the ones in the films. The film has revealed a gauntlet made for them in the first Thor movie, and who knows when the yellow, orange, or green stones will be revealed.
The next Avengers, Infinity War, is scheduled for release on May 4, 2018. In case you thought that Captain America: Civil War was complex with its numbers of characters, it is about to get way bigger.
Not only are all the Avengers, both old and new, are going to be involved, but the Guardians of the Galaxy are slated to be involved as well. Mix that in with Spider-Man and perhaps Doctor Strange, and you have the first theatrical version of an event comic, one that has a great number of well-developed characters with an epic storyline.
How big is this story? Honestly, I think this is the only sequel that will merit two movies to tell its tale. The second part, or untitled Avengers movie, is slated for theatrical release on May 3, 2019. That gives a space of a year between films, and audiences will probably be on the edge of their seat wondering what is next.
Personally, I don't see how superhero movies could get any bigger than that, and perhaps they shouldn't. You realize that at some point, audiences are going to be sick of this genre, and perhaps this is where it will peak.
