Infinity Stones

In 2014, the Collector explains that the Infinity Stones are the remnants of six singularities that existed before the Big Bang, which were compressed into Stones by cosmic entities after the universe began and which were dispersed throughout the cosmos.[3][4] Four years later, it is further explained by Wong and Stephen Strange that each Infinity Stone embodies and controls an essential aspect of existence.[5]

In 1942, the Red Skull steals the Tesseract, which contains the Space Stone, from a church and uses it to power Hydra's weaponry during World War II. During Steve Rogers's final fight against Red Skull,[6] the Tesseract transports the latter to the planet Vormir.[5] Afterwards, the Tesseract falls into the Arctic Ocean, where it is later recovered by Howard Stark and taken to a secret base.[6]

Dr. Wendy Lawson unsuccessfuly tries to use the Tesseract in 1989 to unlock light-speed travel in order to help the Skrulls find a new home. However, her experiments result in Carol Danvers being granted superhuman strength, flight, and the ability to generate energy blasts. Danvers eventually recovers the Tesseract and hands the object over to S.H.I.E.L.D., but it is temporarily swallowed by a Flerken named Goose, who later vomits it out on Nick Fury's desk.[7]

In 2012, Fury shows the Tesseract to Dr. Erik Selvig, when the Tesseract suddenly opens a portal allowing for Loki to come through.[8][9] Loki steals the Tesseract and later opens a wormhole, using it to transport the Chitauri army to New York City in an attempt to conquer Earth. After the Avengers repel the invasion, Thor returns the Tesseract to Asgard for safekeeping in Odin's vault, and it is used to repair the Bifrost.[9][10] Years later, the Asgardian prophecy of its destruction by the fire demon Surtur comes true. Loki takes the Tesseract from the vault before escaping.[11][12]

The Stone is originally housed in a scepter given to Loki by Thanos and the Other to help locate the Tesseract and conquer Earth with its ability to control people's minds and project energy blasts.[9][13] After Loki's defeat, it falls into the hands of Hydra leader Baron Wolfgang von Strucker, who uses it to experiment on people, including siblings Pietro and Wanda Maximoff, who are the only surviving subjects of Strucker's experiments.[14][15] Von Strucker's experiments cause Pietro to gain superhuman abilities and amplify Wanda's powers.[15][16] Strucker's base is attacked by the Avengers, who take back the scepter. The Avengers discover that it contains the Mind Stone, which itself contains an artificial intelligence that grants sentience to the computer program Ultron, who steals the scepter and removes the Stone to create a newly upgraded body. The Avengers steal the Mind Stone–infused body from Ultron and upload the A.I. J.A.R.V.I.S. into it, giving birth to the android Vision.[10][13][15]

Eons ago, Malekith attempts to use the Reality Stone, appearing in its fluid-like weapon state called the Aether, to destroy the Nine Realms. His plan was to return the universe to its pre-Big Bang state, only to be thwarted by Bor, who had it hidden. In 2013, Jane Foster becomes infected by the Aether after coming across its resting place, though Malekith later draws it out of her. After Malekith is defeated by Thor, Sif and Volstagg, they seal the Aether in a lantern-like container and entrust it to the Collector in order to keep it separate from the Tesseract, as the three of them consider it unwise to have multiple Infinity Stones close to each other.[10][17][18][19] The Aether, once bonded to a host, can turn anything into dark matter as well as suck the life force out of humans and other mortals. The Aether can also disrupt the laws of physics and repel threats if it senses any.[1][17]

Housed in the Orb hidden on the planet Morag, the Power Stone is capable of increasing the user's strength and destroy entire civilizations with a single blast. However, the Stone is too much for most mortal beings to physically handle because its power will destroy them on contact.[20][21] In 2014, Ronan the Accuser seeks the Orb for Thanos, but Peter Quill finds and steals the Orb from Morag's resting spot before Korath can. Ronan eventually steals it from the Guardians. After learning about the Power Stone, however, Ronan betrays Thanos and tries to use its destructive power to destroy the planet Xandar. During the battle to protect Xandar, by sharing the burden of the Power Stone's energy, the Guardians are able to use it to kill Ronan. It is later revealed that Peter Quill's half-Celestial physiology was what allows him to withstand the Stone's power on his own for a brief time before the other Guardians joined with him. They seal the Power Stone in a new Orb and entrust it to the Nova Corps for safekeeping.[3][10]

In 2016, Dr. Stephen Strange finds the Eye of Agamotto, which houses the Time Stone, and learns how to use it to save the Earth from Dormammu by trapping him in a time loop until the demon abandons his plans for Earth. Strange returns the Eye of Agamotto to the Masters of the Mystic Arts' secret compound Kamar-Taj in Kathmandu, Nepal, but soon begins wearing it again.[11][22][23]

An object that has the ability to manipulate the soul and essence of a person,[2] control life and death, and contains a pocket dimension called the Soul World.[24] At some time in the past, Thanos tasks Gamora to find the Soul Stone, as there is little record of its existence compared to the other Infinity Stones. Gamora finds a map leading to where it was hidden: in a shrine on the planet Vormir, but chooses to destroy the map and not tell Thanos, only telling Nebula of it and swearing her to secrecy.[5]

Thanos begins his quest to collect all six Stones by decimating Xandar to obtain the Power Stone. He then tracks down the Space Stone and intercepts the Asgardian ship on its way to Earth after the destruction of Asgard.[11][25] Thanos kills half of the occupants and threatens to kill Thor as well, but Loki gives up the Tesseract in order to save his brother's life. Thanos proceeds to crush the Tesseract to acquire the Space Stone. He tells his children to acquire the two Stones on Earth. He then uses the Power Stone to destroy the ship as he teleports his children and himself away with the Space Stone.[5]

Thanos' four children split up, with two looking to collect the Time Stone from Strange and the other two going after Vision for the Mind Stone. In New York, Ebony Maw and Cull Obsidian attempt to steal the Time Stone from Strange, but are foiled by Stark, Parker, and Wong. Strange is teleported up to Maw's ship with Stark and Parker sneaking on board. In Edinburgh, Vision is injured by Proxima Midnight and Corvus Glaive in their attempts to get the Stone from his head. After the pair are defeated, Vision is taken to Wakanda to have the Stone removed by Shuri, in the hope that Vision would be able to live without it.[5]

While his children are on Earth, Thanos acquires the Aether from the Collector on Knowhere and turns it back into the Reality Stone, allowing for him to repel the Guardians of the Galaxy's attacks by turning Drax to rocks, Mantis into ribbon strips, and causing Peter Quill's gun to shoot bubbles. Thanos then teleports Gamora and himself back to his ship, where he is keeping a captured Nebula. He uses the Power Stone to torture her in front of Gamora, forcing Gamora to agree to take him to Vormir to find the Soul Stone. On Vormir, they encounter the Stone keeper, Red Skull. Thanos reluctantly sacrifices Gamora in order to fulfill the requirements to obtain the Soul Stone once the Red Skull explains to them that the Stone requires the sacrifice of a loved one to earn it.[26][27]

Maw gets sucked out of an airlock and his ship takes Stark, Strange, and Parker to Titan, Thanos' home planet, where they run into Quill, Drax, and Mantis. Before Thanos arrives, Strange uses the Time Stone to look into future timelines and viewing millions of possible outcomes of their conflict, learning of only one future in which they win. Thanos arrives expecting Maw, and fights the Avengers and Guardians using the Stones. He defeats them all, leading Strange to surrender the Time Stone in order to prevent Thanos from killing Stark to ensure the winning future comes to pass.[5]

A surge of energy goes through Thanos' body after he adds the Mind Stone into the Infinity Gauntlet, which is the final Stone he needed before the Blip.

Thanos' remaining children arrive in Wakanda where Shuri is unable to complete the removal of the Mind Stone from Vision's head before she is attacked by Glaive. Thanos arrives looking to get the Stone himself, using some of the Stones against the Avengers and Wakandans trying to fight him off. As a result of the Stone still being in Vision's head, Wanda is forced to destroy Vision and the Stone to try to prevent Thanos from getting it, only for Thanos to use the Time Stone to repair them both and collect the latter. Thanos uses all of the Stones to initiate the Blip, where he is briefly transported into the Soul World and encounters a vision of a young Gamora.[28] He then teleports away with the Space Stone to the Garden. Thanos uses the Stones to destroy them to prevent further use in the future.[5][29][30]

After Scott Lang is freed from the Quantum Realm five years after the Blip,[31] he goes to the Avengers Compound and brings up the idea of a time heist using the Quantum Realm to collect each Stone from different points in time. The surviving Avengers split up into teams to each focus on one Stone.[29]

Rogers, Stark, Lang, and Banner travel to an alternate 2012, where the Space, Mind, and Time Stones are all located. Stark and Lang attempt to steal the alternate 2012 Tesseract, but the 2012 Hulk accidentally knocks Stark down and the 2012 Tesseract is taken by the 2012 Loki, who uses it to open a wormhole and escape. Rogers retrieves the scepter containing the Mind Stone, using it to render his alternate 2012 self unconscious after he mistook him for a disguised Loki. Banner speaks with the Ancient One to relinquish that timeline's Time Stone, promising to return it after they are done using it to ensure that the alternate timelines will survive. After failing to retrieve the 2012 Space Stone, Stark and Rogers travel to an alternate 1970 and take the Tesseract from Camp Lehigh, New Jersey.[29]

Thor and Rocket travel back to Asgard in an alternate 2013 to extract the Aether from Jane Foster. James Rhodes and Nebula travel back to Morag in an alternate 2014, subduing the alternate 2014 Peter Quill before taking the 2014 Power Stone in its Orb. Romanoff and Clint Barton travel to Vormir in an alternate 2014, where each attempts to sacrifice themselves to allow the other to return with the Stone, ultimately ending with Romanoff sacrificing herself.[29]

All of the Stones are brought back to the present day where Stark creates a Nano Gauntlet to house the Stones, which Banner uses to undo the Blip. An alternate 2014 Thanos brings his army to the future, destroying the compound, but is ultimately defeated when Stark sacrifices himself to disintegrate Thanos and his army with the Stones in the Nano Gauntlet. After Stark's funeral, Rogers returns all of the past Stones to the points in time that they were collected from.[29]

Three weeks after Thanos' snap is undone, a still grieving Wanda Maximoff uses her connection with the Mind Stone to reanimate a fake Vision. Later on, Agatha Harkness shows Maximoff various points in her past, including the moment of Hydra's experimentation with the Stone on her. Maximoff learns that the exposure to the Stone tapped into her innate magic and made her inordinately more powerful, as well as giving her a prophetic vision of her Scarlet Witch persona.[16][32]

Other versions of the Stones are depicted in the alternate realities of the MCU multiverse.

An alternate 2012 Loki, who escaped during the Avengers attempt to collect all the Infinity Stones to undo Thanos' actions[29] has the alternate 2012 Tesseract confiscated by the Time Variance Authority (TVA). Later, Loki tries to retrieve the Tesseract only to find that it is powerless in the TVA's dimension, along with all the other Stones, in which the TVA has captured dozens of each from other timelines.[33][34]

Ultron in What If...? stores the Stones in his armor as opposed to using the Infinity Gauntlet.

In an alternate version of World War II, Howard Stark uses the confiscated Tesseract as the power source for the Hydra Stomper.[35] In another universe, T'Challa, rather than Peter Quill, finds the Power Stone on Morag.[36] In an alternate version of 2016, Stephen Strange attempts to use the Time Stone to prevent the death of Christine Palmer, only to find her death is an absolute point in his universe, meaning no matter what he does, she's destined to die, despite his countless attempts to avert the scenario. It becomes the only Stone left in existence in his universe due to his subsequent actions.[37]

As one universe suffers from a quantum zombie outbreak, Vision discovers that his Mind Stone can be used to cure the infected. However, it is unable to cure the infected Maximoff, due to her powers coming from the Stone, prompting Vision to initially try and feed other survivors to Maximoff to keep her calm until he can properly cure her.[38] When other heroes find him, Vision accepts that his actions are wrong and he gives the Stone to the surviving heroes to take to Wakanda, sacrificing himself out of guilt. However, a zombified Thanos arrives in Wakanda, possessing the other five Infinity Stones in his Gauntlet.[39]

In another scenario, Thanos once again arrives on Earth with five Stones, only to discover that the Avengers lost to Ultron, who is in possession of Vision's vibranium body and the Mind Stone. Ultron kills Thanos and takes the Stones for himself, using them to conquer and destroy his universe. When this task is complete, Ultron attains a higher level of consciousness and uses the Stones to travel into other dimensions and duel the Watcher.[40] To stop Infinity Ultron expanding into other universes, the Watcher assembles the Guardians of the Multiverse, a team of heroes from various alternate realities, including Strange Supreme, and gifts them a weapon to destroy the Stones called the Infinity Crusher. When the Crusher fails due to it being designed to only work for the Stones in its respective universe, the heroes kill Ultron by uploading Arnim Zola's analog consciousness into his body. The Stones are nearly taken by Killmonger, but he is stopped by Zola, who tries to take the Stones for himself. Strange Supreme and the Watcher imprison them along with the Stones in a pocket dimension, frozen outside of time so that neither they nor the Stones from Ultron's universe can be a threat anymore.[41]