The Avengers are believed to be on a time travel mission in Avengers: Endgame, but it may be to create their own Infinity Stones instead of stealing them. The six singularities known as Infinity Stones in the Marvel Cinematic Universe have been at the center of the story since nearly the beginning. Although the Tesseract and Loki’s staff were not created to be them, they are two of many objects that would later be revealed to be among the most powerful artifacts in the universe.
After waiting patiently to acquire them, Thanos (Josh Brolin) finally set out to gather the stones himself in Avengers: Infinity War. Once he successfully found them all and wielded their power through the Infinity Gauntlet, he snapped his fingers and wiped out half of the universe’s population. Infinity War only briefly showed the world crumbling as a result of the chaos, but the marketing for Endgame has truly shown what a post-snap MCU looks like. In doing so, it also became even more clear that the remaining heroes will try to figure out how they can put reality back together and bring back those they lost.
Marvel has done a great job of officially keeping Endgame’s plot under wraps, which has led to several theories on what exactly the plan will be. Even though the details of these theories can vary greatly, there are two key recurring aspects to some of the most popular: time travel through the Quantum Realm and the Avengers needing the Infinity Stones for themselves. But, what if the latter isn’t correct and the Avengers have different plans with the Infinity Stones?
- This Page: Time Travel Could Make The MCU More Confusing Page 2: The Avengers Are Duplicating (Not Stealing) Infinity Stones
The Avengers Are Time Traveling To Undo The Snap
There has yet to be any direct confirmation that Avengers: Endgame will involve time travel, but there’s more than enough evidence at this point to support it. Some of the earliest set photos for the film showed an older version of Tony Stark back at the Battle of New York with Ant-Man and others. These photos were the first piece of information to spark time travel theories for the film, and they only increased in popularity after Ant-Man and the Wasp’s mid-credits scene mentioned time vortexes. With this scene also leaving Ant-Man stuck in the Quantum Realm, him appearing in “archive” footage in the first Endgame trailer resulted in the time travel theories gaining more credibility.
If time travel is central to Endgame though, the purpose of it is then called into question. There’s still a divide on what exactly the Avengers’ plan will be, but their goal is pretty clear. They have all lost someone to the snap and will look to avenge these losses by stopping the snap from ever happening or undoing it. One of prevailing theories is that the Avengers will somehow travel through time and steal the Infinity Stones before Thanos has a chance to acquire them, but how can they do that without completely screwing up the timeline?
Time Travel Could Be Bad For The MCU Timeline
Time travel is one of the most difficult concepts to pull off in movies, as any small change to reality could alter the space time continuum. With that in mind, the idea of the Avengers plucking even a single Infinity Stone out of the past would completely change the course of history, let alone if they did so for all six. The MCU timeline already has its fair share of inconsistencies, so rewriting it further would be a confusing turn of events and may even negate what happened in past films.
However, even beyond whether or not time travel can make sense in Endgame, the MCU has already established how dangerous it is to mess with time. In Doctor Strange, Baron Mordo warns, “Temporal manipulations can create branches in time, unstable dimensional openings, spacial paradoxes, time loops.” While this warning could even potentially be connected to Thanos’ own actions in messing with reality having unforeseen consequences, Mordo also tells Strange that these actions could even result in someone never existing. Strange may not be around to explain this to the Avengers right now, but Tony Stark and Bruce Banner should be able to understand the risks of simply stealing Infinity Stones from the past. That’s why we think they may be up to something else.
Page 2: The Avengers Are Duplicating (Not Stealing) Infinity Stones
Theory: The Avengers Are Making New Infinity Stones
The crux of the Endgame theories that the Avengers will steal the Infinity Stones come from the time travel elements of the plot and their incredible power being one of the only solutions to stopping Thanos in some fashion. But, the dangers of messing with the timeline should be too much for the Avengers to consider, even if they are desperate at this stage. This is why the Avengers have to have a different plan, and it may be that the Avengers are traveling to the past to covertly analyze the Infinity Stones at the right moment so that they can make their own versions of them. Since we know the Avengers are traveling to the Battle of New York, this is a perfect example of why this theory makes sense. Even though this event has two Infinity Stones present that the Avengers could get their hands on, Tony Stark already studied the Mind Stone in Avengers: Age of Ultron. He likely still has this data on file, so this may just be a mission for the Space Stone. Set photos showed Tony in full tactical S.H.I.E.L.D. gear, and we believe this is done so he can secretly be there and analyze the Space Stone.
If this theory is correct and this is the Avengers’ plan, their next moves can fall into place. All it would take is for someone to travel back to a point in time where they likely already were so they could access the Infinity Stones without changing history. Rocket or Nebula would be able to go back in time and analyze the Power Stone before it is locked away on Xandar, and Thor could go back and do the same for the Reality Stone and even the Time Stone when he briefly met Doctor Strange. The Soul Stone would be more difficult to get a reading of though, as it requires a sacrifice and it is difficult to imagine one of the Avengers willingly ready to lose more people that they love. If this is their plan, then the Avengers will be able to create brand new Infinity Stones on their own and then have the ability to reverse the snap themselves. This would be of great benefit not only to the Avengers, but also can help preserve the MCU timeline.
Endgame Can Make The Infinity Stones Less Special
If the Avengers do create their own versions of Infinity Stones in Avengers: Endgame, then the MCU will have to deal with them in some way. They’ve been at the center of the MCU so far, but more so with the last two Phases, and this plan would suddenly double the quantity of them potentially for Phase 4 and beyond. This could be either good or bad for the universe as a whole. On the positive side, the creation of new Infinity Stones could make them less valuable and powerful. The six Infinity Stones that currently exist have been the only source of their unique powers since the beginning of time, but that would change if they were suddenly duplicated and no longer as rare.
This could even make them slightly less appealing as a means to take over the universe, as the Avengers would already have power equal to a future opponent. However, an increase in the amount of Infinity Stones in existence also means that there would be more of them that another threat could potentially hold in the future. Thanos could do almost anything he pleased with the power of just a few Infinity Stones, and we all know what happened when he got six of them. The possibility of even more Infinity Stones being available to find could bring about a threat to the MCU that is even more powerful than Thanos.
If the Avengers want to keep this from happening, but still need the Infinity Stones to win in Avengers: Endgame, then their best solution may be to destroy them all. They’ll have newfound power if they make new Infinity Stones that could help them and future heroes better protect the galaxy, but it also leaves the chance of them once again wreaking havoc. Destroying all of the stones may be the best decision for the MCU present, but also so the future can move past the Infinity Stones storyline and introduce new aspects to the growing world.
MORE: Avengers: Endgame Would’ve Been Different With Marvel’s 2014 Phase 3 Plan
- captain marvel Release Date: 2019-03-08 The Avengers 4 Release Date: 2019-04-26 spider-man homecoming 2 Release Date: 2019-07-02
