Avengers: Endgame Reveals What Happened to the Stones After Infinity War

The first ten years of Marvel Studios movies centered on Thanos’s plans to locate and control the Infinity Stones, assembling them in his gauntlet so that he could wipe out half of all life in the universe. Having accomplished that in the final moments of Avengers: Infinity War, what happened to the stones next? Well, Avengers: Endgame tackles that question — SPOILERS beyond this point for Avengers: Endgame, in theaters today — and given that Thanos’s plans was decades in the making, and that he is a megalomaniac, the answer makes a lot of sense. The answer was hidden in the trailers.

How so? Well, some fans were confused as to how/why Thanos used the stones again, as revealed in TV spots and a clip released ahead of Endgame‘s premiere. His mission seemingly completed, and his mindset so fanatical and tunnel-visioned, what could have motivated him to go out there and start destroying stuff again? It turns out, the answer was deceptively simple. In Thanos’s own words, “I used the stones to destroy the stones.” The fallout from the act nearly killed him, and when the audience first sees Thanos in the film, he is severely injured from the explosion.

His idea was that, with his job done, the stones served no purpose, except temptation. He did not want anybody to change what he had done, and he did not want anyone — seemingly himself included — to be tempted to use the power of the Infinity Stones for their own ends. This lines up with Thanos’s self-proclaimed nobility, as he frequently claimed during both Infinity War and his Endgame scenes that he had only the universe’s best interests in mind.

Avengers: Endgame is in theaters now and, in keeping with the veil of secrecy that hung over the project during its production and post-production, this is the first time in years that fans have no idea what Marvel’s next handful of films are (at least officially). The only Marvel Cinematic Universe film currently on the official schedule is Spider-Man: Far From Home, which will be out in July.

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