Ever since the Tesseract was introduced in Captain America: The First Avenger, the Infinity Stones have loomed over the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe, though it wasn’t until Thor: The Dark World that they were actually identified as those objects of power. Four Stones have been seen so far, leaving two to be introduced sometime before Avengers: Infinity War. Fans are speculating where in Phase Three the Time and Soul Stones will pop up, but at least we can take out Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 as a potential candidate.
Despite Guardians of the Galaxy revealing the purple Power Stone, a.k.a. the Orb, to audiences in 2014, director James Gunn let fans know during a Facebook video Q&A that none of the Infinity Stones will factor into the sequel’s plot. As he put it:
We're not really so much about the Infinity Stones in Guardians 2. Is that a spoiler? It's not really a thing.
Along with showing what the Power Stone is capable of, Guardians of the Galaxy also explained the origins of the Infinity Stones, but we now know they won’t play any role in the follow-up. We’ve seen in the other movies how powerful each individual Stone is, but when joined together in one of the Infinity Gauntlets, they make the wearer practically invincible. That’s what Thanos is trying to accomplish, and after subordinates’ continued failures, he finally decided at the end of Avengers: Age of Ultron to get the job done himself.
Speaking of Thanos, James Gunn also reiterated that the Mad Titan will not be participating in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, as he’ll be too busy with the Avengers: Infinity War movies.
As I've said before, Thanos isn't in this movie. I think he's gonna have a little bit to do and say when it comes to a certain wars and infinity. We've got other fish to fry in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2.
There’s still no official word on who Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2’s villain will be (one rumor states it might be Ego, the Living Planet), but whoever they are, they won’t be under Thanos’ thumb like Ronan was in the first movie. However, concerning the Power Stone, one thing that is certain is that Thanos will need to break into the Nova Corps to retrieve it. Whether we’ll actually see this (like perhaps in the Thor: Ragnarok post-credits scene) or if it will go down off-screen, nothing’s going to stop him from nabbing that purple jewel and putting it into his oversized glove. This will lead to him trying to conquer all of existence in Avengers: Infinity War, and maybe then we’ll get to see the Guardians battle him alongside Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 hits theaters on May 5, 2017, and while we keep waiting, let us know where you think the remaining two Infinity Stones will be introduced.
