The Avengers: Age of Ultron after-credits scene had a very specific message in it, so let’s take a second look at it to explain what was going on in case you’ve just seen Marvel’s sequel during its premiere.
Many fans are coming home from the early showings of The Avengers: Age of Ultron, and while the after-credits scene was short, it means a whole lot for the future of all Marvel’s movies. We will be including spoilers from the movie, so if you haven’t seen The Avengers’ sequel we advise not reading any further.
When Age of Ultron’s credits finished, we see the infinity gauntlet in the shot, and then we hear Thanos speak up. Marvel’s biggest villain says, “I’ll do it myself.” Thanos is referencing what we’ve just heard Thor talking about right as he heads off into space. They’re all being used to bring all the infinity stones together, so that Thanos can put the six stones to good use in his gauntlet, making him all-powerful.
But it seems Thanos (voiced by Josh Brolin) is tired of waiting around on his big chair, as he’s finally walking around and putting on his gauntlet. The Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 & 2 will be undoubtedly be about Thanos gaining access to all of the stones (called gems in the comics), and then all of the Avengers having to join back together after being broken apart throughout this film’s ending and future Marvel films.
Thanos is a bad boy, and he can literally destroy worlds once he has the six infinity stones. In The Avengers: Age of Ultron we see one of the six stones, including the Mind stone, which is used by Ultron at first, and then by The Vision once he’s born. The other stones include Soul, Power, Space, Time and Reality.
We’ve known for a while now that the infinity stones would play a large role in future Marvel movies, and they have had small roles in previous movies including the first Avengers film, where the Tesseract was the main focus. It’s all a bit confusing, but is explained somewhat in The Avengers: Age of Ultron that each of these relics are actually one of the six infinity stones.
The Mind Stone was used by the new character in the film, The Vision, who is played by Paul Bettany. Bettany has voiced J.A.R.V.I.S. for years in Iron Man’s films, and it was pretty amazing to see the Mind Stone in use in Age of Ultron. We think The Vision will easily be one of fans’ favorite parts of the film, and it’s mostly due to Bettany’s performance and his character’s very unique origins and design.
We saw another stone being used in Guardians of the Galaxy, and it nearly killed Peter Quill by just holding it. Thanos made an appearance in Guardians, as it felt more fluid to have him in the film which took place in space. Thanos is too big for Earth, he’s out in space, waiting for his dumb Avengers to unknowingly bring all the infinity stones together so he can place them in his gauntlet and rule the universe.
Related: Check out 13 Easter Eggs from The Avengers: Age of Ultron
Thanos has had massive build-up in nearly all of Marvel’s films, and the infinity stones as well, even if most fans are unlikely to know about each one’s purpose. With The Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 & 2 coming out in May 4, 2018 and May 3, 2019 respectively.
We can only hope that the build-up for Thanos and the collection of the infinity stones pays off, because Marvel has seemingly put all its eggs into one gauntlet. We look forward to finding out what kind of insanity Thanos comes up with once he has the stones in his hand. Maybe the Hulk will also play a role in this later on as well, as he’s “lost in space” after hitching a ride on one of the stealth-mode quinjets.