For over a decade, the Infinity Stones were the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s ultimate MacGuffins, with many of the comic book blockbusters to take place throughout the franchise’s first three Phases revolving around either the hunt for one of the shiny trinkets or the desire to reclaim them from nefarious forces.
After the mammoth double header of Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame, balance had finally been restored to the universe as Thanos was defeated by Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, but not before the Mad Titan had both completed his mission and lived up to his billing as the Infinity Saga’s end-of-level boss by snapping his fingers and wiping out half of all life.
The costs to the MCU’s heroes were huge, and the lingering effects of the Snap are still being felt to this day in the likes of WandaVision and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, but insider Daniel Richtman now claims that the Infinity Stones will be making their return to the franchise. The tipster offers nothing to support such a vague piece of intel that could be interpreted a thousand different ways, though, so it’s hard to get a handle on what his information might potentially entail when there’s so little to go on.
That being said, it would be a very strange creative decision on Kevin Feige’s part to return to the Infinity Stone well so soon after we’ve literally just wrapped up a 22-film arc that placed them at the very center of everything that happened in the MCU over the course of eleven years. There’s no doubt we’ll hear them be mentioned regularly throughout Marvel’s upcoming slate, but it’s impossible to guess how, when, where or why they’d make their presence felt once more as a narrative device.