THE INFINITY STONES

For those of you who are not hard core Marvel fans and have not followed all the films, Thor’s vision of the different gems and the role one of them played in the film may not make complete sense. 

There are six Infinity Stones (Infinity Gems in the comic book universe) — Space, Mind, Power, Reality, Time and Soul — which are powerful objects that relate to different aspects of the universe. We have seen four of the Stones in the films so far — the Tessaract in The Avengers, which we believe is the Space Stone; the Aether in Thor: The Dark World, which we think is the Reality Stone; the purple gem hidden in the Orb in Guardians of the Galaxy, which director James Gunn confirmed is the Power Stone; and the yellow stone inside Loki’s Chitauri Sceptre, which is revealed to be the Mind Stone in Avengers: Age of Ultron.

RED ROOM

Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson) referred to the Red Room in a special moment with Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo). A training facility for girls in Russia, the Red Room Academy has already been featured in TV series Agent Peggy Carter (season one, episode five). Here girls from a very young age are trained in hand-to-hand combat, acrobatics, weapons and tactical skills and turned into deadly assassins called Black Widows. Natasha was a trainee at the academy and took Black Widow as her name.

 

VISION IS WORTHY

Didn’t get the joke when Vision (Paul Bettany) says, “You don’t trust me. I don’t know how to convince you”, and casually hands Thor (Chris Hemsworth) his hammer, causing a stunned silence on screen and sparking hoots and claps in the hall? Well, since only the worthy shall lift Thor’s hammer we can safely say that Vision is definitely worthy. Why? Well, his intentions are selfless and pure.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THOR’S DIP IN THE POOL

This bit did not make much sense even after seeing the film twice and we think it might be due to some heavy editing. Why did Thor need Selvig (Stellan Skarsgard) to go to the pool? We think he probably needed his knowledge of myths to find him a pool that would help him see Scarlett Witch’s vision again.

 

 

THE ‘MISSING PERSON CASE’

When Captain America (not in picture) and Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie), who is also known as Falcon, talk at the party (seen here with Tony Stark) in the first part of the film, Wilson says he is happy pursuing the “cold leads on the missing person case”, by which he refers to the hunt for the Winter Soldier, aka Bucky Barnes, Captain America’s long-time friend and one of the primary antagonists in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. 

 

 

 

VERONICA

Have you wondered why Iron Man’s Hulk containment suit is called Veronica? Also known as the Hulkbuster, Veronica is a reference to Archie Comics, where Veronica is one of the two women in Archie’s life. If you know your Marvel universe then you’ll know that Betty Ross was one of the women who could calm Hulk down. Since Betty is not around, Joss Whedon brought in the other woman. 

 

 

 

THANOS AND THE INFINITY GAUNTLET

The mid-credit scene in Avengers: Age of Ultron shows Thanos, yes that is what the purple guy with the jaw is called, putting on the Infinity Gauntlet but without the stones in it. Now the question is, the last time we saw it, the Gauntlet was in Odin’s trophy room, how did Thanos get it? May be Loki, who we saw pretending to be Odin in the last scene of Thor: The Dark World, gave it to him. We have no idea, but we do know he is going to have a working Gauntlet, with all the stones in Avengers: Infinity War as we saw in the teaser released during Marvel’s announcement of Phase 3. Will he really go after the stones himself as he threatened in the mid-credit scene?

 

WAKANDA

The geek in us went ‘Wakanda... T’Challa... yay!’ but for all those people who have no idea what it means, Wakanda is a fictional African nation which is home to Marvel hero the Black Panther (T’Challa). Wakanda also has one of the two piles of Vibranium on Earth, the material from which Captain America’s shield is made (in the film). You might get the idea that the Avengers visit Wakanda in the film where Hulk goes on a rampage but it is not. It is just Johannesburg.

 

 

 

 

 

 

ULYSSES KLAW

The arms dealer that the Avengers and Ultron come across on the African Coast is yet another reference to Black Panther, as Ulysses Klaw is Black Panther’s main villain. Klaw, played with menace by Andy Serkis, is a scientist in the comic book who gets transformed into solid sound. But in both the universes he loses his right arm — in the comic books to T’Challa and in this film to Ultron. He is often a villain to the Avengers and The Fantastic Four.