So what was that thing at the end of Age of Ultron?

MAJOR SPOILERS FOR AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON

Once more, I am here to elucidate the meaning of the post-credits scene of a Marvel Studios film and decipher its meaning for the non-comics literate. Though thankfully the studio's latest offering, which followed its most recent release Age of Ultron, was short and straight-forward. Hell, If you've seen Guardians of the Galaxy I probably don't even have to explain all that much. But nevertheless let's go through the teaser and see how Marvel is already putting us on the road to that big two-part Infinity War they're promising. Last chance to avoid spoilers and here we go!


Per usual, here is a description of the teaser. We open in a dark room and watch bars slide by in front of the camera. As the lights fade in, we see we are inside a vault containing something golden. The door of the fault opens and more light floods in revealing it to be a golden gauntlet. That's when Thanos (the big purple guy from the end of the first Avengers) sticks his hand into the gauntlet and says, "Fine, I'll do it myself" and clenches his now begloved hand into a fist. Black.

Josh Brolin as Thanos on his floaty space chair.

Now many of you will probably recognize Thanos by this point. As I said, he was the big purple guy Loki was working for in the first Avengers and he was Nebula and Gamora's father in Guardians of the Galaxy. And if you remember that film, where he was played by Josh Brolin as he is here, Thanos had recruited the main villain of the movie Ronan to track down a purple stone of vague but cosmic power for him. Before Ronan found it and betrayed Thanos near the end of the movie. Anyway, you've probably got an idea of who this dude is by now and that he must be a big deal if he scares villains like Loki and Ronan despite all we see him doing is sitting on his floaty space chair.

But the golden gauntlet may have you confused. Why is Thanos having a sparkly glove a big deal you may be asking. Sure, Thanos is a bad dude but it's just a glove right? Why does he have it locked up? Well dear reader, he has it locked up because this is no ordinary glove. This is the Infinity Gauntlet.

So remember when I explained the Infinity Stones? You know, the six magic stones that each had a special power? They came up in Guardians of the Galaxy too. Well just to remind you, the Infinity Stones are six color-coded stones that were each imbued with a specific power by the ancient Celestials and if all six are brought together, their wielder basically becomes God and can warp reality however they see fit. And the Infinity Gauntlet, the special glove Thanos is keeping locked up, is the thing all the Infinity Stones fit into.

To spell that out for those in the cheap seats, Thanos the guy other villains are afraid of has the special glove all these super powerful stones fit into and has finally decided to get his ass off his floaty space chair and track them down himself so he can become God.

The Infinity Gauntlet (with stones)

This is some cosmic shit right here people. And it also addresses a common observation about our big purple friend, that being for someone trying to gather all six Infinity Stones he hasn't been trying very hard. Seriously, of the four Infinity Stones we know about Thanos has tried to get them by recruiting other people to get them for him. There was the Tesseract/Space Stone in the Avengers that he sent Loki to pick up in exchange for borrowing his Chitauri army and that just ended with the Tesseract back in Odin's hands. There was the purple Orb/Power Stone from Guardians he hired Ronan to find for him in exchange for another alien army and that stone wound up with the Nova Corps. Hell, it gets worse. As we learn in Age of Ultron, Thanos lent the one Infinty Stone he had, the Mind Stone, to Loki  so he could use it in his spear to mind control people and he lost that one too. So Thanos is actually down one stone from when he started. No wonder he finally decided to get off his chair and do something.

But Thanos' path to godhood (and if he's anything like his comic counterpart, murdering most of the universe) may be easier than we think. Remember, at the end of Thor: The Dark World Loki was ruling Asgard while disguised as Odin and he still owes Thanos a debt for using his Chitauri, even if it didn't work out. It wouldn't be much of a stretch to see Loki handing over the Tesseract in exchange for Thanos forgiving that debt. And also remember that the Collector (Benicio Del Toro) is also in possession of the Aether/Reality Stone from the same film and presumably is working for Thanos as well. Hence his, "One down, five to go" comment regarding the Stones from Dark World's teaser. That's two stones down right there. And let's be honest, it probably won't be hard for Thanos to get the other two back from our heroes.

The Infinity Stones outside their casings.

That just leaves two stones up in the air right now, the Soul Stone & the Time Stone. It's a safe bet that at least one of them will show up in Thor: Ragnarok, if not Thanos himself again. The Scarlet Witch caused Thor to have a vision of cosmic calamity in Age of Ultron which led to his decision to give the Mind Stone from Loki's spear to The Vision and he vowed to learn more about the Stones upon his return to Asgard at the end of the film. Just a guess, but it's likely that the Time Stone will be the Stone focused on in that film because time travel will be a convenient excuse for dealing with the end of the world like the title implies. Plus the Soul Stone would fit better with the Guardians of the Galaxy given its historic connection to longtime Guardians supporting character Adam Warlock (who's a pretty good candidate for being Star-Lord's dad BTW).

At any rate, Marvel has officially started down the highway to Infinity War. Thanos has gotten off his floaty space chair and things will be getting even crazier and more cosmic from here on out. But before that we have an Ant-Man and a Civil War and a whole bunch of new crazy comic folks to introduce first. See you in two months for Ant-Man and as usual, Make Mine Marvel.