Avengers: Infinity War - Could The Soul Stone Still Be In Wakanda?
Could Black Panther be the key?
It's now only a matter of a few short months until Thanos flexes his muscles and arrives in the MCU in a big, bad way. He might not get to snap his fingers and wipe out half of existence - because that might be a little too much - but he's going to cause tears to open in the MCU like never before and what remains after he departs in Avengers 4 will be nothing like what it has been previously.
It was widely assumed that Marvel would have got all of the house-keeping out of the way before Infinity War kicks off, given how much that movie has to pack into its run-time. In other words, we all thought we'd see the reveal of ALL of the Infinity Stones before May, but that hasn't been the case. So far, there's no sign of the Soul Stone.
Despite two compelling theories - the Heimdall one and the Black Panther one - we've not yet seen the mysteriously hidden Stone at all and we now have to wait to see it in Infinity War. But there could have been a huge hint that it is in Wakanda in Black Panther.
At one point, when he's challenged on how he came to have Vibranium in his possession, Ulysses Klaue reveals that the country is basically built on a gigantic meteorite made of the precious metal and though they've been mining it for hundreds of years (thousands in fact), they've barely even scratched the surface.
The question is: what lies at the centre of the meteorite?
As was speculated before Black Panther was released, it would make a lot of sense that the Soul Stone was at the heart of Vibranium's mysterious powers. First, there's the fact that it unlocks communication with the souls of dead ancestors and there's also the fact that the other Stones were revealed in a fashion that would fit this theory.
In every case, the Stones were discovered to be powering something else - whether a magical artifact or a force in the case of the Aether - and the Soul Stone being behind Vibranium's powers (as well as those of the Heart-Shaped Herb) would go alongside that.
And the fact that it wasn't revealed in Black Panther doesn't necessarily mean anything. We know that Thanos is coming to the country in Infinity War - probably in pursuit of Vision - but that could be a ruse to distract the Wakandans and their allies from his real target - the mountain. As the trailer confirms, T'Challa orders the evacuation of the city when the Black Order attacks, and that presumably means security around the mine would be removed.
What if that's Thanos' end-goal? After all, the Soul Stone would be a huge thing for him to get his hands on if it meant being able to control both living and dead souls. That could mean we'd see brain-washing AND the return of dead characters into Thanos' service to mess with the Avengers even more - and him being able to control Vision without having to fight him would be a much better way of getting the Mind Stone.
Do you think this could be the case? Share your reactions below in the comments thread.