10 MCU Plot Points Marvel Has Completely Abandoned
5. The Collector's Pursuit Of The Infinity Stones
The MacGuffin at the centre of Thor: The Dark World was the Aether, one of the six Infinity Stones circulating in the MCU.
Also known as The Reality Stone, the powerful item was left in the company of The Collector (played by Benicio Del Toro) in The Dark World's first post-credits scene.
Upon receiving the stone, The Collector remarks "one down.. five to go", which implies one of two things: that his goal is to retrieve all six stones, or that he's working for Thanos, who also wishes to acquire them all.
Then, in Guardians Of The Galaxy, he attempts to buy The Power Stone off Star-Lord and the gang before his hideout is destroyed, with the Stone later falling into the hands of the Nova Corps.
That movie was over three years ago, and since then, we've seen hide nor hair of The Collector, and his little Infinity-mission hasn't been mentioned once.
The Infinity Stones are the items around which the entire MCU has been circling for years, so you'd think - right before Avengers: Infinity War - that a plot point like this would have been given more attention.
But we don't know if The Collector is working alone, we don't know if he wants the stones for a specific purpose, and we don't know if he's even still collecting them - as we mentioned, his hideout was destroyed, so what happened to The Aether?
Maybe this will all be addressed in Infinity War, but as it stands, a hugely important subplot has apparently been swept to the side.