8 Reasons Avengers: Age Of Ultron Is The Beginning Of The End For Marvel

6. The Obsession With The Infinity Stones Is Killing Forward Momentum

Even with all its various plot threads and myriad of stand-alone movies, the MCU is heading in one singular direction - Thanos. Avengers: Infinity War is the perceived culmination of everything thus far, with the mad Titan finally getting a hold of the Infinity Stones and killing half the known universe to impress Death (or whatever watered down version the movies follow).

The Stones have been present in the movie universe from as early as Iron Man 2, but in recent years Marvel's really amped up the foreshadowing. Thor: The Dark World used the presence of the Aether (the second stone seen) to provide a bit of background and coin their new movie name (in the comics they're called the Infinity Gems). Guardians Of The Galaxy expanded upon this, giving an explanation for these mystical MacGuffins and linking them directly to Thanos. Now Avengers: Age Of Ultron has done, well, exactly the same.

Yeah, there's nothing new in any of Thor's exposition about the Stones - it's all just a rewording of the Collector's monologue from Guardians last year. Fair enough, the Stones, Gauntlet, and their vague abilities do need to be explained to a general audience - not everyone immediately ran to Wikipedia after The Avengers mid-credits scene to find out who that purple guy was - but do the same points need to be repeated every year until Infinity War?

The really big downside of all this will become apparent when we get to 2019. Because while Infinity War is where the MCU is currently building to, it's far from the big finale. Heck, we already know the movie that will directly follow it (Inhumans). If Marvel invest all their time before Infinity War setting up Infinity War, what comes after's going to feel a lot less special.