User blog:Drax321/Infinity Stone predictions

Thus far, there have been four objects identified as Infinity Stones, with two giving specific reference to a given stone. Presuming that the Stones line up with the Infinity Gems from the comics (which may not be the case), and that the colors do not (which has already been demonstrated to be true in the case of the Space and Power stones), I figured I'd start speculating on what may happen with the stones next.

The Orb and the Scepter both seem to contain their Stone within them, while not being the stone itself. It is possible that this is also the case for the Tesseract, which may exist to restrain the infinite space of the Space Stone. Maybe we'll see more Cosmic Cubes down the line? But I digress...

Statistically speaking, the Scepter is most likely the Mind stone - it would make no sense for it to be Time or Reality, and Soul is only slightly more likely that the other two. The Aether wouldn't be Mind or Time either. So, here are the odds I'm placing on each Stone's "identity" for the 4 unconfirmed Stones - the most likely for each is highlighted.

Presuming the above is accurate, we've got two more gems/stones to come across - Time and Soul (or Reality, but my money's on Soul). I understand that people might disagree with the above data - it's a wiki, so it's bound to happen - but this is what I believe based on everything we know, the released schedule, etc.
 * 1) Age of Ultron has too much going on to focus on introducing a new Stone/MacGuffin. We'll get more data on the Scepter, and possibly confirm which it is, but probably won't see the other stones in play.
 * 2) Likewise, given the scope of Captain America: Civil War, I doubt they'll shove another stone into the plot at this stage.
 * 3) It is extremely unlikely that there is anything on Asgard that could be considered another Stone, based on the button scene from Thor: The Dark World . This reduces the likelihood we'll see one of the remaining stones introduced in Thor: Ragnarok.
 * 4) Given the sheer number of movies to be released between now and the start of the Infinity War, my guess is that we'll see one stone about half way through (in Doctor Strange or Guardians of the Galaxy 2), and the final just before Infinity War (in Black Panther). That's firmly in the realm of "educated guess" because of timing reasons (although the first piece has some additional back-up below). In fact, I'm going to bet that the next new stone we see is the Soul Stone.
 * 5) *Since we're dealing with the Infinity War itself, and we've seen the shots of the Infinity Gauntlet, chances are we'll also see Adam Warlock show up (we've already seen his cocoon twice). Given that he and Strange have both possessed the Soul Gem in the comics, I'd put a decently high likelihood on the Soul Stone showing up in one of those two movies - more likely Warlock's in my opinion.
 * 6) *If the Soul Stone does show up in the Guardians sequel, it would do more to draw those characters directly into the growing plot of the Infinity saga they're assembling. Guardians is a strong enough sub-franchise to stand on its own, but tying it to the Infinity plotline means cross-pollenation of audiences, so it's a smart move for both story and financial reasons.
 * 7) As to the other remaining stone - Time - I firmly believe we'll see the final stone in Black Panther, and that - among other things - we'll actually see that one in use.
 * 8) This is where I go off the rails a little bit. OK, quite a bit. I think that the Time Stone will be used at some point to tie back to one of the few stories that doesn't seem to have a solid link to the others - Ant-Man. Specifically, bringing in a younger Hank Pym (and possibly Janet van Dyne). Why write in a story like this just to waste characters such as these in the long haul? Because there's a bigger picture, of course. In fact, it would not surprise me if, in Part 1 of Infinity War, we see Pym get his hands on the Time Stone. He proceeds to de-age himself, go back in time to rescue Janet, and now we have a younger pair of Pym-Particle-Protagonists (in addition to Lang and Hope).
 * 9) I actually think that the Infinity War's conclusion will be a way to write around the casting issues and contract expirations that occur following "Avengers 3" - specifically, once we hit the end of Infinity War, that's potentially the end of RDJ as Stark, Evans as Cap, and Hemsworth as Thor. Need a good way to recast a part? How about de-aging a character, reshaping them, changing their gender, or otherwise altering them? That piece makes sense - and although the previous point is a huge stretch, I make it to illustrate how Marvel can write in a door to get out of the corner they've painted themselves into.