Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-152.121.19.253-20140718201051/@comment-107.185.113.119-20140810195848

What I don't get is the tesseract and the aether pretty much were able to do the same thing. The first opened the portal to let the chitauri in and the aether effected all the realms by creating portals here and there. Both granted enormous power to whoever wielded them, albeit the tesseract was never properly harnessed. The Red Skull was unable to hold the reality gem without getting warped out of existence, or maybe he was transported to wherever Thanos is. Malekith was worthy enough to take the aether and became powerful enough to take on Thor mano-a-mano.

As for the Soul Gem, it has to be tied to Warlock (GOTG 2?) somehow. Warlock is the yin to Thanos' yang, or whichever way that goes. Dr. Strange may delve into the stones, but there are enough other mystical artifacts that could keep him busy for a dozen films.

I also agree that Thanos will steal the Orb from the Nova Corps (GOTG 2 end credit scene?). If Ronan was unable to accomplish the task, Thanos may do it himself and wipe out the Corps to get it. That could introduce Nova/Worldmind character from the Annihilation series.

Assuming Thanos still has power over Loki (how else was Loki able to reclaim Odin's throne?), he could use Loki to get the tesseract from Odin's vault. We already know Thanos is superior to the Collector from the comics and could easily retrieve the aether.

I am interested how the Time and Soul gems are introduced and how Thanos gets them to complete his Gauntlet.