SPOILER: This article contains spoilers for Guardians of the Galaxy #147 by Gerry Duggan and Marcus To, on sale now.
Ever since the arrival of the massive one-shot Marvel Legacy one-shot by Jason Aaron and Esad Ribic, we've known that the Infinity Stones would make a grand return and come back into play in the Marvel Universe, most likely coinciding with the approaching release of a little-known movie titled Avengers: Infinity War. The first Stone appeared in the pages of the one-shot, where the glowing, blue gem found itself in the hands of a mysteriously returned-to-life Wolverine. (And no, his resurrection has not yet been explained or explored.)
RELATED: How Marvel Legacy Could Inspire Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
On the other side of the spaceways, the Guardians of the Galaxy, under the cosmic pen of Gerry Duggan, have embarked on a new mission to find all of the Infinity Stones, which had somehow fallen off the map after the multiversal shenanigans that occurred during the Secret Wars event. So far, however, their search hasn't led to much, due in large part to the team becoming sidetracked while working undercover as members of the Nova Corps in order to help the cosmic police force rebuild properly.
But in this week's Guardians of the Galaxy #147, Peter Quill, aka Star-Lord, made a startling discovery. Dispatched by Rocket Raccoon to try and locate a group of rogue Nova members, Star-Lord first makes a pitstop to reunite with an old friend he believed dead ever since the events of The Thanos Imperative: Rich Ryder, aka Nova. After the appropriately angry but slightly-deserved punching, the two of them team-up, making their way to the planet Xitaung, where the rogue Novas are holed up.
There, Quill and Ryder discover that a crew of rogue Novas have built an armed facility without the Corps' permission. They take the fight straight to their target, but before long both parties involved realize that they are on the same side. It turns out that the Novas had turned rogue not for villainous purposes, but because they didn't know who to trust inside the Corps with what they had unearthed on this little, barren planet.
A pregnant Nova named Eve Bakian then leads Star-Lord and Nova inside a fake cooling tower she and her team have built to hide what is inside: An Infinity Stone. But this Stone is quite different than the ones we have seen before, and not at all similar to the one Wolverine held in his hand in Marvel Legacy #1. This pink Stone is colossal in size, as tall and as wide as a building -- impossible to move, let alone wield. For whatever reason, during the multiversal shake-up, the Stone either changed size, or it was possibly returned to its initial state, back when the universe was young and new and before it was mined and refined.
RELATED: Guardians of the Galaxy's Next Threat Is A Major Avengers Bad Guy
If the six Infinity Stones can vary in size, this changes the game entirely. Star-Lord can't just hide this Stone in his pocket for sakekeeping. Whatever cosmic forces are at play here are as gargantuan as this pink Stone, and it seems like the Guardians will have their work more than cut out for them as they try to locate the rest of the powerful gems before a veritable war erupts over their ownership.