Marvel's Infinity Stones: The Reality Stone's Location, Revealed

WARNING: The following article contains major spoilers for Captain Marvel #126 by Margaret Stohl, Michele Bandini. Erick Arciniega and Joe Caramagna, on sale now.

Captain Marvel has struggled to find a proper place in the Marvel Universe since the absence of writer Kelly Sue DeConnick, who revitalized the character and — along with artists such as Dexter Soy and David Lopez — brought the hero to the level of prominence to where she’s now getting her own movie in a few years time. However, since the end of Secret Empire and the dawn of Marvel Legacy, the renumbered Captain Marvel has quietly undergone a little resurgence and by leaning on classic sci-fi tropes it has managed to embrace the genre fully and engage in some genuinely fun stories.

While her title has been flying under the radar a little bit, Captain Marvel is about to get the spotlight shone on her in a big way as the hunt for the Infinity Stones is on across the Marvel multiverse and by the end of this issue, we know exactly where the Reality Stone has been hiding.

Mirror, Mirror

This issue takes place entirely outside of the Prime Marvel Universe, as after a run in with the alien shapeshifter Mim in the previous issue, Carol was shunted into a parallel dimension where things are a lot different. As she slowly starts to piece it together, she finds out that she works for Zeta Flight rather than Alpha Flight, she’s a Corporal rather than a Colonel (while her name is Captain Marvel as an ode to Mar-Vell, she actually surpassed that rank while in the Air Force and retired a Colonel), and her colleagues are acting very strangely. For one, Puck doesn’t go by that name, preferring to go by his given name of Eugene. Not only that, he’s less a grizzled Canadian bar brawler and more a coiffed Williamsburg coffee drinker. Sasquatch and Wendy Kawasaki also have their own new tics and traits that are different from what Carol remembers.

While it takes Carol a bit too long to realize what’s going on, the Zeta Flight space station is attacked by The Widower’s Quinjets. Carol learns that in this reality, her friend Natasha Romanoff is still alive and angry at Carol for betraying her. It seems that everyone who is a good guy in the Prime Marvel Universe is a bad egg in the mirror dimension, in classic Star Trek fashion. The Widower accuses Carol of cutting her out of a score and of preparing to cut her colleagues out too, so Carol is forced to adopt the role of the thieving space pirate whose place she has taken in order to find out what’s going on and get home.

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Reality Bites

Meanwhile, Mim and her employer Dr. Eve are somewhere in the caverns of a faraway planet looking for what Dr. Eve describes as The Heart of Gaia, which was hidden inside an underground temple. Braving the alien squid that guard The Heart, the two villains seize it and exit the caverns, causing a cave-in to stop anyone from tracking who it was that stole it. However, the pair have already caught the attention of Lord Starkill, the Peter Quill of this universe, who guns them both down from far away and retrieves the Heart of Gaia for his own employer. While Lord Starkill doesn’t know what he has in his hands, we know that it is in fact the Reality Stone, one of the six Infinity Stones which power the fabled Infinity Gauntlet.

Marvel Studios has been teasing some big moves with the Infinity Stones in the lead-up to its blockbuster Avengers: Infinity War, due in theaters next year. Meanwhile, on the Marvel Comics side of things, the original Wolverine returned several months back the pages of Marvel Legacy #1 and acquired the Space Stone, while the Guardians of the Galaxy recently learned of the whereabouts of the Power Stone, which is a lot bigger than we’re used to. In a recent interview, Guardians of the Galaxy writer Gerry Duggan explained, “The Reality Stone might not be in this reality, and the Time Stone may be not in our particular timeline right now. And so, there is a real sense that, in order to gather them, you would have to do some really heavy lifting.” which lines up with the recent revelation that the Reality Stone is in this new mirror universe.

It wasn’t long ago that Marvel released a teaser for its impending Infinity Event featuring Star-Lord, Wolverine and Captain Marvel holding the Power, Space and Reality stones respectively. At the time, it wasn’t clear when and if Carol Danvers would get her hands on the stone, but now it seems that’s exactly where the story is heading. Of course, even with the Space, Power and Reality Stones in hand, that still leaves three more to find. Duggan hinted that the Time Stone might be in another timeline -- and indeed, a broken Time Stone fragment made its debut in timeline which Duggan alluded to in the possession of King Thanos, a version of the Mad Titan from the future who was introduced last week in Donny Cates and Geoff Shaw’s Thanos #13. The Soul Stone is famously linked to Adam Warlock, who is returning in a few months time, so it wouldn’t be surprising to see it turn up there, while the Mind Gem may end up having something to do with the return of Charles Xavier in Astonishing X-Men.

2018 is definitely going to be the year of the Infinity Stones. Marvel has committed to the cross-media synergy by renaming them from Gems in the comics, and upcoming “post-credits scenes” in Marvel’s January titles are going to feature Wolverine’s adventures with his newfound stone of unimaginable cosmic power. Whatever happens next, Carol Danvers needs to get her hands on that Reality Stone to get back to the Prime Marvel Universe, but then what do you do with an Infinity Stone when everyone is after them? Things are about to get hectic in the Marvel Universe heading into the new year.