Marvel’s Infinity Wars event series has gifted readers with revelation upon revelation, the most recent being that the mysterious sword-wielding Requiem is really Gamora, daughter of Thanos and the most dangerous woman in the universe. Never one to stay idle for long, Gamora has been busy. In Infinity Wars Prime #1, she did the universe a massive favor by offing her adoptive father, Thanos, with her Infinity Stone-infused blade and killing his monstrous horde. At first, it seemed like maybe Gamora, separated from her superhero team family, the Guardians of the Galaxy, had taken a righteous, roguish turn by eliminating the greatest threat the galaxy has ever seen. The first two issues of Infinity Wars have proven that theory to be quite false.
Infinity Wars #1 ended with Gamora killing Star-Lord, a member of the Guardians and ostensibly the man she loves. The kill was undone by Doctor Strange, who wielded the Time Stone, but it wouldn’t be long before Gamora racked up her next kill in Adam Warlock, who promptly disintegrated into his regenerative cocoon just a short time after being resurrected. While neither death stuck hard, Gamora’s attacks on her comrades cemented her transformation into the central villain of Infinity Wars. Her thirst for the Infinity Stones is rivaled only by her father, whose head she carries around in a sack and frequently has conversations with -- which practically screams “I’m the unhinged villain of this story!”
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So, how did we get here? How did Gamora, a member of the Guardians of the Galaxy who has saved countless lives with her propensity for tough-as-nails, righteous lethal force, suddenly become the baddie to beat? To answer that question, we’re going to have to go way back in the comic book time machine. That period has everything to do with Gamora’s inner struggle in Infinity Wars.
Gamora has not been feeling whole lately. All-New Guardians of the Galaxy #3 laid it out for readers in a succinct manner: Gamora, in fact, is not whole. Part of herself is still trapped inside of Soul World, the utopian pocket reality that dwells within the Soul Stone. Except, the Soul Stone isn’t a utopia anymore. It’s a blasted hellscape filled with ancient, monstrous entities and a populace this is oblivious to the fact that they are all shades roaming a vast infinity in a state of undeath. Worse yet, it would appear as though the Soul Stone never really loosens its grip on those it ensnares, even if they manage to escape.
Gamora was first plunged into Soul World all the way back in Avengers Annual #7. In the issue, Gamora is found by Adam Warlock after she is left for dead by the Mad Titan. Apparently Thanos doesn’t like it when people discover that he is planning a genocidal assault to appease his one true love, Death. Adam Warlock siphoned Gamora’s soul into the Soul Stone, which was then a part of Warlock, so that she might remain with him when he fought Thanos. The issue ends with Warlock, Gamora and Pip the Troll all walking happily into the Soul World sunset and remarking that the place is noticeably absent of the pains of the living. It’s a paradise.
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The trio would later be resurrected in new, much better bodies, but that’s hardly where the story ends. Years have passed and Gamora has been on countless adventures with the Guardians of the Galaxy. She even got a chance to off Thanos again towards the end of Civil War II but opted against it after seeing her adversary-dad in such a sad state. Still, Soul World has a way of reeling its catches back. Just such a thing began to happen to Gamora when, in All-New Guardians of the Galaxy, she started having dreams about a withered, blind old woman trapped inside the Infinity Stone’s own personal hellscape. The woman introduced herself as a version of Gamora who never got to leave the Soul Stone but was able to see past the stone’s influence and look upon the pocket dimension for what it had become. If you saw that kind of wasteland you’d probably want to get out of there, too.
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That’s been Gamora’s main motivation all this time, to acquire the Infinity Stones and open a gateway into Soul World so that she might retrieve the part of herself that she thinks she has lost. The only problem is that Drax caught a glimpse of what would occur if Gamora were to get her hands on the Infinity Stones, and the result looked a lot like yet another hellscape. Not content with the old adage of “damned if you do, damned if you don’t,” Gamora opted for a helping of “do,” consequence be damned. She opened the door to Soul World and reunited with her old self. This is seemingly the end of her quest, except that “ending” might spawn more questions than answers.
For example, is the blind, aged Gamora from Soul World actually a splinter of the hero’s soul, now triumphantly reunited so that the two are one whole person? Or is this Gamora doppelganger something completely different? Once Gamora is reunited with her “other self” she makes reference to a “Devondra” who must “feed.” That wasn’t part of the Gamora’s goal before. Nothing about her quest to reunite with a lost part of herself after years and years of feeling fractured had anything to do with something called Devondra, which was first mentioned in Infinity Wars #1 by a heroic, alternate-reality version of Loki. That Loki wielded Mjolnir and the Infinity Stones, and he managed to warn our Loki and Flowa about two impending disasters -- Requiem (actually Gamora) and Devondra (maybe a monstrous tentacle god). Put all of the pieces together and it starts to feel like Gamora’s story is a lot more complicated than we’ve been led to believe.
Gamora’s story has been all about reuniting with her Soul World self ever since All-New Guardians of the Galaxy, but now it’s starting to feel like a long con years in the making. If this is the case, and Gamora actually just released something called Devondra from Soul World and allowed it to possess her, her story is about to get a whole lot more complicated than just an overpowering desire to be whole again. If she -- and whatever Devondra is -- actually make it to the God Quarry or fall to Loki’s influences, the entire Marvel Universe could be in grave danger.