A Spoiler-Free Guide to Each Infinity Stone to Prepare You for Avengers: Endgame

This post contains no spoilers about Avengers: Endgame but does recount plot points from the previous 21 Marvel films.

If Avengers: Infinity War taught us anything, it's that the Marvel Cinematic Universe is a complicated and crazy mess of weapons, superpowers, and aliens, and trying to keep track of them all is no easy feat. In particular, the infinity stones, which played a huge part in Thanos' grand plan for the universe, are incredibly hard to keep track of.

Your Spoiler-Free Guide to When to Pee During Avengers: Endgame

The six infinity stones (the Space Stone, the Reality Stone, the Power Stone, the Mind Stone, the Time Stone, and the Soul Stone) and their respective histories play an integral part of Avengers: Endgame, so we've compiled a handy guide to all six stones and the parts they've played in the Marvel Cinematic Universe up until now.

Step right up to read your spoiler-free guide to each of the Infinity Stones!

Space Stone (aka The Tesseract)

Appears In: Thor, Captain America: The First Avenger, Captain Marvel, The Avengers, Thor: Ragnorak, Avengers: Infinity War, Avengers: Endgame (here's where to stream them)
Color: Blue
Powers: The Space Stone holds dominion over the fabric of space, giving it the ability to teleport its users anywhere in the universe. It has also been used as an energy source.
History: The Tesseract, which housed the space stone for much of the Marvel Cinematic Universe's history, first surfaced in Captain America: The First Avenger when it was found by Johann Schmidt (Hugo Weaving), aka Red Skull, in a tomb in Norway. He planned to use it to create weapons of mass destruction to deploy against the United States in World War II, but Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) derailed that plan, and ultimately the Tesseract fell into the Atlantic Ocean, where it was later recovered by Howard Stark (Dominic Cooper).

S.H.I.E.L.D. took custody of the Tesseract and, as revealed in Captain Marvel, started Project Pegasus to study its power. Mar-Vell (Annette Bening), a Kree scientist disguised as a human working on that project, attempted to use the Tesseract to build a Light-Speed Engine. When the Kree came to claim the Tesseract from her, the resulting confrontation led the engine to explode and bond some of the Space Stone energy to Carol Danvers (Brie Larson), aka Captain Marvel. The Tesseract was swallowed Mar-Vell's cat (who is actually not a cat but an alien called a Flerken), which was adopted by S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson). The not-cat coughed up the Tesseract in the post-credits scene.

It next showed up in the Thor credits, when Fury showed it to Erik Selvig (Stellan Skarsgård). In The Avengers, Loki (Tom Hiddleston) steals it from S.H.I.E.L.D. to open a portal for Thanos' (Josh Brolin) army of Chitauri to descend on New York. After Loki was defeated, Thor (Chris Hemsworth) took him and the Tesseract back to Asgard. Finally, in Thor: Ragnorak, Loki passed by the Tesseract in the Asgard vault during Thor's battle with Hela (Cate Blanchett), and he contemplated stealing it. It was confirmed in Avengers: Infinity War that he did take it, and Thanos compelled Loki to hand it over before killing him.

Reality Stone

Appears In: Thor: The Dark World, Avengers: Infinity War, Avengers: Endgame (here's where to stream them)
Color: Red
Powers: The Reality Stone holds dominion over the fabric of reality, giving it the ability to bend the laws of reality and physics.
History: We first saw the Reality Stone in Thor: The Dark World as a weapon used by the Dark Elves. Eons ago, they used it to create a weapon called the Aether, and their leader Malekith (Christopher Eccleston) planned to use the Convergence of the Nine Realms to bring eternal darkness to the universe. After Malekith was defeated, the Asgardians were able to contain the Aether back in the Reality Stone, and they left it with the Collector (Benicio Del Toro) in Knowhere. In Avengers: Infinity War, Thanos traveled to Knowhere and took the Reality Stone, destroying Knowhere in the process.

Mind Stone

Appears In: The Avengers, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Infinity War
Color: Yellow
Powers: The Mind Stone holds dominion over the mind, and its most commonly used power is mind control. When contained inside Loki's scepter, it also had the power to fire energy bolts, teleport, and astral project.
History: The Mind Stone first appeared in Avengers, inside the scepter Loki used to take control of Clint (Jeremy Renner) and Eric Selvig (Stellan Skarsgård) and impale Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg). Later, Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) used it to disrupt the portal created by the Tesseract, closing it for good.

The scepter wound up in HYDRA's hands after S.H.I.E.L.D. was overrun by double agents in Captain America: Winter Soldier, and we next saw it in the hands of Wolfgang von Strucker (Thomas Kretschmann) in Sokovia at the beginning of Avengers: Age of Ultron. Von Strucker used it to experiment on Wanda Maximof (Elizabeth Olsen), aka Scarlet Witch, and Pietro Maximof (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), giving them their abilities, but it was later reclaimed by the Avengers. Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) and Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) used it to create Ultron (James Spader), who eventually destroyed the scepter in order to claim the Mind Stone. Before he could do that, Thor, Bruce, and Tony awakened Ultron's new body with the Mind Stone attached, but without Ultron's consciousness; that being became Vision (Paul Bettany). We later saw Vision still learning to control his powers in Captain America: Civil War, when he accidentally shot Rhody (Don Cheadle) out of the sky when he was aiming at Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie).
In Avengers: Infinity War, the Avengers attempted to separate Vision from the Mind Stone so that it could be destroyed, but Thanos killed Vision and took the stone before they could accomplish that task.

Power Stone

Appears In: Guardians of the Galaxy, Avengers: Infinity War (here's where to stream them)
Color: Purple
Powers: The Power Stone holds dominion over the destructive power of the universe and grants its user great, cosmic power, but it also kills most people who touch it.
History: Our first glimpse of the Power Stone was in Guardians of the Galaxy when Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) retrieved it from the planet Morag, where it was hidden inside an orb. It eventually fell into the hands of Ronan the Accuser (Lee Pace), who attempted to use the stone to destroy the planet of Xandar. The Guardians of the Galaxy defeated him and left the Power Stone in the possession of Nova Corps in Xandar.
In Avengers: Infinity War, Thor informed the Guardians that Thanos decimated Xandar a week earlier and took the Power Stone with him. He then used the stone to attack the Asgardian refugee ships, torturing Thor with its power in order to get Loki to hand over the Tesseract, which housed the Space Stone.

Time Stone

Appears In: Dr. Strange, Avengers: Infinity War (here's where to stream them)
Color: Green
Powers: The Time Stone holds dominion over the forces of time, giving its users the ability to manipulate time and see the future.
History: The Time Stone was introduced in Dr. Strange, when Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) studied the history of the Masters of the Mystic Arts and the Eye of Agamotto, which was a relic containing the Time Stone that was passed down through the order. The Time Stone was guarded by the Ancient One (Tilda Swinton) before being passed to Dr. Strange, who used it to defeat Dormammu and stop him from bringing the Dark Dimension to Earth.
In Avengers: Infinity War, Thanos sent his minions to New York City to retrieve the Time Stone, but they were incapable of removing it from Dr. Strange's body due to a spell, so they kidnapped him to Thanos' home planet, Titan. Strange used the Time Stone to view 14,000,605 possible outcomes of their battle, only one of which had the Avengers win. Dr. Strange gave the Time Stone to Thanos to save Tony's life, telling Tony, "We're in the endgame now."
After Wanda destroyed the Mind Stone (and sacrificed Vision along with it) in order to keep it from Thanos, Thanos used the Time Stone to reverse time and re-create the Mind Stone, which he then ripped out of Vision's head, killing Vision.

Soul Stone

Appears In: Avengers: Infinity War (here's where to stream every Marvel movie)
Color: Orange
Powers: The powers of the Soul Stone are never specifically stated or depicted within the MCU.
History: The first mention of the Soul Stone occurs in Avengers: Infinity War. Gamora (Zoe Saldana) told Nebula (Karen Gillan) that at some point prior to Guardians of the Galaxy, she discovered its resting place and destroyed the map to it so Thanos could never find it. Thanos eventually compelled her to tell him it was on Vormir, where he took her to help retrieve it. The Soul Stone was guarded by Red Skull, who was cursed to be its keeper after his crimes abusing the Space Stone in Captain America: The First Avenger. He told them the stone could only be retrieved by someone who sacrifices what they love most. Thanos sacrificed Gamora, throwing her off the cliff, and he received the stone.

Got some catching up to do? Here's how to stream all the MCU movies in order.

Avengers: Endgame is in theaters now.