Marvel released a Power Stone timeline that gives the first official guide to the cosmic artifact's Marvel Cinematic Universe journey and a better understanding of the Infinity Stones as a group.
The new graphic outlines the history of the purple Power Stone, highlighting some of its most pivotal moments and changes in ownership. Best known as Ronan's coveted planet-destroying weapon from Guardians of the Galaxy, the Power Stone made its first chronological MCU appearance being wielded by the godlike Celestials, who were explored in greater depth in the recent Eternals.
Additionally, the new graphic confirms that Captain America returned the Power Stone to the planet of Morag after the events of Avengers: Endgame, while also confirming that Peter Quill/Star-Lord was still able to retrieve the stone without disrupting the sacred timeline. While this was a logical necessity given the rules of time travel established in the movie, no explanation was given as to how Steve Rogers could return half the stones to alien planets. The new timeline divulges none of these details aside from confirming that Cap somehow made his way to 2014 Morag.
Though each of the Infinity Stones has a rich comics history with individually detailed power sets, the streamlined and condensed stories of the MCU have turned much of the focus towards the full power of the collected Infinity Gauntlet set. It should also be noted that half of the stones made their movie premieres under different names before being formally identified as Infinity Stones in later movies or post-credits scenes. Notably, the Space Stone was introduced as the arcane Nazi artifact known as "the Tesseract," the Reality Stone was an ethereal Dark Elf weapon called "Aether" and the Mind Stone was completely hidden as a part of Loki's scepter. While some of these introductions hinted at the specific powers of the stones, others were left as vague as the Soul Stone.
Like the Time Stone, the Power Stone was properly identified in its respective premiere, but where the mechanics of the Time Stone were explored in-depth by Doctor Strange, the Power Stone was simply introduced as a destructive force that could wipe out all the life of a given planet. After preventing the destruction of the planet Xandar by tricking Ronan out of his extinction-level MacGuffin with a dance-off, Star-Lord rather incuriously left the Power Stone with the Xandarian authorities. Thanos then defeated Xandar off-screen to add the Power Stone to his Infinity Gauntlet, never truly showcasing the stone's individual abilities in the MCU.
The release of the Power Stone's official MCU timeline does not answer many lingering questions about the stones, but it does establish a formal scale and a tool to better understand the three-phase Infinity Saga, and possibly more as the MCU continues to introduce cosmic characters. It remains to be seen if any more official Infinity Stone timelines will be released, but each could be key to understanding a different aspect of the entire Marvel timeline.
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