Black Panther - How does it set up Infinity War?

Black Panther - How does it set up Infinity War?

Black Panther is now in theaters. If you have not seen it yet, go out and see it, before coming back to read this, because this will discuss heavy spoilers from Marvel's latest film. You have been warned. 

**MAJOR SPOILERS FOR BLACK PANTHE RLIE AHEAD - YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED**

The film ends with T'Challa killing Erik Killmonger - this eliminates him from any future Marvel films presumably, unless Thanos decides to revive him back. However, one of the most notable things about this film is that there is no soul stone. This leaves Infinity War to explain what it is, and where it is. Marvel had their two biggest chances in Thor: Ragnarok, and less so but still in Black Panther, maybe even in Guardians of the Galaxy: Volume II, but the last Infinity Stone we saw was in Doctor Strange. I had thought before the film that the soul stone would be in that tree that we saw in the trailers, but that tree just turned out to be part of the vision that T'Challa saw in his dreams. 

As mentioned in the previous post, Bucky Barnes is now alive and well, walking around with an arm. That, obviously, would indicate that somewhere in Infinity War, he will get that vibranium arm that we see him sporting in the trailers. 

What also surprised me was that Steve Rogers was not in the film or in the end credits - what does this indicate? I think that this indicates that Steve and the rest of the hideaway Avengers are not at Wakanda all that much, and use that as their home base, more or less. We clearly see Steve in Wakanda at the end of Civil War, so perhaps they are off doing missions during the evenest of the film, but will be called back.

That leaves a big question: Why is everyone fighting in Wakanda at the end of Infinity War? The only real reason that everyone would be fighting in Wakanda would be that there would be an Infinity Stone there, which I had assumed. It made sense that they would all be defending an infinity stone, presumably the soul stone. However, it is all but confirmed that the soul stone is NOT in Wakanda. What could they all be doing there? A prevalent theory is that Vision is held in Wakanda, and they're all coming for the Vision, but you see Corvus Glaive coming after Vision in the trailers, in a setting that resembles nighttime, so it doesn't quite make sense. The Power Stone is in space, the Tesseract is with Loki, and it seems like Doctor Strange is in space as well. Perhaps the Aether somehow landed in Wakanda? That would be one of the only theories that would make sense at this point, but again, who knows? 

Black Panther is out now.