At the start of Avengers: Endgame, Thanos told the Avengers the Infinity Stones were “reduced to atoms.” As Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania has now revealed, Thanos wasn’t kidding. They’re really atoms now. And they’re still alive.
In Quantumania, our heroes — led by Scott Lang, aka Ant-Man — are shrunk and thrown into the Quantum Realm, a subdimension that exists between the laws of physics. In a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment featuring Quantum Realm natives, we see a group of colorful, stone-like creatures with a very familiar color pattern. These characters aren’t heavily remarked upon, yet they may be the living remnants of the Infinity Stones, the most important relics in the MCU.
On TikTok, user mr.moviemustknows pointed this out in a brief video.
As mr.moviemustknows says, the Infinity Stones were indeed reduced to atoms and have now apparently become sentient residents in the Quantum Realm. Whether they hold their cosmic powers is unclear, and the stones themselves seem chill. They look like kids with spears, or even Jawas from Star Wars, not the demi-gods that their immense, universe-shifting powers would imply.
While this development raises many, many questions, this is more of an Easter egg than a significant story development, so don’t expect answers. Marvel’s Phase Four made it clear the Infinity Stones are a thing of the past, with a dozen used as paperweights in Loki’s TVA offices. Shang-Chi screenwriter David Callaham told Inverse that Marvel didn’t want the Ten Rings to resemble their comic book counterparts, which would have made them Infinity Stone knock-offs.
Now that Marvel has kicked off Phase Five, what’s important to the MCU is Kang the Conqueror. Kang’s grand scheme to rule the multiverse is beyond what the Infinity Stones can do for him. It’s time for Marvel to move past the Infinity Stones, but letting them retire in peace to the Quantum Realm is a nice gesture.
