Avengers 3 Ending: What Happens To The Infinity Stones?

Warning: SPOILERS For Avengers: Infinity War!

Avengers: Infinity War hinges on Thanos finally completing his quest to assemble the six Infinity Stones, but what happened to the Infinity Gauntlet at the end? The conclusion of Infinity War is a truly epic showdown involving the Avengers, the Guardians of the Galaxy, and Thanos' legion of alien monsters on two different planets. There is so much chaos and death, with events happening so quickly, it's understandable if fans don't fully register what happened at the end. Let's sort through what became of Thanos and his weapon of ultimate power.

In short, Thanos won and kept the Infinity Gauntlet. His lifelong goal was to eradicate half of all life in order to achieve the balance he believed the universe desperately required. To accomplish this, he needed all of the Infinity Stones united, which would give him every god-like power to literally snap his fingers and commit universal genocide - which is exactly what he did at the conclusion of the film.

Thanos successfully captured five out of the six Infinity Stones in outer space: he destroyed Xandar and took the Power Stone, he wiped out the Asgardian refugees and killed Loki to capture the Space Stone, he snatched the Reality Stone from the Collector on Knowhere, and he sacrificed his adopted daughter Gamora's life to locate the missing Soul Stone. When Thanos returned to his homeworld of Titan, he found Doctor Strange there with the Time Stone, though the Master of the Mystic Arts, Iron Man, Spider-Man, Star-Lord, Drax, and Mantis laid a trap to take the Gauntlet from the giant purple nihilist. Still, Thanos overcame the Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy. Strange surrendered the Time Stone in defeat (or perhaps to fulfill a greater plan), which brought Thanos to Earth for the final Infinity Stone.

When the Mad Titan joined the battle in Wakanda, it was thanks to the Time Stone that Thanos was able to reverse the destruction of the Mind Stone by Scarlet Witch. His triumph at completing the Infinity Gauntlet was immediately interrupted by Thor, who struck Thanos' chest with his newly-forged ax, Stormbreaker. But by driving his weapon into Thanos' chest, the God of Thunder failed to deliver a killing blow. He should have aimed for his head. Thanos snapped his fingers with his left hand clad in the Infinity Gauntlet and instantly devastated the universe.

As billions of lives - including most of the Avengers and all of the Guardians of the Galaxy except for Rocket Raccoon - faded into dust everywhere, Thanos traveled to the Soulworld within the Soul Stone and met a younger version of Gamora, the orphan girl who stole his heart twenty years ago. Soul Gamora asked Thanos about the cost of his victory. Just as he did (but in failure) at the conclusion of the source material, Marvel Comics' The Infinity Gauntlet, Thanos ends the film alone on an alien world, looking at the horizon, having found some sort of peace with his accomplishment. His life's mission is now concluded.

Thanos proved to be the main character of Avengers: Infinity War, and he gets what he wants in the end. The Infinity Gauntlet is seemingly destroyed or is at least very damaged, but it is just a container. The most important thing is that Thanos still has all of the Infinity Stones, which essentially makes him the god of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. What kind of god will he be?