With the saga of the Infinity Stones now put to rest, the Marvel Cinematic Universe can finally breathe a sigh of relief. The villain of the decade – Thanos the Mad Titan, has now bit the dust (pun intended). The heroes managed to save the entire cradle of creation and all sentient life in it. Thanos’ quest to bring balance back to the universe will forever remain unfinished. After all is said and done, we have come to one final question to ponder upon in the MCU. What happened to all the people who ever held the Mind Stone? Remember amongst all the Infinity Stones, the Mind Stone got one of the most screen times since it was there in the movies since the start to the finish.
And it exchanged hands between lots of characters. And each character that ever touched the stone had his or her fate changed forever in the MCU. It is time to explore in detail what happened to the wielders of the Mind Stone. Presenting – MCU Update – What happened to each character who ever held the Mind Stone.
We will explore the fate of the people who held the other stones in their grasp in other articles. But for now, let us focus on the Mind Stone. In the total of 20 movies, the Mind Stone made an appearance in, a total of eight characters wielded it in various scenarios and each used it in a different manner. We are not going to explore the fates of people who were affected by the Mind Stone. Doctor Erik Selvig and Clint Barton aka Hawkeye were possessed by the psychic abilities of the Mind Stones while Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver gained their superhuman powers from it. They will not be explored. What we are going to put in on the list are the 8 people who actually physically wielded the stone in the MCU.
Loki
The Norse God of Mischief holds the distinction of being the first ever wielder of the Mind Stone. It was given as a gift to Loki by Thanos to help him initiate the invasion of Earth in conjunction with the Chitauri Fleet. Loki used the Mind Stone placed in a sceptre made out of alien technology that allowed him to harness the stone’s mind control abilities to control any individual he wished.
All he had to do was activate the stone and place the sceptre over someone’s heart and the guy will become Loki’s slave. Loki used the Mind Stone to control Hawkeye and Erik Selvig, and with their help, he ravaged Manhattan after he nearly destroyed the Helicarrier, stole the Tesseract aka the Space Stone and opened up a portal for the Chitauri Armada to launch a ground assault. He was ultimately unsuccessful in his endeavour.
Wolfgang Von Strucker
Wolfgang Von Strucker was the next recipient of the Mind Stone. After Loki’s Scepter came under Shield custody, Hydra agents, that had infiltrated Shield at the time, were able to retrieve the sceptre and use the Mind Stone to conduct experiments on human test subjects in order to see if the Infinity Stone could be used to allow humanity to gain superpowers. They were successful. Wanda Maximoff and Pietro Maximoff – Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver, developed superpowers and used them in full force against the Avengers in Age of Ultron. Strucker could not keep possession of the Mind Stone for too long. The opening scene of Age of Ultron shows the Avengers launching a full-scale assault on Strucker’s base to retrieve the stone. After Tony Stark got his hands on them, his experiments lead to the creation of the next recipient of the Mind Stone in our list!
Ultron
Ultron was an Artificial Intelligence construct that lived inside the Mind Stone. It was Tony Stark who first realized that the energy signature he discovered within the Mind Stone was actually sentient and an immensely powerful artificial construct. It was Tony’s idea to derive that A.I construct out of the Mind Stone and use it as a weapon to protect the world.
Ultron was created using the Mind Stone and structure codes of J.A.R.V.I.S. He soon turned malevolent after downloading himself to the internet and realizing that humanity needs to be wiped out for the planet to survive. After he joined hands with Wanda and Pietro, Ultron created a new robotic body embedded with the Mind Stone in its forehead that was supposed to be Ultron’s ultimate form after he downloaded himself to it. His plans did not work as the new body gained his own form of sentience after J.A.R.V.I.S uploaded itself into it to create Vision, the android Avenger.
Vision
Vision used the Mind Stone as a weapon. As a matter of fact, he was the one who has mostly used the Mind Stone offensively in combat. Ultron had the Mind Stone surgically implanted on Vision’s forehead and Vision uses it as a form of infinite source of power to keep himself charged. Vision is also seen using the Mind Stone to emit a ray of concussive energy that has proven to be highly lethal and dangerous in combat.
When Vision was hurt by the Black Order generals who came looking for the Infinity Stone, his wounded body was transported to Wakanda where Shuri tried to take the Mind Stone out of his head. But before she could complete the process, Thanos’ arrival forced Scarlet Witch to kill Vision and destroy the Mind Stone. Thanos would use the Time Stone to reverse the time stream and take back the stone, killing Vision a second time in the process.
Thanos
Despite finding the most use for it, Thanos’ time with the Mind Stone was limited. It was the last stone to be acquired by the Mad Titan and after a brief fight with Thor, where he used all the six Infinity Stones to stop the Stormbreaker, he used the Infinity Gauntlet to kill half of all life in the universe. Thanos would then retreat to a farmland planet where he would use the Mind Stone and the rest of the stones for one final time to destroy the Infinity Gauntlet, so that no one else could undo what he did.
Captain America
Steve Rogers was the next wielder of the Mind Stone. When the Time Heist subplot was taking place, Captain America travelled to the past, to the events of Post ‘The Avengers’ (2012) to be precise, where he duped the Hydra double agents into giving up the Mind Stone Scepter after saying “Hail Hydra” and catching them off guard in the elevator. Then Captain America faced that timeline’s Captain America and they engaged in close quarter combat. The future Steve Rogers won the match after whispering “Bucky is Alive” into the Past Captain America’s ears and then used the scepter to knock him out before managing to get away with the Mind Stone.
The Hulk
After Bruce Banner and the Hulk reached a psychological compromise that led to the creation of the Professor Hulk persona, the Hulk was now a brawn with a brain. The Time Heist was pulled off successfully and the Gauntlet was now complete. The only person who was “born” to undo the snap according to Bruce Banner is he himself.
Putting on all the six Infinity Stones and using the Gauntlet to undo such a herculean task took its toll on the Hulk’s body but he pulled through and the eventual Hulk Snap brought back things to the way they were before Infinity War. The Hulk’s arm was now badly damaged but he still managed to participate in the climactic Endgame battle where he got hold of the Gauntlet for the second time, albeit for a very short period.
Iron Man
He was the one who got the Mind Stone and used it to create Ultron. In addition to that, there is also – “I am Iron Man” – if that does not send stone-cold chills down your spine, we don’t know what will. The final line of the most fan favourite Avenger in the MCU, Iron Man was able to do what no other superhero before him could – to put an end to the menace that was Thanos. When all the superheroes were busy fighting Thanos and trying to stop him from snapping his fingers, it was Iron Man who figured out how to defeat the Mad Titan.
Instead of the Gauntlet, he went for the Infinity Stones and as Thanos looked back in disbelief at the empty Infinity Gauntlet after his snap did not do anything, Iron Man used his own bleeding edge armour to create the Iron Gauntlet and snapped his fingers, saving the universe. We all love you 3000.
