Avengers Infinity War: Is THIS what Doctor Strange was REALLY up to with the Time Stone?

Was there more to Doctor Strange handing over the Time Stone than meets the eye in Marvel’s Avengers Infinity War?

That’s what Reddit user LA-Confidential reckons, claiming the Sorcerer Supreme cast a time loop spell with his left hand so the Avengers have a small window to defeat Thanos in Avengers 4.

The theorist argues: “When Strange hands over the Time Stone, he’s already cast the time loop spell on it.

“In the whole sequence, we never see Strange’s left wrist – and in fact, we never see it again in the whole movie.”

They continued: “We see full shots of every other character, and we see Strange’s face, and torso, and right arm… but not his left hand. Maybe he’s got it hidden under the cloak, maybe he’s sitting on it, but he’s hiding that time loop spell.

“After Thanos heads to earth, the Stone has a time loop spell active and he doesn’t know he’s trapped in it. At some point in the future, it will reset time to the moment Strange cast the spell, on Titan before the Snap.

“Unfortunately, Thanos is a smart fella and he’ll deduce pretty quickly what’s going on, just as he deduced how to use the Stone to turn back time in the first place. Once he figures it out, he’ll just break the spell and that’s that, so there’s very little time to act.

“That’s where the time travel in the movie comes in, driven by Ant-Man, who has discovered how to use time vortexes in the Quantum Realm to get where and when you want to go. The Avengers need to go back to various points in time where they know Infinity Stones were available, scenes shown in Captain America: The First Avengers and The Avengers.”

They added: “Some theories say they’re going to change history this way. That won’t happen, it’s too Back to the Future for an Avengers movie. They’ll need to go undercover (or masquerading as their younger selves) to avoid changing history, because they need to have history happen exactly as it did, up until the time loop.

“With the one difference that Infinity Stones are taken out of the timeline and collected for one task, taking down Thanos before he breaks out of the loop or repeats the Snap.

“The Avengers would be able to use time travel to confront Thanos the instant the time loop resets, and if they win, will be able to return the Stones back to the exact instants in history they borrowed them.

“That leaves the question of how they’re even going to harness the Stones’ power, seeing as no one but Thanos was powerful enough to handle more than one, and in the time loop Thanos will still have at least four of the Stones.”

DID DOCTOR STRANGE GIVE THANOS A FUTURE VERSION OF THE TIME STONE?

They concluded: “And of course the answer to that is the new Gauntlet, made of nanotech vibranium instead of mystical Uru, and designed as much by Shuri as by Stark.

“They’ll recreate Thanos’ journey to collect at least some of the Stones – say, the Space Stone, Mind Stone and Power Stone – and bind them onto the vibranium Gauntlet. (Along the way, it may be the Mind Stone that reconciles Banner’s mind with Hulk’s mind, and produces a Hulk that integrates both.)

“I have a hunch the one wielding it against Thanos won’t be Thor, but Captain Marvel – you have to be a cosmic badass just to wield one Stone, let alone several. Captain Marvel will be key to retrieving the Power Stone, which has ties to her Kree heritage, and she’s just recently reconnected with Nick Fury, who’s been busy building a secret underground version of SHIELD to protect Earth.

“My hunch is that the battle ends not with killing Thanos, but exposing him to the Soul Stone and showing him the devastation his mad journey has caused. He ends up contrite and living out a peaceful solitary existence, just like in the original comics.”

Avengers 4 is released in UK cinemas on April 26, 2019.