Soul Stone (Earth-199999)

The Soul Stone was one of the six Infinity Stones. It glowed an amber-like yellow, and it was perhaps the most mysterious of the Stones—exactly what it could do on its own is unclear. For likely much of its existence, the Soul Stone existed on Vormir, where to retrieve it would require sacrificing a loved one. It is possible that the Soul Stone's primary purpose was to hinder anyone trying to assemble all of the Infinity Stones. Along with the other Stones, the Soul Stone was destroyed in 2018 after Thanos used them to eliminate half of all living creatures.

History

Red Skull the Stonekeeper

For an untold and likely vast amount of time, the Soul Stone sat undisturbed on the planet of Vormir. In 1945, the man known as Red Skull misused the Tesseract (containing the Space Stone) while battling Captain America, teleporting him into space and to Vormir. Through unclear circumstances, he became tasked with watching over the Soul Stone as its serene guardian, a decided shift from his ambitious villainy on Earth.

Thanos's quest and the Infinity War

In the early 21st century, Thanos sought the six Infinity Stones, knowing that they together possessed virtually infinite power, and intended to use them to eliminate half of all living creatures in the universe. He believed that doing so would preserve resources and prevent gradual societal collapse, as had happened on his home planet of Titan. Progress in locating the Stones was slow, even with help from his Black Order followers and his abducted "daughters," Gamora and Nebula. Gamora and Nebula obeyed Thanos for fear of reprisal, but understood that they had to keep him from finding all of the Stones at all costs. Gamora found a map to the Soul Stone, learning of its location on Vormir, and burned the map in an attempt to keep Thanos from ever finding the Stone. Nebula grew worried that Thanos would achieve his mission, but Gamora reassured her by telling her of the destroyed map. In 2014, Thanos negotiated with the zealous Kree Ronan to retrieve the Power Stone for him. Various events led to Gamora and Nebula betraying Thanos and fleeing his control. Gamora became aligned with a ragtag team of heroes known as the Guardians of the Galaxy, who defeated Ronan and kept the Power Stone out of Thanos's grasp.

In 2018, Thanos took matters into his own hands, claiming a series of Infinity Stones in quick succession. Nebula infiltrated his Sanctuary II flagship and attempted to kill him, but she was captured instead. Thanos and the Black Order scanned Nebula's memory banks and found footage of Gamora discussing the map to the Soul Stone. Thanos began his hunt in earnest and collected the Power Stone and the Space Stone, nearly killing Thor in the process of taking the latter. Thor survived and was picked up by the Guardians of the Galaxy, and he warned them of Thanos's rampage. He knew that the Reality Stone was held by the Collector on Knowhere, and most of the Guardians went there in an attempt to intercept Thanos. They were too late however, as Thanos took the Reality Stone and used it to outwit the Guardians and take Gamora captive, teleporting away with the Space Stone. He interrogated her as to the location of the Soul Stone, showing her the footage from Nebula's memory to counter her lies that she didn't know where it was. He tortured Nebula to make Gamora confess, and she told him it was on Vormir.

Thanos took Gamora to Vormir to collect the Soul Stone together. She led him to the top of a tall, snowy cliff that overlooked a ceremonial platform far below. There, Red Skull, now a strange, wispy wraith of a being, explained that the Stone demanded a sacrifice: to claim it, one would have to leave behind someone they loved. Gamora laughed, believing that Thanos didn't love anyone, but Thanos knew otherwise. In his own cruel way, he did love Gamora, and felt sincere sorrow that he would have to lose her to accomplish his mission. With tears in his eyes, he hurled her from the cliff to the ground below, killing her. An intense energy storm swelled in the sky overhead, and in the next moment, Thanos awoke in a shallow pool far from the cliff, holding the Soul Stone in his hand. Despite the best efforts of many powerful heroes, in a conflict known as the Infinity War, Thanos went on to complete his collection and successfully Snap the fingers of his Infinity Gauntlet, turning half of all living creatures into dust.

Time Heist

To prevent his deed from being undone, Thanos used the Stones again, this time to destroy themselves. The Avengers followed the intense energy signature the Stones' destruction created, and successfully tracked his location. They sought to reclaim the Stones and use them to undo what Thanos had done, but naturally failed. Thor killed Thanos, decapitating him to achieve a hollow vengeance for the trillions of lives he had taken. The universe spent the next five years coming to terms with the incalculable loss, until a chance occurrence caused Ant-Man to return from the Quantum Realm in 2023. Ant-Man teamed with the Avengers to use the bizarre physics of the Quantum Realm to travel back in time, recover the Infinity Stones, and bring back all of Thanos's victims. As part of this quest, known as the Time Heist, Black Widow and Hawkeye were sent to Vormir in 2014 to retrieve the Soul Stone—unfortunately, none of the Avengers knew the truth behind acquiring the Stone. Natasha Romanoff and Clint Barton arrived at the cliff as Thanos and Gamora had done: the two had been extremely close friends for years, and either could satisfy the Stone's grim requirement by killing the other. In practice, they argued over who would sacrifice themselves and allow the other to live: neither could bear the thought of being responsible for the other's death. Widow and Hawkeye had a battle of wits and dexterity to see who could throw themselves from the cliff—in the end, Romanoff fell from Barton's clutches, plummeting to the ground and reassuring him as he cried and objected. Barton awoke with the Soul Stone in his hand and returned to his own timeline. With the Stones successfully collected, the Hulk harnessed their power to successfully resurrect everyone Thanos had killed five years ago. He tried to bring back Natasha too, but to no avail. Due to a complication in the Time Heist, a version of Thanos and his army from 2014 came to 2023 and battled Earth's greatest heroes—Iron Man used the Stones to kill Thanos and his followers once and for all, sacrificing his own life in the process. Traveling through the Quantum Realm, Captain America returned the Stones to their proper place in the alternate timeline—exactly what he did to accomplish this remains unclear.