Going into “The Avengers: Infinity War,” a common recurring trend on the internet has been the famous “Where is the Soul Stone” meme. This refers to the sixth Infinity Stone, which has been absent from the Infinity gems that have popped up on screen so far in the vast and constantly expanding Marvel Cinematic Universe. These stones are going to play a major part in the upcoming gigantic team-up movie, but the questions still remain on a lot of people’s minds: What exactly are the Infinity Stones, why are they so important to Thanos’ grand plan and, most importantly, why should audiences care so much about them?

To start at the beginning, the Infinity Stones were originally conceived, like most of everything else Marvel related, by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby in the 1960s. They were designed as outlets of major sources of power to be utilized by the mad titan Thanos in his ultimate quest to court death, as that had been his modus operandi since the beginning, to kill off as much of the universe as possible in order to appease the personification of the Grim Reaper.

The Reaper has notably taken on many different forms within the Marvel universe, most familiar as the goddess of death, Hela, played recently by Cate Blanchett in “Thor: Ragnarok.”

There are six stones, each a different color, representing a different power aspect: time, soul, reality, power, space and mind. These six entities have translated over to the film side, as they have been popping up within the Marvel Cinematic Universe ever since Phase I. Although, they were not referred to by their name until 2014 in the first “Guardians of the Galaxy,” when The Collector (Benicio Del Toro, “Sicario”) explained the origin of the stone, which was the subject of most of the film.

The Space Stone, the blue stone and the first Infinity Stone seen on screen in the MCU, was first introduced in a post-credits scene at the end of the first “Thor,” in which Dr. Erik Selvig (Stellan Skarsgard, “The Avengers: Age of Ultron”), was briefed by Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson, “The Hitman’s Bodyguard”). The stone, which was contained in cube form and known as the Tesseract, was explored further in both “Captain America: The First Avenger,” and “The Avengers,” where it was the subject of the villain’s plans. It was first used by the Red Skull (Hugo Weaving, “Hacksaw Ridge”) in the former to power all of Hydra’s weaponry and then by Loki (Tom Hiddleston, “Thor: Ragnarok”) to open the infamous sky portal that led to the Chitauri invasion of New York City at the end of the latter. Afterwards, it was imprisoned once again in Asgard’s vaults, at least until Loki stole it again at the end of “Ragnarok.”

Then, there is the Reality Stone, which has a much shorter history of events. The red stone posed undercover as the Aether, a mythical substance that was used by Malekith the Accursed (Christopher Eccleston, “The Leftovers”) and the Dark Elves to cover the universe in darkness until they were stopped by Odin’s (Anthony Hopkins, “Thor: Ragnarok”) father. Afterwards, it was hidden in an interdimensional portal for thousands of years until it was found and inhibited by Jane Foster (Natalie Portman, “Annihilation”) in “Thor: The Dark World,” and then it was removed from her by Odin. After the battle and defeat of the Dark Elves, it was given over to the Collector by Lady Sif (Jaime Alexander) and Volstagg (Ray Stevenson), where it has remained ever since.

The Power Stone is the purple stone, which as many fans would know was the entire subject of the first “Guardians of the Galaxy” movie. This one does not need as much of an explanation, as the first “Guardians” is one of the more popular, well-known and memorable entries within the MCU. If people remember, it was stashed “safely” within the vaults at the Nova Corps. The world “safely” is used in quotes because it is very apparent that the entire Nova Corps is no match for Thanos, who appears to have that stone first in all of the press footage for “Infinity War.”

The Mind Stone, the yellow stone, is another one that has had a lot happen to it since its introduction. Despite the fact that it has been around as long as the Space Stone, as it was contained within Loki’s infamous mind control scepter in the first “Avengers,” it was not actually revealed to be an Infinity Stone until the sequel. There, it was revealed it could do a lot more than control people’s minds. It was first manipulated by Hydra into giving powers to several sets of people, most notably the twins Pietro (Aaron Taylor-Johnson, “Nocturnal Animals”) and Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen, “Ingrid Goes West”), also known as Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch. It was also used to give rise to the Vision (Paul Bettany, “Captain America: Civil War”) and has remained suckered into his forehead ever since, leading fans to speculate that he will die in the upcoming “Infinity War.”

The Time Stone, the green, final stone that has been seen on screen, was last seen in “Doctor Strange,” contained within the Eye of Agamotto and used by Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) in order to stop the interdimensional demon Dormammu (Cumberbatch) from invading Earth. After this, it was placed back inside the Sanctum Sanctorum in Nepal when Strange took up residence in New York and has remained there ever since.

That was a brief recap of what the Infinity Stones are and where they are. Granted, none of those locations really matter, since Thanos is going to destroy god-only-knows how many locations throughout space in order to get to them, and the coming attractions show him definitely getting his hands on at least two, the Power and Space Stones.

As for the remaining stone, the golden Soul Stone, there have been many theories as to where it is, most likely that the stone is in Wakanda, Black Panther’s country.

All will be discovered, however, when the final war for the Stones begins in “The Avengers: Infinity War,” which will be released in one week on April 27.

Image from Marvel Entertainment via YouTube.com