ESL: Avengers Infinity Stones

This is a reading exercise to do with fans of Marvel movie with more advanced English. Have students complete the reading in groups, then match-up the stones to their picture, description, and first movie appearance. The reading is adapted from an article by Games Radar.

 

What are the Infinity Stones?

Well, they’re stones... of Infinity? The Infinity Stones are actually more powerful than anything we’ve ever seen before in the Marvel universe. Whoever holds all the stones is basically a god. But what can all the stones do?

Space Stone: There’s a reason why the Red Skull wanted to get his red hands on the blue cube (known as the Tesseract) that contains the Space Stone in Captain America: The First Avenger. It houses unlimited renewable energy.

Mind Stone: The yellow Mind Stone has taken on a few different forms in the MCU, such as Loki’s sceptre in The Avengers, and then as part of Vision himself in Avengers: Age of Ultron. First used as a brainwashing tool by Loki, Baron Strucker then used it to create superhumans by unlocking their minds to hidden abilities. Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch gained their powers from these tests, and Vision eventually came into being as a result of the Mind Stone.

Reality Stone: The ruby-red Reality Stone’s powers affect humans by ‘rotting’ them away. If the Reality Stone latches on to a powerful enough host, it can increase the host’s strength and can help convert matter into dark matter. In Infinity War, Thanos uses it to Star-Lord's blaster into a bubble gun.

Power Stone: The Power Stone has to be kept in an special box because it’s really powerful. It carries enough power to wipe out a planet and, in Guardians of the Galaxy, the purple stone increased Ronan the Accuser’s strength.

Time Stone: The Time Stone, once held in the green-tinged necklace known as the Eye of Agamotto in Doctor Strange, can manipulate time to the user’s will. Fast, slow, rewind, the Time Stone can do it. It is useful for when you’re late for work, then!

Soul Stone: The Soul Stone is orange and could be the most powerful Infinity Stone of them all. Its powers in the comics range from reviving the dead to stealing super powers.
So, basically, they're immensely powerful when separated and, together... well. You saw what happened. Half the universe got wiped out.

When did the Infinity Stones first appear?

Space Stone: We first saw the space stone in Captain America: The First Avenger. It ended up at the bottom of the ocean after Cap crashed into the ice and saved the day, but was retrieved by Howard Stark (that's Iron Man's Dad) while he was looking for Cap.

Mind Stone: Found inside Loki’s Chitauri sceptre, this yellow stone has gone on a big journey, but its first appearance was in 2012’s The Avengers. You may remember it from the time it made Hawkeye turn all blue-eyed and evil. That was the first time we saw an Infinity Stone in action.

Reality Stone: This one isn’t as obvious as the others, but the red-tinted ‘Aether’ from Thor: The Dark World is the Reality Stone. Dark elf Malekith gets his hands on it for his own evil plans before being defeated.

Power Stone: Best known for starting a dance-off, the Power Stone was eventually put in Ronan the Accuser’s weapon, but its first appearance was technically at the beginning of the movie when Star-Lord stole it at the start of Guardians of the Galaxy.

Time Stone: One of the coolest Infinity Stones to arrive in the Marvel universe was with Doctor Strange. Wong revealed to Doctor Strange that the time-manipulating Eye of Agamotto found in the Kamar-Taj library, in fact, holds an Infinity Stone. By this point, Strange had already figured out its power and used it to create an infinite time loop to trap cosmic villain Dormammu in an endless hell.

Soul Stone: In Infinity War, the Soul Stone's location was finally revealed to be on the planet of Vormir, being guarded by the Red Skull. Thanos had to sacrifice his own daughter, Gamora, to get it. 

Activity

Please get in touch if you need the answers, or the pdf version of this via the contact section of the blog.

Bonus activity

If you have an enthusiastic class, with a good grasp of the third conditional and they have all seen Avengers Endgame, you can have a go at finishing the following sentences:

• If Thor hadn’t got fat...
• If the Hulk hadn’t got smarter...
• If Hawkeye had sacrificed himself for the ‘Soul Stone’...
• If Captain Marvel had been too busy in space to help the Avengers...
• If Iron Man had stayed trapped in space...