The Time Stone: one of the six Infinity Stones created by the Big Bang and launched across the Universe. Each stone oversees an aspect of reality, from controlling minds to traveling through space. Each makes the possessor of any single stone more powerful than they could possibly imagine.
The possessor of the Time Stone, one of the most coveted stones among the bunch, has the ability to rewind or fast-forward time. As we learned from Avengers: Endgame, there’s no shortage of destruction that can be caused by such power. Additionally, there’s also no shortage of need for it.
In the first Doctor Strange movie, Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) uses the Time Stone to stop the apocalyptic character, Dormammu, from destroying Earth. Per the Ancient One’s (Tilda Swinton) orders, Strange trapped the villain in a time loop and took the Time Stone back to Kamar-Taj where he then ruled as the Sorcerer Supreme.
In Avengers: Infinity War, Strange was one of the millions killed by Thanos’ (Josh Brolin) snap. The Infinity Stones too were supposedly destroyed after the remaining Avengers retrieved them from the past and used them to bring everybody back and destroy Thanos. Thus, the question remains:
Does Doctor Strange have the Time Stone in ‘Multiverse of Madness’?
In Spider-Man: No Way Home, Strange wears the Time Stone around his neck. Actually, he wore the Eye of Agamotto amulet that houses the Time Stone, which we never see. The Infinity Stones were supposedly destroyed in Avengers: Endgame, leaving us all wondering why Strange was wearing an empty amulet around his neck in the first place.
There are a lot of theories out there as to why Strange wore the seemingly-empty amulet in No Way Home. They range from using the empty amulet as a decoy to ward off any potential threats from those oblivious to the Time Stone being destroyed, to Strange wearing a different Eye of Agamotto amulet entirely. Neither of these theories, nor the several others circulating the internet, have been confirmed.
What that means for Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is that the truth about the Time Stone might finally be revealed. As famously stated by Avengers: Endgame directors the Russo Brothers: “Thanos only reduced the stones to the atomic level. The stones are still present in the universe.”
That means the Time Stone could still be out there and Strange could find it. The synopsis for the Multiverse of Madness even hints at the possibility of the Time Stone’s necessity, saying the combined forces of Strange, Wong, and Wanda are not enough to stop the alternate evil version of Strange.
Could that mean the Time Stone is the only solution to stopping evil Doctor Strange? If the Infinity Stones were not destroyed but just reduced to an atomic level, Strange could go looking for the Time Stone to solve their problems. Of course, that in and of itself could open pandora’s box.
At the end of the day, the true fate of the Time Stones – and all the Infinity Stones – is still unclear, but perhaps we are one step closer to finding out the truth when Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness premieres in theatres on May 6.