The Marvel Cinematic Universe has generally kept its continuity neat. For a series that spans about 20 films by this point, there was always a chance some plot points would be overlooked. And Marvel can't be blamed for this either, as it must be an ardent task to keep all plots in line while building towards a finish like Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers 4. With Infinity War now out and having a cliffhanger ending, there are numerous mysteries left hanging too. Undoubtedly many of these will be answered by the next installment or may even be answered in Ant-Man and the Wasp or Captain Marvel. But for the time being, we still have to wait to find out the resolutions to these plot holes and mysteries and it's a possibility these questions might not even be addressed in future installments.

Some plot holes have, in fact, persisted for a number of years now or stretching as far back as 2008 when the Marvel Cinematic Universe had just started. The reason for not answering certain plot holes would be that there are no further plans to tie up that storyline or just an oversight on the director's part. But as fans tend to scrutinize every plot angle, especially in the MCU's case, we have compiled 25 Mysteries and plot holes the MCU left hanging.

If you still haven't watched Avengers: Infinity War yet, then here's your spoiler alert.

25 The Timeline Conundrum

Spider-Man: Homecoming will have the dubious distinction messing up the entire timeline of the Marvel Cinematic Universe unless the speculated official timeline is released by Marvel, or Avengers 4 somehow concocts an explanation for it. Truth be told it will be a herculean task to explain the timing inconsistencies as Avengers: Infinity War only messed it up even more.

Tony said Thanos has been haunting him for 6 years but Spider-Man: Homecoming contradicts that.

Set in 2016, the film stated its events were Eight Years after the Battle of New York in The Avengers, which would place it in 2008. But in Infinity War, which was set in 2018, Tony says he has had Thanos stuck in his head for 6 years, placing The Avengers in 2012 instead. It’s a major headache inducer as the entire Phase Three is all over the place timeline wise as well. Black Panther was set in 2016 but it didn’t seem as if it had been 2 whole years since Wakanda had become public knowledge to the world as nothing had changed there in Infinity War. Thor: Ragnarok was in 2017 but that would mean the Asgardians had been in space for a number of months before meeting Thanos in 2018. For the most part, however, it is the ‘Eight Years Later’ fiasco brought by Spider-Man: Homecoming that brings the most confusion.

24 Thor's Age

Although Steve Rogers might be depressed perpetually for technically being a hundred year old man in modern society his sadness at being older than his teammates should pale in comparison to the actual oldest Avenger. Thor was established to be over a thousand years right from his debut movie. The film started out in 965 AD with Thor already having been born. This would have placed him at 1053-1054 by Avengers: Infinity War. However, the film had a dialogue from the God of Thunder that creates a plot hole as far as his and Loki's ages are concerned.

Thor claimed to be 1500 years old, which isn't backed up by math.

Loki was born in 965 AD when Thor had been roughly the same age. He even referred to both of them as "eight at the time" when recalling the story where Loki pretended to be a snake. This would imply Thor was only a few months older than Loki at most. But if Thor is to be believed to be 1500, as he claims, it would mean Loki is almost 500 years younger than him! No way does that make sense as we saw their childhood where they were both of the same age. Much like Spider-Man: Homecoming's timeline fiasco, now we have Thor's age to fret over.

23 Scarlet Witch's Powers

The climax of Avengers: Infinity War was a tearjerker for many reasons. The prime one would be when every member of the team tries in a futile attempt to prevent Thanos from getting his hands on Vision’s Mind Stone only to be swatted away by the Titan. Then there was Scarlet Witch’s tearful sacrifice of Vision as she destroyed the Mind Stone and ended Vision’s life. This was all in vain as Thanos simply reversed time and took the stone and ended Vision anyway. The point here to note are Scarlet Witch’s powers.

They come from the Mind Stone itself as seen in the end credit scene of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Wanda and her brother Quicksilver were essentially mutants made by HYDRA as experiments of the scepter containing the Mind Stone. But Wanda is known as a sorceress, and yet we haven’t seen her powers be reminiscent of Doctor Strange’s. Strange’s powers stem from mystic forces and can be seen as outright magic. But Scarlet Witch’s powers are ambiguous at best and it is unclear why she is connected to the Mind Stone while Quicksilver was not. How did HYDRA manage to make these kids super powered from an Infinity Stone that was supposed to manipulate the mind? And how come their powers were so different from one another?

22 Where Is The Collector?

Guardians of the Galaxy not only furthered the story of the Infinity Stones by introducing the Power Stone and explaining Infinity Stones in general, it also expanded upon the Collector. This mysterious elder was first seen at the end credits of Thor: The Dark World where the Reality Stone was bequeathed to him for safekeeping. Come Guardians of the Galaxy he was almost in possession of the Power Stone as well. While that didn’t work out it was generally accepted he still had the Reality Stone with him. In Avengers: Infinity War the Guardians return to Knowhere to take the Reality Stone only to find out Thanos is already in possession of it and had altered reality to make the heroes see what he wanted them to.

The Collector in this scene was only a figment who disappeared along with the rest of the illusion Thanos had created. The real environment was up in flames and all of the Collector’s collections were burning. However, we never saw what became of the man himself. It is most likely Thanos ended him when he acquired the Reality Stone but considering the Collector was about millions of years old at this point it is uncertain if he could be ended that easily.

21 Breakout From The Raft Prison

As Captain America: Civil War, despite showcasing almost all of the Avengers, was a Captain America movie we saw him get away with the ending scene without any explanation. The Raft prison was an ultra high security prison for high status criminals. Captain America’s faction was placed there after getting caught and Steve, being the ever loyal friend, did not forget about his friends and broke them out in the final scene of the movie.

But how did Steve get there?

At the end of the film he is totally cut off from Tony Stark, the man responsible for supporting him thus far. Steve has no real money of his own and the man can barely hold understand contemporary technology, so how is it plausible he broke into, and rescued several prisoners of one of the most secure prisons? He doesn’t have access to Tony’s resources anymore, nor does he have the dough to purchase anything close to relevant into getting into the raft. The only possible explanation is that Steve had his new friend T’Challa provide some sort of technology from Wakanda that had some kind of cloaking device which allowed him access. But this is still just a theory.

20 Abandoned By Love

The Incredible Hulk is now ten whole years old. Released in 2008, there are barely any references to that movie in follow up film, and we’ll get to that in detail in a bit. For the time being lets discuss the absence of a crucial part of Bruce Banner’s life. Betty Ross was supposed to be his one true love in The Incredible Hulk but she has never been mentioned even once since that movie’s events. Come The Avengers Bruce was totally over her and starting from Avengers: Age of Ultron, he and Hulk are both in love with Black Widow instead. Betty’s absence is inexplicable in that she hasn’t made any attempt in contacting Bruce since his very public exploits in movies after The Incredible Hulk.

Then there’s Jane Foster who was also supposed to be Thor’s one true love. His mother actually gave her life for this woman in Thor: The Dark World and Thor himself gave up the throne to be with her. But in Thor: Ragnarok she is only briefly mentioned as having dumped the poor guy. She and Thor had had a very close romance and it is hard to understand why she would drop him so easily after all they’ve been through. Neither of these two women are expected to return in future installments and most likely perished in Thanos’ finger snap.

19 The Bifrost Bridge

At the end of Thor, the titular hero and Loki had an encounter on the Bifrost bridge that connected Asgard to the rest of the universe. Seeing that the only way to stop Loki was by destroying the bridge, Thor reluctantly tore it apart using his hammer and Loki feel to the chasm of space. By the end of the film Thor was depressed at the possibility of never seeing Jane Foster again as the bridge was seemingly the only way for him to return to Earth. In The Avengers, though, Thor did return to Earth with the explanation given that Odin had summoned dark magic to transport his son to Midgard.

While that was a reasonable explanation it didn’t explain how the bridge was fine and dandy by the events of Thor: The Dark World. It didn’t seem as if it had seen any kind of destruction and stood exactly as it had had in the first movie. It was used in the same manner too with Heimdall overlooking proceedings. No explanation was given as to how the bridge was repaired. It appears the bridge is easy to be annihilated in any case as in Thor: Ragnarok the God of Thunder destroyed it again.

18 Steve And Sharon's Relationship

Steve Rogers and Sharon Carter’s romance will always have an ick factor attached to it. The studio was hoping to replicate the relationship Steve had with Peggy Carter with Sharon, who was Peggy’s great niece, but the familial relationship between Peggy and Sharon only made Sharon’s romance with Steve disturbing. Somehow between the events of Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Captain America: Civil War these two developed an attraction that resulted in them locking lips midway through the film. Nothing can be done about what led this romance now but it appears nothing will be done about it either.

There was no point to developing a relationship between these two either as there was never going to be a payoff. Civil War’s ending saw Steve become a fugitive which meant he wasn’t in contact with Sharon anymore. Avengers: Infinity War sees Steve dealing with much bigger trouble and there’s no way any time will be taken in Avengers 4 to deal with the cliffhanger left between these two. It doesn’t seem like it will be resolved, with the only possibility being a last minute scene showing these two reunited in Avengers 4, or if the rumors are to believed Steve might just perish in that movie and leave this romance as a perpetual cliffhanger.

17 The Heart Truth

The ending of Iron Man 3, perhaps inadvertently, completely negates the whole plot point of Iron Man 2. In the latter film, which is much maligned by fans although isn’t all that bad, Tony Stark struggles with the arc reactor in his chest as it is not only sustaining his life by pulling away the shrapnel near his heart, but taking his life away too as he was being poisoned by the palladium element in his chest. Eventually he was able to find a new element (We’ll get to that in a bit too) and save his life. Although people weren’t all too impressed by this storyline it still made for a plot point. However, by Iron Man 3 Tony feels he is Iron Man with or without his suits so he destroys them and undergoes a surgery that would remove the shrapnel near his chest, thereby meaning the arc reactor was not vital for his life support anymore.

If all of this had been possible all along then why didn’t Tony just go through with it in Iron Man 2?

He was on the brink of the end, and a horrible one at that, so opting for surgery would have been the best course of action. As it turned out the operation was pretty easily dealt with too, which meant that it was more or less Tony’s ego that was a barrier in the way the whole time.

16 Loki's Lack Of Tesseract Usage

The Tesseract was woefully underused by all characters in the Marvel Cinematic Universe until it got into the hands of Thanos. Thanos was perhaps the only person who used the Space Stone’s powers the way it should have been. The Tesseract, which had the Space Stone encased inside it, was used in The Avengers to transport the Chitauri army to Earth, and while that was a good use of its powers, Loki still did not understand the Tesseract’s full potential.

The entire doomed voyage of the Asgardians could have been avoided.

Loki could have simply opened up a portal to Earth, like he did in The Avengers, and transported the Asgardians straight to their intended location in Norway. It is unclear exactly how long the Asgardians were voyaging in space but considering Thor: Ragnarok took place 2 years after Avengers: Age of Ultron, and Infinity War took place 2 years after Civil War, then this implies the Asgardians had been in open space for months before Thanos found them. All that time was wasted on his attack and Loki could have just used the Tesseract to ensure no innocent lives were lost as well as made the journey to Earth a whole lot shorter.

15 Bruce's Recollection Of Thanos

Thor: Ragnarok began a three-part arc for Bruce Banner and The Hulk which will be concluded in Avengers 4. In between lay Avengers: Infinity War where we saw the opposite of Thor: Ragnarok wherein the majority of the movie focused on Banner instead of Hulk. In Ragnarok, The Hulk had essentially taken permanent control of the body he shared with Bruce and locked Banner away for 2 years. During this time it was well established that Bruce had absolutely no recollection of his time as the Hulk on Sakaar, or anything after the events of Avengers: Age of Ultron.

After he reluctantly turned into the Hulk to battle Fenris the Wolf, Banner did not revert back to human form at the end of the film and Avengers: Infinity War began with Hulk battling Thanos. Once he is transported to Earth, Banner immediately warns everyone of Thanos’ imminent arrival. But how could he have known about it when he had had no recollection of the Hulk’s memories beforehand? All of a sudden he was even able to communicate with Hulk as well, something not seen before either. Perhaps we are made to believe that Thanos beat Hulk to such a degree that even Bruce felt the damage. It isn’t even explained how Bruce knew Thanos had sent Loki to Earth in The Avengers in the battle of New York.

14 How Did Thanos Know Tony?

The climactic fight featuring Thanos against Iron Man, Doctor Strange, Spider-Man, Mantis, Star-Lord, Nebula, and Drax on the planet Titan was heart pulsing and amazing. It was a fast-paced thriller that showcased just how powerful Thanos was as he outclassed each and every one of the heroes who tried to stop him. There were barely any moments that made us stop to think right up until Thanos uttered one word that seemed to stop time: He referred to Iron Man as Stark.

Thanos had, up until Infinity War, stayed behind the scenes and never directly involved himself in events on Earth. But somehow he was aware of Tony’s name. Tony himself has had visions of Thanos’ danger stuck in his head for 6 years but Thanos revealed it went both ways. Unfortunately for our curiosity, he didn’t bother to elaborate further on this point but it leaves open many possibilities for the source of his knowledge. Some speculation is that the Mind Stone had communicated to Thanos of Tony’s identity while it had been in the Scepter. Another possibility is that Thanos may have foreseen Tony’s involvement due to the Time Stone. Whatever the reason might be, we can be certain that Avengers 4 will resolve this mystery.

13 The Creation Of The Infinity Gauntlet

Up until Thor: Ragnarok we were made to believe there were at the very least two Infinity Gauntlets in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. In an easter egg from Thor, the Gauntlet can be seen in Asgard’s vault and for years the clash between the two gauntlets was debated. Hela quashed all problems by revealing the Asgard gauntlet was only ever a fake. Meanwhile, Avengers: Infinity War disclosed that Thanos had ended all the dwarves who had been forced to make the real Infinity Gauntlet.

But there is a big plot hole and timeline issue here.

Judging by the dialogue exchanged between Eitri and Thor, the dwarves had been attacked by Thanos only recently so how did he have an Infinity Gauntlet in 2015 as seen in Avengers: Age of Ultron? There’s also the question that what was Thanos’ intention with acquiring the stones before he got around to making the Infinity Gauntlet? Also, if we are to believe that Thanos had ambushed the dwarves much before then how come Odin hadn’t interfered at the time seeing that he had had a close association with the dwarves as they had crafted Mjolnir?

There might be an explanation in that perhaps Thanos had forced the dwarves to make the Gauntlet while Odin had been exiled on Earth by Loki, but this is merely a theory and not a concrete answer.

12 The Nature Of Sakaar And The Elders

According to the comics, the Grandmaster is an Elder of the Universe. These are beings of an extinct race who are fanatics about personal obsessions such as the Collector who want to collect a sample of everything in the universe, or the Grandmaster who enslaves creatures from the universe and forces them to fight one another. Ego is an elder in the comics but a Celestial in the MCU.

We haven’t been given a definitive explanation as to what the Elders are and the reason for their longevity. There’s also the question whether the planet Sakaar is even part of the universe or forms part of an alternate dimension. In Thor: Ragnarok we saw Loki and Thor both flung into Sakaar only seconds apart but evidently, Loki had been living there for a number of weeks while Thor had been there only a few hours at best. It is also unclear exactly how old the Grandmaster is as he claims on other worlds he is probably millions of years old but on Sakaar it is ambiguous. The Grandmaster and the Collector are both brothers but it doesn’t seem like they have any interaction considering how far away they both are situated.

11 Doctor Strange Didn't Bargain

Doctor Strange and Wong have an almost completely foolproof power in their disposal of the Battlefield Removal. Using Sling Rings these two can easily open up a portal to the farthest outreaches of the universe and throw their opponent there, effectively stranding them. We saw Wong do this to Cull Obsidian when the antagonist was getting the upper hand in the New York invasion fight. However, this method of disposing enemies could not be done with Thanos as he had already acquired the Space Stone. We saw Thanos jump between different worlds using the power of the stone as he traveled from Space to Titan to Wakanda and whole other places.

But Doctor Strange still could have beaten Thanos by using the Infinity Stone in his position of Time. He had used it to supreme effect by ‘bargaining’ with Dormammu, who was arguably more powerful than Thanos. There’s no reason why Doctor Strange simply didn’t turn back time when Star-Lord ruined the original plan. He could have also replicated the bargaining scenario with Thanos, or could have trapped the Titan in an infinite loop somewhere else entirely. There’s no limit to the number of scenarios Doctor Strange could have employed with the Time Stone but unfortunately, it seems none came to his mind.

10 What Happened Aboard The Statesmen?

The beginning of Avengers: Infinity War began where Thor: Ragnarok ended: with the ending of the Asgardians. It was an altogether impressive defeat by Thanos and the Black Order as aboard the Statesmen were among the most powerful people they could find. You had Heimdall, Valkyrie, Korg, Loki, Thor, and the Incredible Hulk. All these characters were vastly more powerful than most beings one would find on Earth but ultimately we only saw them after their defeat. But this defeat wasn’t without its headscratchers.

For starters, where were Valkyrie and Korg at all? As the above shot indicates they were among Thor’s closest companions on the ship but weren’t even mentioned in Infinity War. Valkyrie wasn’t the type who would bail at the time of a fight but there was no hint of her body among those strewn on the ground. Then there’s the bigger question of where the heck the Hulk was when the whole skirmish was going on. Clearly Thor and Heimdall had put up a fight before they were defeated, then why wasn’t Hulk standing with them? There’s no way we can believe he was waiting for Loki to summon him as part of a surprise ambush on Thanos. Hulk had no strategy at all and was pummeled by Thanos who used his effective technique to KO him.

9 When Loki Met Thanos

Let’s journey all the way back to 2011 to the climactic battle on the Bifrost bridge in Thor. Here Loki let go of Thor’s hand to his supposed doom in the cosmos only to be revealed as still alive at the end credits scene of the same movie. In The Avengers he was ruthless warmonger and a stark departure from the shattered villain from Thor. It was explained he had come upon Thanos while in space and the mad Titan had entrusted Loki with the Scepter and control of the Chitauri army to take over Earth and deliver Thanos the Tesseract.

That’s all cool, but it is never explained how Loki got there.

He apparently went into some sort of wormhole during his great fall but it is very convenient that it would take him to the Sanctuary where he would find Thanos. What are the chances of an evil God of Mischief just happening upon a rogue wormhole that would lead him directly to a warlord who just happened to have a tool that would grant Loki the ability to wage war over Thor’s adoptive world? It’s not even clear how Loki won Thanos’ favor or why Thanos so easily handed over an Infinity Stone in his possession–the Mind Stone in the Scepter–to a guy he just met.

8 Wakanda's True Nature

This is a question that is surprisingly never asked by most people. Why was it that Black Panther was allowed free rein in a country he was not king of? In Captain America: Civil War the Winter Soldier is framed by Zemo to be the culprit behind King T’Chaka’s passing and the one who detonated the bomb at Vienna. Fueled by vengeance, T’Challa vows to put an end to the Winter Soldier himself. Eventually this leads to a chase scene when Captain America, Black Panther and Falcon track the Winter Soldier in Bucharest. They all wreak quite a fair bit of havoc and are apprehended by authorities in the end.

Everyone was aware of the identities of Winter Soldier, Captain America and Falcon but how was it that no concern was raised when people found out the King of Wakanda had an all powerful fight suit when at the time the image of the country was of a third-world nation? Wakanda had hidden its true nature from the world until Black Panther so logic would dictate some serious research into the country as it would be obvious they are clearly hiding resources. Also, despite T’Challa having diplomatic immunity he shouldn’t have gotten off the hook for causing so much damage that easily.

7 Earth's Mightiest No-Shows?

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.2 kickstarted the very confusing timeline of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Phase Three. Originally thought to be set in 2017 as its release date, it was announced the film’s events in fact took place in 2014, a couple months after Vol.1. This meant the film was even before Avengers: Age of Ultron so at the time all the Avengers had been on Earth. When Ego began manipulating Star-Lord’s celestial genes to assimilate all the planets he had hidden his seed on, Earth was among them. It was a catastrophic event which saw widespread destruction as Ego sought to consume Earth. The mystery is the absence of the Avengers. You would think such an event would be priority number 1 for the protectors of the Earth but they are nowhere to be seen.

In fact, Ego’s assimilation is never mentioned by anyone on Earth.

The next entry on Earth was Age of Ultron which saw the threat of a robot to be more dangerous than Ego’s. Of course considering Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.2 came out 2 years after Age of Ultron they couldn’t have put references to Ego in it. But in-universe there should have been some reference in later releases like Spider-Man: Homecoming.

6 Zemo's Ridiculously Convoluted Plot

Zemo was nothing more than your average Joe from Sokovia. He was successful, however, in permanently fracturing the Avengers and breaking them up from inside, something not even Loki or Ultron could do. At the end of Captain America: Civil War Zemo reveals to Black Panther his plan had always been to let the Avengers end each other and then end his own life. It worked perfectly except for the fact that his plan wasn’t exactly his plan.

After all how could Zemo have predicted the plan in Lagos going awry? Crossbones had been foiled by Captain America and it was Scarlet Witch’s unfortunately mistimed parry of the blast that cost innocent people their lives. Then there was the fact that Zemo had to hope that the world governments would pass the Sokovia Accords at all based on the incident in Lagos. Then there’s the absurd notion that he somehow knew the Winter Soldier was the one that ended the lives of Tony Stark’s parents in December 1991 and acquired that tape somehow. If the Winter Soldier had been taken out by Black Panther or anyone else instead of being apprehended his whole plan would have been meaningless. There’s a whole lot of plot convenience in between but finally Zemo planned on taking out all other people in the Winter Soldier program and hope Iron Man tracked him and Captain America and Bucky down at the same location.