If you haven't seen Avengers: Infinity War, then you shouldn't read any further. Also, if you haven't seen the film... what are you doing?! Marvel's superhero mash-up is the most epic film to grace theaters in decades, as far as action goes at least. It has already become the fastest movie to earn a billion dollars, and it will continue to set the box office ablaze for the remainder of its theatrical run.
The most emotional storyline in the entire film is centered around Gamora, who is the step-daughter of Thanos. Thanos kills the only thing he has ever loved, Gamora, in order to achieve the Soul Stone. At the end of the film, after Thor almost kills Thanos by stabbing him in the heart, the Mad Titan snaps his fingers and erases half of life in the universe. At that point, Thanos appears in an alternate reality where Gamora can be seen as a child. Fans speculated that Thanos was inside the Soul Stone, a place where heroes have been trapped before in the comic book. Fans also speculated that Gamora did not really perish, and that her soul was alive inside the stone. According to Comicbook, Infinity War co-director Joe Russo recently confirmed that fan theory to be true, to a certain extent, which is something he and his brother are usually tight-lipped about.
Speaking to Iowa City High School, Russo confirmed that Gamora is indeed trapped in the Soul Stone. “Yeah, it’s implied it’s the Soul Stone,” Russo stated, responding to a question about Gamora’s final scene “It’s all orange around, then he’s inside the Soul Stone, with the amount of power that it took to snap his fingers, he has this out of body experience with Thanos. When he goes inside the Soul Stone he has this kind of conversation with the younger version of his Gamora.”
Soon after the internet's excitement led fans to believe that other dead Avengers might be inside the Soul Stone as well, Joe rescinded his comments via an interview with Comicbook. "The power that it took Thanos to click his fingers, he's so dramatic that if you look closely at the film and the damage of the gauntlet," Joe Russo said. "You look closely at the very last scene, it damages his arm dramatically. And that moment when he clicks his fingers sends him into this ethereal plane inside of the Soul Stone where as part of his quote-unquote hero's journey in the film, he has one last moment to convey a sense of guilt about what he's done. It illustrates what a complicated character he is. So, to clarify, it's a spiritual representation of her and obviously that's something that the Soul Stone has power to do. But really it's there to illustrate his pain and his guilt. I wouldn't read much more into it beyond that."
Do you think Russo is trying to save face, or do you think Gamora is really dead? We won't know until Avengers 4 hit theaters next Summer.