Spoilers for all works set prior to the end of Avengers: Endgame are unmarked.
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The Infinity Stones
The Infinity Stones
Appearances: Thor (Space) note | Captain America: The First Avenger (Space) | The Avengers (Space, Mind) | Thor: The Dark World (Reality) | Captain America: The Winter Soldier (Mind) note | Guardians of the Galaxy (Power note ) | Avengers: Age of Ultron (Mind note ) | Captain America: Civil War (Mind) | Doctor Strange (Time) | Thor: Ragnarok (Space) | Avengers: Infinity War (all) | Captain Marvel (Space) | Avengers: Endgame (all) | WandaVision (Mind) | Loki (all) | What If...? (all) | Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (Space, Power, Reality, Soul, Mind) note
"Before creation itself, there were six singularities. Then the universe exploded into existence, and the remnants of these systems were forged into concentrated ingots... Infinity Stones."
— The Collector, Guardians of the Galaxy
The titular objects that drive the overall conflict of the Infinity Saga. Six Power Crystals forged at the birth of the universe representing The Powers That Be: Space, Mind, Reality, Power, Time, and the Soul. Extremely dangerous and powerful, they have long been hidden and separated from each other. Unfortunately, in the modern-day, they've started turning up more and more, as nefarious characters seek them out for their own purposes.
- 11th-Hour Ranger: The Soul Stone is given the least focus of all the other stones, only showing up in the penultimate film of the story arc.
- Adaptation Distillation: For simplicity's sake, some objects like the Tesseract, the Eye of Agamotto, and the Aether double as Infinity Stones when they did not in the comics.
- In the case of the Eye of Agamotto, Word of God confirms that the Eye of Agamotto was deemed too powerful, leading it to be tweaked to do simple time manipulation before deciding to have it simply be a container for the Time Stone. However Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness would Retcon this to show the Eye does have some of its abilities from the comics.
- Adaptational Badass: In the comic book Marvel Universe, the Infinity Gems do not work outside of their native universes and are rendered powerless. What If…? (2021) shows this is the same in the MCU, but there's a bit of Loophole Abuse — the Stones can still influence people and things that come from their native universe, even when they and the subject of their influence are in another universe. This is how Ultron is able to "wield" the Stones across the multiverse; instead of using them directly, he can channel their energy into himself to empower himself.
- Adaptation Dye-Job: The colors are the same ones as in the comics, but assigned differently. The Power Gem (Orb) is purple instead of red, the Space Gem (Tesseract) is blue instead of purple, the Reality Gem (Aether) is red instead of yellow, the Mind Gem (Mind Stone) is yellow instead of blue, the Time Gem (Eye of Agamotto) is green instead of orange, and the Soul Gem is orange instead of green. This is consistent with the comic book's explanation that each universe (or "actuality" as many Cosmic comics call it) has its own set of Stones, and they're often colored differently. However, as of Infinity Countdown, where the Stones are recreated after their destruction in the "Incursions" story arc of New Avengers, the colors in the comics have changed to match their MCU counterparts.
- Adaptation Name Change: The "Infinity Gems" of the comics are dubbed the "Infinity Stones" in the MCU.
- Adaptational Superpower Change: As mentioned under "Adaptation Dye Job" above, the Gems have different powers with their adaptationally different colors.
- In the comics, the Power Gem grants complete invulnerability to anyone who holds it. Guardians of the Galaxy doesn't make it clear whether Ronan's endurance is the Power Stone's ability or just a product of good old-fashion Kree stubbornness, but Infinity War demonstrates that invulnerability is not one of the Stone's gifts.
- Also from the comics, as powerful as the Infinity Stones are, every universe has their own separate set of Infinity Stones and they have no power if moved to a different one. In this series, the Infinity Stones can be moved between timelines still retain their power. However, they still don't work in other universes, as they're shown not to work is when brought to the Time Variance Authority in Loki, a realm outside of time itself, and Word of God confirmed Infinity Ultron can't use them outside his own universe on anything except himself.
- Adaptational Villainy:
- In as much as a probably inanimate object can be villainous, the Power Stone and Reality Stone. In the comics, holding either doesn't bring any ill-effects. In Guardians of the Galaxy, unless the being holding it is incredibly strong or has a proxy object, the Power Stone power will destroy them, while in Thor: The Dark World the Aether will drain the life force of its hosts and is generally treated as The Corruption.
- Subverted with the Soul Gem. The original (green) Soul Gem in the comics had a vampiric hunger and a will of its own, constantly urging Adam Warlock to feed it souls, and he had to fight off its impulses almost as often as he fought his foes. The MCU counterpart, while heavily hinted at possessing its own will, hasn't yet expressed this same hunger beyond the price it demands.
- Adaptational Wimp:
- As a result of the Adaptation Distillation that equated unrelated artifacts from the comics with Infinity Stones, this trope can come into play for some of them. For example, the Cosmic Cube in the comics is an omnipotence-granting artifact considered to be on par with the Infinity Gems (but weaker than the completed Infinity Gauntlet), with Thanos even seeking it out in a Silver Age story for the same ends he would later seek out the Infinity Gems. The Tesseract, while still very powerful, is just a form of the Space Stone and therefore only a piece of the Infinity Gauntlet.
- Generally speaking, the amount of power of the stones that can safely be wielded is significantly lower than in the comics, and their usage is more complicated as a result. Both the comic version and the movie versions are integral parts of their universe's existence however, making it seem this is less the stones not being as powerful and moreso the fact their power is more difficult to draw out.
- This is more evident with What If…? (2021), which features a variant of Ultron who wields all six Infinity Stones. With his body being completely immune to gamma radiation, Ultron pulls off much more impressive feats like multiversal travel on a whim and eating whole galaxies, all without having to gesture or move his body (likely because Ultron's consciousness is a product of the Mind Stone).
- The Power Stone made you completely indestructible and gave you unlimited physical strength. The movie version does enhance its user's physical abilities and gives them powerful blasts, but not to a supposedly limitless level.
- Where the Reality Stone couldn't be destroyed by Thor, the Mind Stone could be destroyed by Wanda. While the Scarlet Witch is powerful in the comics, enough to impact cosmic beings and artifacts, events that have destroyed the Infinity Stones have been on more of a metaphysical level. It was, however, specifically stated that Wanda could destroy it only because her power was given by that same stone.
- The Time and Reality Stones were hit hard by this. Although the Reality Stone can, well, warp reality in any way the user sees fit, from merely creating illusions to outright overwriting existence, its effects last only as long as the wielder is actually present in the area, and the original reality reasserts itself immediately afterwards. By contrast, in the comics, the Reality Gem's effects are permanent, unleashed or kept in check only by the user's sentience; therefore, when forced to split apart the Infinity Gauntlet he had just defeated Thanos for, Adam Warlock makes him the Gem's guardian, because they both know it would be suicidal to try using it alone, without the five other Gems modulating and guiding its power. The Time Stone, for its part, requires knowledge and concentration to be able to use it, and to use it safely (without breaking reality apart or trapping the user into loops or voids). The Time Gem of the comics was so powerful even a subconscious urge or a vague desire would immediately have the effect the user wished for, with no ill effect to themselves.
- The Soul Stone in the comics has the power to manipulate the living and dead to an infinite degree, capable of bringing anyone back from dead. In the MCU, it is powerful enough to end half of all life in the universe nearly instantly. However, Endgame reveals a crucial weakness in its power, namely that it cannot or perhaps will not bring back anyone who was sacrificed to obtain the stone, and it cannot resurrect anyone who dies using the stones. It also couldn't bring back the people who were killed outside Thanos's first Snap, though it's a bit ambiguous if this is true since the Avengers only tried bringing back the Snap's victims and Black Widow.
- In Endgame, the present version of Thanos destroys the stones shortly after he completed his mission. In the comics, the Infinity Stones are such a fundamental part of their universe that only extraordinary circumstances like the Incursions can completely destroy them. It's been confirmed that they still exist on an atomic level, but the Infinity Stones themselves no longer existing as ingots likely has horrifying implications for the state of the universe.
- Animating Artifact: The Mind Stone has shades of this. Ultron's AI was created in Tony's attempt at replicating it, and much of The Vision's mind is composed of the Mind Stone grafted to his synthezoid brain, both of them having the emotional and independent capacities as natural-born people.
- Artifact of Doom:
- Whenever their power manifests, terrible things happen, including (and sometimes specifically) to those that wield them. The Collector all but states that only beings with extraordinary strength could use the Stones without having bad things happen to them. In the entire franchise, the number of creatures who have managed to use their power on a large scale with no ill-effects so far is a grand total of three, and even that's debatable since Doctor Strange had to experience death many times, remembering all of it; and the Vision doesn't fully understand how the Mind Stone works, and cannot utilize all of its abilities. Plus, he is a walking target for Thanos and his forces because he has it. And then there's Goose, who hasn't actively used a Stone, but instead safely swallowed the Tesseract and then coughed it up again.
- So far, Thanos is the only being to wield more than one Stone simultaneously, let alone operating all six, without any major ill effects to him, although he could only do this with the Infinity Gauntlet (which was specifically designed to do so, but even then is heavily damaged potentially beyond repair after all the Stones were used in unison just once), and acquiring the Soul Stone to complete the Gauntlet forced him to sacrifice his daughter Gamora — the only person he loved — to obtain it. The only other entity able to do so is a variant from What If?, Infinity Ultron, whose capabilities dwarf anything Sacred Timeline Thanos was ever capable of accomplishing.
- The Space Stone (the Tesseract) was used to power HYDRA's weapons, as well as to bring Loki's Chitauri army to Earth. It eventually cast Red Skull into the depths of space and was used to bring Loki to his prison. Steve outright says that S.H.I.E.L.D. should have left it in the ocean, and by the end of the movie Fury seems happy to see the back of it. (On the other hand, it also powered Mar-Vell's Lightspeed Engine, and ultimately gave Captain Marvel her powers.)
- The Mind Stone (through the Scepter) was used by Loki and Ultron to brainwash several notable people for nefarious purposes, as well as being used to empower Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch and create the Vision. It is shown to be able to subtly influence and heighten tensions between the Avengers while they were arguing in their presence, destroyed Ultron (through Vision), and Wanda's powers have been the source of her greatest sorrows. Interestingly, this is subverted when it is installed into Vision, because Vision only wants to protect all life; as such, the Stone forms a symbiotic relationship with Vision, even attempting to warn him of Thanos's intention of taking it.
- The Reality Stone (the Aether) saps the life-force of those it is bonded to, nearly killing Jane Foster due to it, and ultimately led Malekith to his death in his quest to use its power to destroy the universe.
- The Power Stone (the Orb) violently destroys all organic matter and lesser beings that come into contact with it. Case in point: the Collector's poor servant died in her bid for freedom. It also led to (and directly caused) Ronan's death when he tried to use it to destroy Xandar, after killing many of the Nova Corps with it. The only on-screen characters to have survived direct contact with the Power Stone are the Guardians of the Galaxy (and that was only because the first one to touch it was Peter Quill, who is a half-Celestial hybrid, and even then, it's clear that the stone would've eventually killed him had the rest of the Guardians not split the energy of the stone between them) and Thanos (who, when forced to hold the Power Stone in his bare hand to deal with Captain Marvel, was also in visible, excruciating pain while he did so).
- The Time Stone (the Eye of Agamotto) almost traps Stephen Strange in an infinite time loop the first time he used it, and it was implied that it almost fractured all of reality when he did. The final battle against Dormammu was actually a huge gamble on his part.
- The Soul Stone hasn't yet harmed its user directly; the danger comes from what it costs to obtain it, namely having to sacrifice someone you love.
- Even if someone collects all six stones with the Infinity Gauntlet, they need to be strong enough to use it without dying themselves. Thanos performing the snap the first time wrecked his arm and the gauntlet itself, and the second time made him a near-invalid. Professor Hulk permanently cripples his arm bringing the Decimation victims back to life, and Stark dies outright using his own Infinity Gauntlet to snap Thanos and his army out of existence.
- Black Box:
- During Captain America: The First Avenger, HYDRA uses the Tesseract as little more than a glorified battery. Given what it's actually capable of, the world was damn lucky that using it to power their guns was the most they could manage. Upon recovering it, S.H.I.E.L.D. attempts to use it to create weapons (as well as a secret light-speed engine to assist the Skrulls at one point) before Thor finally takes it back to Asgard.
- Between The Winter Soldier and Age of Ultron, HYDRA forces led by Baron Strucker used the Mind Stone to try and empower people, as well as try to create AI.
- During the 1990s, Mar-Vell used the Tesseract as a power core for a separate Lightspeed Engine, presumably so she could create more of these engines and hook them all up to the space-warping abilities of the Stone.
- Blue-and-Orange Morality: The Infinity Stones appear to have some moral standards, but not others— the Space Stone was so disgusted with Red Skull that it sent him to Vormir and condemned him to a Fate Worse than Death, however, it appears to have no issue with Thanos wielding its power when he acquires it in Infinity War, even when he touches the thing directly. Likewise, the Soul Stone only allows others to use its power if they sacrifice someone they love— proving that they are capable of love... and also that they are willing to sacrifice those they love to further their goals. Incidentally, the Space Stone and the Soul Stone happen to be colored Blue and Orange in the MCU.
- Boring, but Practical: The Power Stone can't do anything too fancy like warping the fabric of space or manipulating time. What it does offer, though, is energy; lots and lots of raw energy that can power you up and destroy everything in its path. This makes it the most suited of the six Stones for direct combat as seen in Infinity War and Endgame.
- Bright Is Not Good: Despite their bright rainbow color schemes, the Infinity Stones have been shown to be very powerful and very dangerous. Especially when assembled together.
- The Brute: The Power Stone, as much as this trope can be applied to inanimate, if ambiguously sentient objects. No sign of sentience, unlike the other stones, but possesses the biggest raw power among them all.
- Cast from Lifespan: The Aether, according to Odin, uses its wielder's life-force to fuel itself. Holding it via the Infinity Gauntlet gets around this one, allowing Thanos to use it with no ill-effect to himself.
- Chekhov M.I.A.: Five of the six stones appear before Infinity War, save the Soul Stone, which is conspicuously absent. The Prelude to Infinity War comic makes a point of noting that even people who know everything about the other five don't know anything about the Soul Stone.
- Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: Each Stone is a unique colour: blue (Space), red (Reality), purple (Power), yellow (Mind), green (Time), and orange (Soul). It comes in handy in Infinity War when Thanos uses several Stones at once, with the colors letting the audience instantly know which Stone he's using at the moment.
- Composite Character: Several Infinity Stones are combined with other artifacts from the Marvel Comics. Thanos makes a point of destroying the ones he comes across when acquiring the stones for his gauntlet.
- At first, the Tesseract appeared to "simply" be the movie version of the Cosmic Cube before it was revealed that it housed the Space Stone. Captain Marvel also gives it the role of the Psyche-Magnetron that gave Carol her powers.
- The Mind Stone serves in place of Vision's Solar Gem.
- The Eye of Agamotto is the container for the Time Stone rather than a separate magical artifact. Word of God confirmed that the reason for this particular change was that the Eye of Agamotto was too powerful, and it slowly evolved into becoming the containment for the Time Stone.
- Dark Is Evil: The Aether is a very dark blood red. It also seeks out bodies and drains them of life.
- Dismantled Macguffin: The Stones are kept separate, some galaxies apart, and with damn good reason when just one can make a person unstoppable. Measures are taken to keep them separate when the heroes rediscover them, with the Aether being given to The Collector by the Asgardians as they consider it too risky to keep along with the Tesseract they currently guard.
- Dumb Muscle: The Power Stone, in comparison to the other five, has never displayed any sort of independent will.
- Early Installment Character-Design Difference: The Scepter that contained the Mind Stone was colored blue like the Tesseract. Later movies showed that the Stone's color tends to bleed through the translucent containment units.
- Earth Is the Center of the Universe: The Stones are some of the most powerful things in the entirety of the MCU, and three (and later four) out of the six just so happen to end up on Earth: Bor hid the Aether in a pocket dimension on Earth, Odin temporarily hid away the Tesseract in Norway, and the Masters of the Mystic Arts somehow came upon the Time Stone. By the time Thanos sends Loki to invade Earth with the Scepter, that makes it four Stones physically on Earth. Thor lampshades this at the end of Age of Ultron and returns to Asgard to talk to wiser people than him about it. Natasha also points out in Endgame that, at one point, three stones were all in New York City at the same time.
- Earth-Shattering Kaboom: A simulation in Guardians of the Galaxy shows that the Power Stone is capable of this, demonstrating how Ronan simply needs to tap the surface of Xandar with his Power Stone-infused hammer to shatter the entire planet. Fortunately, the Guardians stop him before he can actually do this. In Infinity War, Thanos uses it to blow up a large chunk of Titan's moon before using the Space Stone to throw it at the Avengers.
- Empathic Weapon: There is some evidence to indicate that the Infinity Stones may in fact be alive. To wit:
- The Tesseract at the very least is suggested to be alive in some shape or form, if the opening of The Avengers is any indication. Various characters refer to it as having "awakened", "misbehaving" and actively wanting to show Earth a bigger universe. As later revealed in Avengers: Infinity War, it evidently has a dark sense of humour— when the Red Skull began to misuse its power, the Space Stone banished and cursed him to become the eternal keeper of the Soul Stone (which can only be acquired through the sacrifice of a loved one), knowing that a sociopath like him will never be able to use it.
- This is also implied by the Soul Stone's Equivalent Exchange; if the stones were "just" powerful singularities predating the birth of all life in the universe, having to trade a loved one's life to gain its power makes little sense. This is likely a test of character imposed by the stone itself in order to regulate who can access it.
- During their argument on the Helicarrier, the camera slowly pans over to Loki's Scepter as well (which contains the Mind Stone), suggesting that it is subtly inflaming the tensions already present— Bruce Banner even picks it up during said scene, and is unaware until it was pointed out. In Avengers: Age of Ultron, an internal scan of the Scepter has been compared to a biological brain with active neurons.
- Come Avengers: Infinity War, Vision outright states that the Mind Stone speaks to him as a separate entity, sensing and warning him of the impending approach of Thanos and his Children coming for him and the Stone.
- In WandaVision, the Mind Stone outright moves itself when Wanda comes near, not only enhancing her magic but showing a vision of herself as the Scarlet Witch before she collapses. The men of HYDRA watching from another room apparently couldn't see any of this; to them, Wanda just fell for no reason, and their cameras had an entire gap in their memory.
- Energy Absorption: This is one use of the Power Stone; when Iron Man attempts to firebomb Thanos, Thanos just absorbs the flames into the stone and then launches them back at Tony.
- Equivalent Exchange: As the Red Skull explains, the Soul Stone can only be obtained by sacrificing someone you love— "a soul for a soul".
- Everyone Has Standards:
- The Tesseract was so disgusted by the Red Skull that it banished him to Vormir and imposed the ironic curse of never being able to obtain the stones he had so desired.
- In a strange sort of way, the price someone seeking the Soul Stone must pay is a form of this. While it's a hefty payment to sacrifice someone you love, it ensures that (1) the one seeking the stone has to be really, really serious about doing it, and (2) only people capable of love in the first place can get the stones and, by extension, complete the Infinity Gauntlet to gain omnipotence. This means that The Sociopath has no chance of gaining the Soul Stone or gaining all six stones. It's even implied that the soul of your loved one stays with you in the stone so that you can communicate with the Soul Stone, but possibly to also act as The Conscience.
- Friend-or-Idol Decision: The Soul Stone forces everyone who seeks it to offer a loved one as a sacrifice. Endgame implies the Stone is not testing the seeker's determination to accomplish their goals at all costs, but rather if they understand the value of life by feeling the pain of losing someone close to them.
- Foil: The Tesseract and the Aether. The former gives off a light blue glow, along with an ethereal hum. The later is a very dark blood red, and gives off sinister hissing and whispering. It even applies to attitudes (for want of a better word)— the Tesseract wants to show mankind new things, while the Aether kills everyone who uses it, and seems to want to actively destroy everything.
- Foreshadowing: Steve points out the similarity between the Scepter and the Tesseract during Avengers, and the former being able to breach the barrier generated by the latter hints at the connection they share, both being containment units for the Stones, early on.
- Forced Transformation: Not only can the Reality Stone (Aether) itself shift from a small gem to a large mass (of dark matter), but its wielder can alter things however they see fit. Thanos uses this to easily incapacitate Drax and Mantis by respectively turning them into a statue and a ribbon, as well as disarm Quill by turning his gun into a bunch of bubbles. The only limit seems to be that these changes have No Ontological Inertia, immediately being undone as soon as Thanos leaves.
- Gotta Catch Them All:
- Thanos's goal is to obtain all of the stones to use their power to snap half of all life in the universe.
- The Collector also has an interest in collecting all six, having received one from Asgard and tried to purchase another from the Guardians of the Galaxy. Thanos disagreed with his vision.
- This becomes the surviving Avengers' goal in Endgame so they can undo the Decimation.
- Grail in the Garbage: In the first episode of Loki (2021), the Variant Loki is stunned to discover that the TVA have a drawer full of alternate Infinity Stones just lying around. Casey tells him that some of his colleagues use them as paperweights, as they have no power in the TVA's headquarters.
- "Groundhog Day" Loop: The Time Stone can cause these. Even in places that don't have time in the first place.
- Jack of All Stats: The Space Stone, perhaps appropriately, since it was the first featured Infinity Stone, comes off as this:
- Like the Soul Stone and Mind Stone, the Space Stone seems to have some degree of sentience, since it rejected and punished Red Skull, but seems less sapient than the Mind Stone and less picky and defensive than the Soul Stone.
- It warps reality, like the Reality Stone, but only by connecting disparate areas together, instead of doing anything like the Reality Stone can.
- While dangerous to handle, it's not in the same league as the Time Stone in terms of being easy to misuse.
- It's extremely powerful, possibly second only to the Power Stone, considering the sheer amount of incredibly powerful weapons, technology, and superheroes it can power; Captain Marvel is so much more powerful than Thanos that he has to resort to using the Power Stone to defeat her.
- True to the tendency of the trope to be the most practical choice compared to its brethren, the Space Stone is a surprisingly versatile weapon that Thanos seems to use more than any other besides the Power Stone.
- And also true to the trope's tendency to connote a "master of none", what specialization the Space Stone does have is easily replicated by other powers and figures — it's Mind over Matter capabilities are matched by Ebony Maw and Scarlet Witch though they cannot match the Stone's sheer range and power which reaches across the entire universe, and the Rainbow Bridge and magic portals are capable of transporting people and material roughly as fast.
- Loophole Abuse:
- This is somewhat zig-zagged with the Soul Stone: whoever is sacrificed to obtain the it cannot be brought back by the stone or its brethren, to prevent the obvious solution of just bringing them back as soon as someone assembles the gauntlet. This doesn't meant that a user can't use time travel to bring a past version of the sacrificed character into the present though this is more Replacement Goldfish than resurrection.
- Also, the "soul for a soul" bargain doesn't apply after the Soul Stone leaves its resting place, which means anyone else can take and use the stone without sacrifice. Ultron does exactly this in What If...?, gaining access to the Soul Stone simply by bisecting Thanos in half and claiming it alongside the other Infinity Stones without any negative percussions.
- What If...? expands on a pretty significant one: as shown by the films of the Infinity Saga/Sacred Timeline, usage of the Infinity Stones' raw power will be ultimately limited by the level of endurance an organic being has (hence why Ronan needed to put the Power Stone in the Universal Weapon, and why Thanos had the Infinity Gauntlet crafted in the first place). A sentient non-organic being made of durable material (such as the Vision) can harness one Infinity Stone—but it was never shown whether another being can. Infinity Ultron, because of his nature, was not only able to kill Thanos and take the Infinity Stones for himself (integrating them into his body), it elevated him to levels of omnipotence wherein no named superhero or supervillain stood a chance against him in his universe. Furthermore, Infinity Ultron's level of power is such that Uatu the Watcher (despite the latter's own level of omnipotence and omniscience) was unable to subdue him at all. Furthermore, as detailed in Adaptational Badass above, the fact that Ultron limits the Infinity Stones to powering himself (a native of his Stones' shard of the multiverse) instead of actively using it to affect another universe's reality means he circumvents the trans-universal inertia the Stones are affected by.
- Magical Database: A less flashy power of the Mind Stone is that it can grant knowledge and insight to those under its power, including what they'll need in the future, as happens to Hawkeye, who's shown who he'd need to target to complete Selvig's portal device, and Erik Selvig himself, who gets a lot more knowledge than he ever wanted pouring through his brain during his time under Loki's control, and nearly goes insane because of it. Most notably it uplifts artificial intelligences into fully sentient minds, as it did to Ultron before he was even completed.
- Master of Illusion: Thanos is shown to use the Reality Stone this way, making Titan's surface look verdant like it was in the past as he explains his motive to Dr. Strange.
- Mind Control: The Scepter can be used to bend anyone to the user's will, aware of what's been done to them but unable to fight it much, unless they get knocked out, or otherwise freed by a telepath.
- Mind over Matter: The Space Stone in Thanos's possession grants him the ability to warp the fabric of space in this manner, casually freezing Loki's knife mid-stab in an instant, effortlessly crunching the guns on War Machine's armor and then ground it, and crushing the wings on Falcon's suit to knock him down.
- Mineral Macguffin: Except the Aether, which comes in the form of a free-floating liquid.
- The Soul Stone stands out as the most MacGuffin-esque of all the Stones: while the nature of the Stones themselves matters little to the overall storyline (as in, they could have been literally any other kind of object as long as their purpose and influence was kept), the villains and heroes seeking them out don't care what they are as much as they are preoccupied with how to use their abilities to further their own goals. For instance, Ronan in Guardians of the Galaxy would have tried to destroy Xandar with a Power Hula Hoop just as he did with the Power Stone, and Dr. Strange would have used an eternal time-loop to bargain with Dormammu using a Time Sandwich exactly as well as he did with the Time Stone. On the other hand, the true extent of the Soul Stone's power was never explored, it was only given a very minor, almost offhand use (to dispel Dr. Strange's astral body duplicates), and its primary purpose in the plot of both Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame is simply "you need it to complete the Gauntlet" and "throw a tragic wrench in the plans of whoever desires it."
- Since the Soul Stone is said to grant power over life and death, it's entirely possible that Thanos needed it in order to actually kill all of the beings who were to be culled throughout the universe, while the other stones simply gave him the power for physical destruction (Power), the ability to do it everywhere (Space), the capability to change beings into dust (Reality), the power to make it permanent (Time), and the means to coordinate all of the Stones together (Mind).
- The Soul Stone stands out as the most MacGuffin-esque of all the Stones: while the nature of the Stones themselves matters little to the overall storyline (as in, they could have been literally any other kind of object as long as their purpose and influence was kept), the villains and heroes seeking them out don't care what they are as much as they are preoccupied with how to use their abilities to further their own goals. For instance, Ronan in Guardians of the Galaxy would have tried to destroy Xandar with a Power Hula Hoop just as he did with the Power Stone, and Dr. Strange would have used an eternal time-loop to bargain with Dormammu using a Time Sandwich exactly as well as he did with the Time Stone. On the other hand, the true extent of the Soul Stone's power was never explored, it was only given a very minor, almost offhand use (to dispel Dr. Strange's astral body duplicates), and its primary purpose in the plot of both Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame is simply "you need it to complete the Gauntlet" and "throw a tragic wrench in the plans of whoever desires it."
- Mythology Gag: Having failed to acquire the Power Stone, the Collector ended up as the bearer of the Reality Stone. In the comics, the Collector kept it around as a trinket, aware only that it was a cosmic artifact of incalculable power, but not really understanding its true potential until Thanos showed him exactly what it could do. In the film, Thanos, collects said stone from him, and immediately uses it to craft an elaborate illusion for the Guardians of the Galaxy.
- Non-Indicative Name: The Aether, as Thor points out in Endgame, is not really a stone, "more of an ... angry sludge", although given that it's the Reality Stone, it's likely that it can assume whatever state it needs to.
- Out of Focus: As it is the last stone to be introduced, the Soul Stone ends up having the least amount of screentime, and its full capabilities are not fully explored in any of its appearance. Unlike the other stones, it doesn't fully drive the plot of its debut movie.
- Phlebotinum-Handling Requirements:
- The Red Skull spent all of Captain America: The First Avenger carrying the Tesseract around via tongs or a containment unit. When he finally touches it without them, it reacts poorly and teleports him to Vormir to guard the Soul Stone as punishment for its misuse. Meanwhile, Nick Fury in Avengers manages to grab it with his gloved hand, albeit with slight burns to his fingers, and immediately slots it into a case specifically designed to stabilize its power. In Infinity War, Loki, Ebony Maw and Thanos handle the Tesseract with no ill effects, and in Captain Marvel, Carol (who received her powers from the detonation of a Tesseract-powered engine) can grab it and juggle it without issue and Goose can bat at it with her paws and even eat it (and vomit it back out many days later).
- The Power Stone detonates any organic matter it comes into contact with, and so is usually kept in metal containers. Ronan got around this by fusing it to his hammer, although grabbing the Stone in his bare hand to do so visibly injured him, while the Guardians of the Galaxy just barely managed to use its power as a group and then seal it before they died from exposure.
- As shown in Endgame, Hawkeye was able to hold the Soul Stone with his own hand and brought it back to the present without any damaging effects to his body. The only possible explanation for this is due to the stone finding him worthy of holding it.
- Indeed, almost every time any of the Stones are directly handled by a living being without some form of containment, that being has suffered very dire or life-altering effects: the Aether came very close to killing Jane Foster, the Orb nearly killed the Guardians, and the Maximoff twins gained superpowers through experiments with the Mind Stone (and were the only survivors in a line of failed attempts). Vision and Thanos are the only beings to directly hold a stone with no negative effects, and the former's artificial vibranium body was more or less designed to use it as a power source. Even a half-Celestial like Peter Quill couldn't handle one on his own and needed help from his allies to prevent its power from destroying him.
- Physical God: A sufficiently powerful being with even one or two of the Stones under reliable control can easily become one of these. By the time Thanos possessed only the Power and Space Stones in Infinity War, he was easily described as the single most powerful being in the universe. After that point, he easily dealt the protagonists one Curb-Stomp Battle after another on his way to acquiring the Reality, Soul, Time and Mind Stones and carrying out the ensuing Badass Fingersnap.
- Plot Device: They drive the main story arc of the Marvel Cinematic Universe as various villains try to collect them, while the heroes must keep them apart.
- Power at a Price: All of them, to some degree.
- The Power Stone offers immense destructive power, but will completely destroy its wielder if not used properly.
- The Time Stone confers power over the time flow, but a careless user could wipe themselves out of existence.
- The Space Stone can power weapons and create portals to travel anywhere at will, but it has a mind of its own, and can drop-kick you across the cosmos if you misuse it.
- The Reality Stone bestows immense Reality Warper powers, but the Aether it channels is lethal to its user and like the Power Stone it can destroy them.
- The Soul Stone isn't inherently dangerous (as far as we know), but obtaining it involves a terrible choice that can make getting it a Pyrrhic Victory at best.
- And lastly, while the Mind Stone seems harmless, it appears to exert some influence over others, such as how its presence alone inside Loki's scepter was implied to be responsible for escalating the arguments and tensions aboard the Helicarrier in The Avengers.
- Power Glows: All of the stones glow internally with their own energy and light. This glow persists even if in other forms like the Tesseract.
- Purple Is Powerful: In the MCU continuity (unlike the comics), the Power Stone is the purple one.
- Radiation-Induced Superpowers: In addition to the other dangers the Tesseract poses, it also gives off some amount of gamma radiation which can, in some cases, be "harmful" to people.
- Rainbow Lite: The six stones roughly match each color of the rainbow (purple is used for the Power Stone instead of violet) except indigo.
- Reality Warper: The Aether has the power to change the wearer's environment in pretty much any way. This means that, during a convergence, the Aether can potentially reshape the entire universe.
- Retgone: Another property of the Time Stone is that misuse can erase the hapless schmuck who wielded it from existence.
- Sealed Evil in a Can:
- The Aether was kept locked away in a box by Bor, and then Odin, to make sure no-one would ever find it. Then Jane Foster stumbled upon the box by accident when she fell into the reality distortion field it projected. After The Dark World, it's sealed up again in a smaller box.
- The Orb was left stuck behind a forcefield inside some ruins on Morag (which once had life on it, and now mysteriously doesn't), with the Power Stone kept inside it. After it's taken from Ronan, the Nova Corps puts it in a vault.
- The Eye of Agamotto was created by the first Sorcerer Supreme to contain the Time Stone and guarded by the Masters of the Mystic Arts at Kamar-Taj.
- Self-Guarding Phlebotinum:
- The Aether tended to zap anyone who grabbed its host, Jane Foster. Thor muses that it wasn't protecting her so much as it was protecting itself.
- The Soul Stone locked itself up on Vormir, and refused to yield itself to anyone unless they proved they understood the nature of its power by offering a sacrifice to it.
- The Tesseract senses the Red Skull's evil intentions when he grabs hold of it in Captain America: The First Avenger, and teleports him to Vormir to prevent Schmidt from abusing its power.
- In a way, the Power Stone's ability to vaporize anyone who is holding it can be considered this, as it prevents people who want to abuse its power in a rather simple way.
- Sentient Phlebotinum: It's implied throughout the Infinity Saga that the stones are in fact sentient. The Mind Stone definitely has a mind of its own, since it is essentially a computer. The Soul Stone passes a test for those who seek it, and only rewards itself to those who sacrifice a soul for a soul. Even the Space Stone has shown that it can think for itself, as it deemed the Red Skull unworthy of its powers and banished him to Vormir.
- Set Bonus: As per the comics, wielding the might of several Infinity Stones together allows one to do things they couldn't do with just one Stone at a time. For example, much of the climax in Guardians of the Galaxy revolves around stopping Ronan from landing on Xandar and blowing it up with the Power Stone. Thanos gets around that limitation by using the Space Stone to send the Power Stone's energy anywhere he wants with a mere thought.
- Shrouded in Myth: In the Infinity War Prelude comic, Wong notes that the Stone he has the least concrete information on is the Soul Stone. He adds that if what is known about it is true, then it could be the most dangerous of them all.
- So Last Season: They were the driving Macguffins of the MCU for years, being the singular most powerful things in any universe. Loki, which segues the franchise into the greater multiverse, casually dismisses them in the first episode when their power is shown to be nullified by the TVA's realm. Countless duplicates from deleted timelines are kept in an unremarkable drawer, occasionally used as glowy paperweights.
- Soul Power: The Soul Stone's exact power set is not explored, but it seems to have some connection to Another Dimension, and when Strange uses a Doppelgänger Attack, Thanos uses it to ferret out the real one by targeting Strange's soul directly with the Stone. It is said to grant power over life and death.
- Space Master: The Space Stone, naturally, gives this capability.
- Stuff Blowing Up: The end result of anyone touching the Power Stone too long. The bigger the person, the bigger the boom. And a being the size of your average human produces a series of explosions big enough to trash the building that person was in.
- Super-Empowering:
- After The Avengers, Baron Strucker has HYDRA use the Mind Stone to conduct experiments on giving people superpowers and it is eventually used to create Artificial Intelligence.
- Carol was empowered by an explosion of an energy core created from the Tesseract, and implicitly is a direct conduit to it. Her powers, however, persist after the destruction of both the Tesseract and the Space Stone at Thanos's hands.
- Superpower Lottery: Ebony Maw says that having any two Infinity Stones would make one the most powerful person in the universe, and Doctor Strange believes that someone will all six could cause destruction "hitherto undreamt of."
- Takes One to Kill One: The only way shown so far to effectively destroy an Infinity Stone is by using their same energy signature, as evidenced by how Wanda could destroy the Mind Stone thanks to it being the origin of her powers. It doesn't have to be the same Stone, however, as Loki's Mind Stone-tipped scepter could penetrate the barrier created by the Tesseract-encased Space Stone. When used together in the Infinity Gauntlet, they even have to capacity to completely annihilate each other, as prime universe Thanos did in the interim between Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame to prevent anyone else from using them or undoing his universal culling, and thus setting the plot of the latter film into motion. What If…? (2021) also shows that an Infinity Stone from another universe trying to achieve something via the Loophole Abuse mentioned above can be ultimately canceled out by another similar Infinity Stone (either native to that universe or otherwise) using the same loophole, as shown when Infinity Ultron's Time Stone was canceled out by Strange Supreme's own Time Stone.
- There Are No Coincidences: By the end of Age of Ultron, Thor notes that four of the six stones have reappeared in a matter of years, and is unnerved by the implications.
- These Are Things Man Was Not Meant to Know:
- The order of monks that kept the Tesseract never once used it, instead keeping it locked away inside their monastery, on the grounds that it "wasn't meant for ordinary men". Thor voices similar opinions during The Avengers, it being part of the reason he even came to Earth in the first place. Nick Fury comes to agree with him.Fury: The Tesseract is where it belongs — out of our reach.
- Use of the Eye of Agamotto and the tome teaching its use are forbidden even among a group who can travel between dimensions at will, because time manipulation is that dangerous.
- The order of monks that kept the Tesseract never once used it, instead keeping it locked away inside their monastery, on the grounds that it "wasn't meant for ordinary men". Thor voices similar opinions during The Avengers, it being part of the reason he even came to Earth in the first place. Nick Fury comes to agree with him.
- Thinking Up Portals: The Tesseract has an ability to tear open holes in space, first used to send the Red Skull god-knows-where. Thanos's forces are able to activate it remotely, creating a small portal for Loki, who then uses it and Stark Tower to create a stable portal for the Chitauri to start a Zerg Rush.
- Time Is Dangerous: Of all the Stones, the Time Stone so far seems to be the most outright dangerous. Misuse of any of the others just tends to kill the user in an incredibly horrible fashion. Misuse of the Time Stone can outright destroy the fabric of reality, or erase the user from existence. With that said, Wong says the Soul Stone might be worse.
- Time Master: The Time Stone allows one to control time itself. Doctor Strange can use it to see into multiple possible futures, and live through them (and even get killed in them) and come back unharmed, while Thanos uses it to undo Vision's and the Mind Stone's destruction so that he can take the latter.
- Too Spicy for Yog-Sothoth: The Red Skull for the Tesseract. Schmidt was apparently so callous and apathetic that it decided to banish him to Vormir and made him the Soulkeeper.
- Too Powerful to Live: Thanos destroyed them after fulfilling his quests, both to prevent anyone from undoing his work as well as to keep himself from falling into the temptation of using them again.
- Troll: The Space Stone seems to have this trait. For instance, the stone's idea of punishing Red Skull is banishing him to Vormir and making him the Soulkeeper, knowing very well that his sociopathic tendencies make him unable to grab the Soul Stone. Infinity War indicates that Red Skull is fully aware of how he was being trolled by the Space Stone.
- World-Wrecking Wave: The Power Stone, when properly contained, can utterly devastate the surface of a planet by creating a destructive chain reaction of all the organic matter on the surface. And when all six Stones are used to alter the nature of existence itself, as a side-effect of the action they also unleash a shockwave of cosmic-level energies that can be felt throughout the universe.
- Worthless Yellow Rocks: What they're reduced to while in the TVA (some of the office workers even use them as paperweights) as Loki had to find that out the hard way. Variant copies of the Mind Stone are, of course, literal yellow rocks.
- Your Size May Vary: The exact size of the Infinity Stones varies between when they're seen on their own and when they're on the Infinity Gauntlet, even accounting for Thanos's greater size compared to humans. On their own, the Stones are about the size of a battery, but when in the Infinity Gauntlet they're small enough to fit neatly in slots on each knuckle. This is more obvious with the Mind Stone — its slot is on the back of the Gauntlet and is much larger than the other five as well as being a different shape, so while the Mind Stone when grouped with the other six is the same size as them when it's time to set it into the Gauntlet it's suddenly much larger and more rounded.
- This is even more evident when Stark pulls the stones away from the Nanotech Gauntlet and onto his own Iron Man armor, as they retain the same relative proportions despite his hand being much, much smaller than the Hulk's or Thanos's.
The Infinity Gauntlet
The Infinity Gauntlet
Nidavellir-forged Infinity Gauntlet (possessed by Thanos)
Stark Nano-tech Infinity Gauntlet
Appearances: Avengers: Age of Ultron note | Avengers: Infinity War | Avengers: Endgame | WandaVision note | Loki note | What If...? | Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness note
A large golden gauntlet meant to be worn on the left hand that is currently in the possession of Thanos. This piece of armor is designed to channel the power of the Infinity Stones, and when all six are slotted into it, it allows the wearer to do literally anything.
During the climax of Avengers: Endgame, the Avengers chose to create their own version of the Infinity Gauntlet using Tony Stark's nanotechnology, for reasons directly responding to the aftermath of Thanos's actions.
- Actually a Doombot: The Gauntlet and the Stones cameo in Odin's vault in Thor. Hela reveals them to be fake replicas in Thor: Ragnarok.
- Adaptational Achilles Heel: In The Infinity Gauntlet storyline, the Gauntlet grants Thanos immense power, and can be activated with a mere thought. The movie's version of the Gauntlet instead requires Thanos to close his fist or snap his fingers in order to invoke its power. This allows the heroes to slow him down by forcing his hand open. Also, invoking the power of all the stones at once (like using it to initiate The Snap) causes the wearer to suffer severe body damage, and even damages the Gauntlet itself. In the comics, using all six Gems at once does no damage to the Gauntlet or its wielder.
- Adaptational Badass: Zigzagged. Since the Infinity Stones in the MCU, unlike the harmless Gems of the Comics, actually cause backlash and cannot be safely handled by mortals, the Infinity Gauntlet is a custom made device that handles this backlash and channels the stones' power, unlike the comics where it is just a regular glove wherein the gems where embedded. By that same token, however, the amount of power the Gauntlet can channel seems to be more limited than in the comics, as detailed below.
- Adaptational Wimp: In the films, the Infinity Gauntlet with all six stones in it is without question the most powerful artifact in the universe, but just like the individual Stones, its powers aren't as great as in the comics.
- In the comics, the Gauntlet makes the wearer omnipotent to a level beyond Physical Gods — while Thanos was wearing it, most superheroes were nothing before him, cosmic beings like Galactus, Kronos, Mephisto, and the Eternals, couldn't stop him, and Thanos eventually fought Eternity, the abstract embodiment of the universe, and won. Further, Thanos just getting angry caused galactic-scale destruction that sank parts of Earth's continents and shattered the Rainbow Bridge of Asgard. The Gauntlet in the films has nowhere near that level of destructive potential.
- The Snap in the comics was implied to be a comparatively small demonstration of the Gauntlet's powers, and Thanos does it effortlessly. In the films, the Snap is an extreme of its power, both damaging the Gauntlet and wounding even someone as tough as Thanos. When he later turns the power of the stones on themselves to destroy them, the Gauntlet is fused to his hand and he claims it almost killed him.
- In the comics, Thanos just wearing the Gauntlet grants him its powers, and he has to actively cut himself off from all but the Power Stone when deciding to give the heroes a "fair" fight. Further, it is possible for the Gauntlet's powers to activate due to the wearer's subconscious thoughts and desires, meaning it requires mental discipline and willpower to wear it without suffering ill effects or doing things by accident. In the films, Thanos has to clench his fist to use the Gauntlet's powers and cannot if someone or something can hold his fingers open, and this also means the Gauntlet's powers aren't active unless the user wills them and it seems there are no side-effects of wearing it (the Snap was the exception, but also an exceptional use of its power).
- Adaptive Armor: In comparison to Thanos's golden Gauntlet, the Stark Nano-tech Gauntlet can adjust to whoever chooses to wear it: despite being designed for regular humanoid proportions, it manages to expand to accommodate Professor Hulk's larger size. However, it was burnt static into its larger proportion when the first snap succeeded—allowing Thanos to attempt to use it one more time. In the final battle, Tony gets around this by simply having his Iron Man armor's nanomachines take the Infinity Stones out of the Nano-tech gauntlet and carry them to his armor, essentially creating a third Infinity Gauntlet built into his armor.
- All Your Powers Combined: It facilitates this, allowing Combination Attacks and using each Infinity Stone at will, but at the cost of not handling any one stone at full power.
- Artifact of Doom: Like the Infinity Stones it is designed to hold, the Gauntlet qualifies as one of these given that it is the only thing that can allow a person to contain the might of all six Stones at once.
- Bling of War: It is just as much a piece of armor as it is a fashion statement, and the entire thing shines with an almost unnatural golden luster.
- Bright Is Not Good: The original gauntlet was a golden glove used to hold the rainbow-colored Infinity Stones, and it's not just the primary weapon of Thanos, but the tool he used to kill off half of existence. By contrast, the gauntlet made by the Avengers has a somewhat duller, brick red color, though Tony would call it "hot-rod red".
- Cast From Hitpoints: The gauntlet was created to channel the enormous powers of the Infinity Stones, and it does so quite well — but only up to a point; the gauntlet can be overtaxed by using too much power from one, or multiple, of the stones, at which point using it will start to cause serious damage to the wielder — up to and including death.
- Early-Bird Cameo: The Infinity Gauntlet can briefly be seen in the background of Odin's vault in the first Thor movie. While the Gauntlet itself proved to be fake, the real one was teased near the end of Phase Two and actually came into play late in Phase Three.
- Effective Knockoff: The Avengers create their own Infinity Gauntlet using Stark nano-tech. It is seen to be explicitly inferior to the Nidavellir-forged Gauntlet because it can't stop the energy of the Stones from leaking out and damaging its user—with potentially fatal results. That said, if the user is willing to risk immense pain and death, they can still use the Stones' powers just as well to do whatever they want.
- Explosive Overclocking: After Thanos gets his wish and "balances" the universe, the gauntlet is shown to be half-melted, though still functional enough to teleport him to safety. After Thanos uses it a second time to destroy the stones, it's fused to his skin.
- Fakin' MacGuffin: Initially it seemed that Odin had the Gauntlet sealed away in his vault on Asgard, only for the stinger of Avengers: Age of Ultron to show Thanos retrieving the Gauntlet from his own vault, casting doubt on which one was real. Hela later confirmed that the Gauntlet in Odin's vault is a fake in Thor: Ragnarok, although certain eagle-eyed viewers had the one in Odin's vault pegged for a fake since it had a right-handed design while the Gauntlet has traditionally been designed for the left hand.
- Logical Weakness:
- While the Gauntlet is insanely powerful, the weapon is still limited in that Thanos has to manually activate the Stones using a simple hand gesture in order to use their powers, most often making a fist or a finger snap. Thus, physically restraining his Gauntlet hand so he can't even close his fist effectively neutralizes the Gauntlet's powers, and is a key limitation that the Avengers frequently exploit during their ambush on Titan.
- Also, unlike in the comics, the Infinity Stones are shown to be extremely dangerous because of the level of power they have, with them being very much like un-shielded energy reactors. Because of that, even the most powerful beings need special equipment to handle and harness the power of the stones (which makes more sense than the comics given the fact that the stones are essential components to the fabric of reality and anything that powerful should be dangerous to handle raw). Several times it's shown that Thanos isn't using the stones to the fullest capability as their power should be able to effect changes in the universe on galactic scales. Even with Stormbreaker, Thor shouldn't have been able to overcome the Power Stone's raw energy. However, this makes sense as Thanos probably realized that there's a limit to how much power the gauntlet could safely channel and utilize so he didn't want to risk irrevocably damaging it before its ultimately intended use as it's irreplaceable (Thanos made sure of that). This supposition is later given weight as after Thanos used the power of the combined stones to wipe out half of all life in the universe, the gauntlet was wrecked, seemingly beyond repair.
- The Avenger's Gauntlet also has a limitation against enemies who might want to use it. Since it's made with Tony Stark's technology using his nanomachines, Tony has a small amount of control over the Gauntlet. In particular, the Iron Man Suit can interface with the Gauntlet if it's in direct contact, which Tony uses to steal the stones.
- Mythology Gag: Teasing the possibility of there being a pair of gauntlets is one to Ultimate Marvel, where there really are two gauntlets. The right handed-one in Odin's vault turns out to be fake, though. However, Endgame has this come full circle when Tony does in fact create a right-handed gauntlet during the Time Heist.
- Phlebotinum-Handling Equipment:
- Aside from Vision's body holding the Mind Stone and the mystical Eye of Agamotto containing the Time Stone, the Gauntlet is the only thing that can contain the power of an Infinity Stone without killing the user, and is the only thing period that can contain all six of them. This is, after all, exactly what it was designed to do. Having power obtained from an Infinity Stone seems to protect against ill effects from holding a stone, as shown by the Tesseract-power-infused Carol Danvers being able to hold the Tesseract without ill effects.
- In Endgame, for the final part of the Avengers' Time Heist, Tony creates a new Infinity Gauntlet to serve this purpose, just like Thanos's original. It lets Professor Hulk utilize the stones' full power to undo the snap, but much like Thanos he ends up with a burned and crippled arm.
- Powered by a Forsaken Child: Rather than some piece of advanced technology, the Gauntlet is subtly played up as something vaguely revolting and horrifying — a perversion of the natural order that forces the quasi-sentient Infinity Stones to do the user's bidding. If you think of it as just one step away from being powered by human souls, then you're on the right track.
- Red Is Heroic: The Avengers forge a new right-handed Infinity Gauntlet during Endgame, painted the red of Iron Man's armors, as the final step of their plan to undo Thanos's genocide.
- Revision: In the Age of Ultron stinger, Thanos is implied to have had the Gauntlet in his possession for some time. This was since rendered Canon Discontinuity and his Gauntlet was given a much more recent origin, around the time Asgard fell into chaos and could not assist the Nidavellir; as such, it was explained that Age of Ultron's stinger is a Time Skip to shortly before the events of Infinity War.
- A Sinister Clue: The gauntlet is left-handed, fitting its nature as the Mad Titan's means to impose his will on the universe. By contrast, the Avengers create a right-handed Infinity Gauntlet to save the countless lives taken by Thanos's gauntlet.
- Socketed Equipment: On its own, the Gauntlet is nothing more than a shiny, durable piece of armor. But the more Stones one inserts in it, the more powerful it becomes.
- Superweapon: While the individual infinity gems that power it are powerful, none of them are insurmountable in a Superhero setting — but the gauntlet itself can harness all six at once for universe-spanning effects with absolutely no means of defending against it (Even if it, itself, is damaged by such feats) — the wielder, in essence, becomes The Omnipotent. Once the gauntlet enters play, the goals of everyone else become "Keep the infinity gems far away from it", and once it is used to wipe out fully half of all sentient life, the goal immediately shifts to using it to undo the devastation.
- Weapon of Mass Destruction: More so than even the Stones it holds, since it can combine all of their powers to give the wearer access to literally unlimited power.
- Wrecked Weapon:
- In Infinity War, Thanos's use of the completed Infinity Gauntlet to kill half of the universe's population at the end of Infinity War appeared to heavily damage and char the Gauntlet (and his entire left arm) afterwards through the sheer scale of the feat. However, it still appears to be functional, as Thanos was not only able to teleport away at the end, but he seemingly healed the fatal wound that Thor gave him when he put Stormbreaker in his chest. Furthermore, the Infinity Stones themselves were undamaged. However, it becomes even more wrecked by Endgame, where Thanos used it to destroy the Infinity Stones and the sheer influx of power fused it to his skin.
- In Endgame, something very similar happens when Bruce uses the second Infinity Gauntlet to restore the population Thanos killed. This gauntlet becomes charred and melted, its mechanical parts reduced to slag, but the stones remain undamaged and very functional]]. It's subverted in this case as later shots of the gauntlet show that recovered in a near brand new state. The implication is that as it is made out of nanites, the Gauntlet can be repaired or recreated as long there is a source of nanomachines which Tony does using his own suit.
The Infinity Crusher
The Infinity Crusher
Appearances: What If...?
A device forged on Nidavellir that is able to atomize the Infinity Stones.
- Crippling Overspecialization: It is able to atomize the Infinity Stones, but only the Infinity Stones from the universe it was built in. On any other set, it has no effect.
- Noodle Incident: When exactly it was created becomes this due to the episode that would've explained it being pushed back to Season 2.
The Staff of One
The Staff of One
Appearances: Runaways
A magic staff of unfathomable power that fell into the hands of Tina Minoru before her daughter Nico became its wielder.
- Artifact of Doom: It's an exceedingly powerful magic relic capable of controlling the elements and can cast spells, Nico capable of conjuring with it despite being a complete novice with sorcery. However, it is intrinsically tied to the Dark Dimension, makes its user reliant on it psychologically and, if left in the wrong hands like Morgan Le Fay, can lead to massive devastation.
- Loyal Phlebotinum: At the start of the series, the staff would only work for Tina, activating with a drop of her blood, Nico only able to use it because she is her daughter. After Nico uses the staff for long enough, Tina is unable to use it herself because it bonded with her. After it restores itself from her body after she attempted to destroy it, even the sorceress Morgan Le Fay couldn't take the staff from her without willing consent.
- Magic Staff: A metal pole with a ring at its top.
- Words Can Break My Bones: The Staff of One can cast spells with desired effects simply by commanding it. However, there seems to be a limit to it, Nico unable to cast the same spell with the same word more than once. In season three, she learns that she can use full sentences as incantations for more powerful and intricate spells.
The Darkhold
The Darkhold
How it appears in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
How it appears in WandaVision and Multiverse of Madness
Appearances: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. | Runaways | WandaVision | Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
"Look, if the internet is a garden hose, this book is Niagara Falls, blasting the universe's deepest thoughts through your eyeballs."
— Dr. Holden Radcliffe
An ancient tome containing vast knowledge. It has been sought by various groups throughout history, eventually winding up in the hands of some scientists.
- Aborted Arc: The Darkhold was set to act as a recurring and connective element (similar to the Infinity Stones) in the Adventure Into Fear sub-franchise, eventually connecting Helstrom, Ghost Rider and Runaways together. Since the closure of Marvel Television, Runaways' cancellation, Ghost Rider being scrapped entirely, and Helstrom being removed from the MCU altogether, it disappeared for a while. It finally showed up again in the hands of Agatha Harkness in WandaVision, and is taken by Wanda Maximoff.
- Adaptational Backstory Change: In the comics, the Darkhold was invested into parchment made from flesh, then later transcribed into stone and scrolls. Here the original is the walls of Wundagore (where the original was made in the comics) and all other spellbooks are copies of that original chamber. Further, Chthon created the Darkhold in the comics after fleeing Demogorge the God-Eater so that he would always have a conduit back to Earth; Multiverse of Madness shows instead that it was created to serve the Scarlet Witch.
- Ambiguous Situation: The Darkhold's changed appearance in WandaVision. Is it a redesign? Another copy? A "canon" version? Did the book simply shapeshift more than its text? It should be noted that in the comics, while the pages are indestructible the binding is not, and the book has been divided into separate, different looking covers to handwaved its inconsistent appearance. WandaVision director Matt Shakman later clarified that it's indeed the same book, confirming it can change its appearance.
- In Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, it is confirmed that the Darkhold is a copy of the spells etched into a cave by the archdemon Chthon, meaning that all versions of the spells bound as book are mere copies, clearing the discrepancy between series.
- Artifact of Doom: There's a very good reason its other name is "the Book of the Damned". Its seemingly infinite knowledge tends to drive people to villainy. Everything created through the Darkhold also turns out to cause some sort of unintended disaster, resulting in whoever uses it meeting an unfortunate fate: The Bauers and their science team end up as demonic, ethereal ghosts for their attempt at synthesizing matter, Eli Morrow ends up getting Dragged Off to Hell and nearly destroys half of Los Angeles, the LMDs become destructive, manipulative kill machines that feel no remorse (except for May's, who pulls a Heroic Sacrifice to blow the S.H.I.E.L.D. base to bits), the Framework creates an alternate universe in a Bad Present where HYDRA reigns supreme, and Ivanov and AIDA meet painful ends without accomplishing their goals. Notably, Radcliffe (the only user of the Darkhold who realized he had been corrupted), is the only one who gets to die peacefully, being deleted painlessly from the Framework while watching a beautiful sunset. As seen in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, neither Wanda nor Stephen are immune.
- Big Budget Beef-Up: Sports a much more ominous and magical design in WandaVision.
- The Bus Came Back:
- After being banished to Hell by Robbie Reyes, it later appears in Morgan le Fay's possession when she returns to Earth from the Dark Dimension.
- The Darkhold later returns in the possession of Agatha Harkness, with a redesign.
- The Corrupter: Almost anyone who reads it or even knows what it can do tends be corrupted by the knowledge it offers, no matter how noble their intentions. Eli Morrow got corrupted without even reading it, while Dr. Radcliffe merely glanced at it and was freaked out by what he saw, but was quickly convinced it holds the key to immortality. Radcliffe is notably also the only one to realize he was corrupted, but it takes so long that he ends up killing or ruining the lives of nearly all the people he cared about. Notably, Radcliffe is also the only user of the Darkhold who dies peacefully instead of meeting a morbid end like all of its other users, possibly because of this. There were, however, two exceptions to the norm: Anton Ivanov and Tina Minoru. Anton apparently read quite a bit of it, and other than finding it funny at times, willingly gave it to Radcliffe because it told him to. Tina Minoru however was able to extract an entire spell from it, powerful enough to banish Morgan le Fey, without any repercussions.
- After gaining possesion of it during WandaVision, Wanda Maximoff quickly falls under its corrupting influence and becomes solely focused on finding a way to travel between universes no matter the cost.
- Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness reveals that Stephen Strange is also vulnerable to its corruption. The Earth-838 version of Strange had to be executed by the rest of the Illuminati after extensive use of the Darkhold led to him causing universes to collide. Sinister Strange, from yet another universe, followed a similar path but had nobody to stop him. By the time MCU-Strange meets him, his universe is on the brink of collapse and Sinister Strange is a husk of himself with a third eye. Primary Strange is also corrupted by it through his brief use of it, though to a far lesser extent.
- Dangerous Forbidden Technique: While all of its spells are varying levels of dangerous, the "Dreamwalker" ritual is the absolute worst in the book. It allows the user to project their consciousness into an alternate universe version of themself, fully controlling their actions for the duration of the ritual. Extended use of the spell threatens to destroy both universes. Doctor Strange ups the ante by using it to control a deceased copy of himself, which incurrs the wrath of the souls of the damned.
- Deal with the Devil: Reading the Darkhold essentially ends up being this. It offers great knowledge and power to all its users, but everything it's used to make ends up resulting in disaster and everyone who reads it meets with a terrible fate.
- A Form You Are Comfortable With: A variation. The Darkhold gives people knowledge in terms they understand, going beyond simple Translator Microbes. For modern users, this usually comes in the form of scientific knowledge, but it's implied that this also took the form of dark magic in the past. It ties in to the MCU's theme that magic and science are essentially the same thing. The book itself is also capable of changing its shape, as it had at least three different designs spanning millenia: Its initial ambigram cover as in seen in Agents of SHIELD and Runaways; a more ancient-looking, stone-tablet appearance as seen in S.H.I.E.L.D. archives; and finally the glowing, ornate variation when Agatha possessed it.
- Great Big Book of Everything: The Darkhold appears to be able to generate any knowledge its readers want in their native language. Advanced particle physics and quantum mechanics beyond current human science is but one example. Holden Radcliffe compared it to the internet; the latter is a garden hose and the former is Niagara Falls.
- Greater-Scope Villain:
- While not sentient, the Darkhold is the driving force of evil in Agents of SHIELD Season 4. To wit:
- It inflamed Eli Morrow's resentment and jealousy at never having a chance to properly do anything with his genius, so he turned against the Bauers to make himself a god.
- Radcliffe got freaked when he glimpsed it, but later became convinced it held the key to immortality — which led to him creating the Framework.
- It caused Aida to gain sentience and a desire to be human and have emotions, resent her artificial status and drive to kill her creator and corrupt the Framework by creating a world where HYDRA rules with herself in charge as Madame Hydra.
- Come Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, it seems to have taken this role again, this time possibly for the entire MCU (at least on the magical side of things). Its possession by Agatha Harkness allowed her to bring it into Westview, where it fell into the hands of Wanda; this led to her reading it to unlock the secrets of chaos magic, which in turn caused her to discover the multiverse and become obsessed with getting her children back, ultimately driving her insane and causing her Face–Heel Turn. A similar fate is shown to have befallen Sinister Strange in his own timeline with another copy of the book, and Illuminati Stange only avoided this end by allowing himself to be executed first. Even the Sacred Timeline Strange, in the five minutes he is using a copy, becomes an incredibly powerful lich.
- While not sentient, the Darkhold is the driving force of evil in Agents of SHIELD Season 4. To wit:
- Line-of-Sight Name: Most people call it the Darkhold because of the big obvious title on the cover, but is actually probably its real title in Black Speech that just happens to look like the word "Darkhold", but some of the writing doesn't join up properly (such as the apparent "A" is more like an elongated "n" with no score through the middle) funnily enough the writing looks alot like the writing in the Necronomicon Ex Mortis.
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: While the Darkhold is clearly a magical object, it appears to have abilities beyond merely giving people knowledge about the universe. Everyone who reads the Darkhold becomes corrupted, and everything that is created using it ends up causing some sort of disaster. Whether or not the Darkhold does these things directly or if these consequences are simply because there are things man was not meant to know is not revealed explicitly. It's also possible that the Darkhold doesn't just give people information about the universe but offers them power through any means they understand.
- More than Mind Control: While the book seems to read the user it primarily just offers the user whatever knowledge they desire. The thing is, the book is wired to the entire universe and can provide the reader with the deepest darkest secrets of existence. It's implied that what ultimately corrupts the reader is having unlimited access to all of the knowledge across reality and the temptation to use that knowledge for their heart's desire.
- Only Smart People May Pass: When Anton Ivanov, a well-connected but otherwise ordinary man, read the Darkhold in an effort to learn how to destroy the Inhumans, what it told him can be basically summed up as "give the book to Radcliffe" (assuming he was being truthful about what he read). This seems to imply that the book will only dole out knowledge to those with the capacity to make use of it. He is able to use it after being turned into a Brain in a Jar with a Remote Body, however.
- Power Copying: Contains a ritual that would let a mage take America Chavez's Thinking Up Portals ability, killing her in the process.
- These Are Things Man Was Not Meant to Know: The whole point of having Aida read the book was to avert this trope as it was assumed as an android she could read the book and not be negatively affected. It didn't work — its corrupting influence works on all sentient beings, and Aida was enough of a person to count.
- Tome of Eldritch Lore: It's a very old book with magical properties which, if the lore is the same as the comics, was written by an Elder God. It was. It's also only a copy - the original content was recorded in a dark temple on Mount Wundagore.
- Translator Microbes: The text in the Darkhold appears to the reader in their mother tongue, even if multiple people with different mother tongues are looking at it at the same time. When read by Aida it even translates its words into binary code.
- Wants Versus Needs: While the Book of Vishanti gives the reader the answers they need, the Darkhold provides the reader exactly the thing that they want. Unfortunately, the thing they want is usually power or forbidden knowledge, leaving a trail of doom in its wake.
The Book of Vishanti
The Book of Vishanti
Appearances: Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
A mystical spellbook used by Doctor Strange which always contains the spell the wielder needs the most.
- Artifact of Hope: The Book of Vishanti is the Good Counterpart of the Darkhold, being a book of white magic designed to allow its readers to overcome their foes. Notably, the Illuminati of Earth-838 was able to use it to defeat Thanos before he assembled all six Infinity Stones, something that was Beyond the Impossible on main Earth.
- Good Colors, Evil Colors: It emits a mystical blue glow in contrast to the Darkhold's eerie red glow.
- Good Counterpart: To the Darkhold, a similar magical spellbook.
- Great Big Book of Everything: Supposedly contains many powerful spells and will always contain a spell that the wielder needs.
- MacGuffin: A powerful magical item that will grant the user whatever ability they need, so naturally it gets destroyed just before Doctor Strange and America Chavez get to use it. That said, it was not entirely useless: one of the last pages shown on screen before it burnt out features the exact same star energy pattern America produces when she opens dimension gates—cluing in Strange to the fact that the solution he has to defusing Wanda was America herself. This is what drove him to give her that inspirational pep talk to break free.
- Wants Versus Needs: While the Darkhold gives what the reader wants (usually great power and knowledge) with a cost, the Book of Vishanti's whole deal is that it gives the reader exactly the thing they need. Instead of giving Strange a spell or Plot Device to take the Scarlet Witch down with force, it hints to him that America is the key to stopping Wanda, giving Wanda a Heel Realization and destroying the Darkhold once and for all.
The Darkforce
See MCU: Dimensions
The Lightforce
The Lightforce
Appearances: Cloak and Dagger | Runaways
A mysterious element connected to the Darkforce.
- Laser Blade: Tandy uses her power to create knives of pure light.
- Light 'em Up: The Lightforce provides its users with the ability to create light.
The Necrosword
The Necrosword
Appearances: Thor: Love and Thunder
"If it is revenge you seek, kill all the gods!"
A strange and terrifying dark weapon with the power to slay gods, wielded by Gorr the God Butcher.
- Adaptational Backstory Change: In the comics, All-Black was the progenitor of the symbiotes, a species that doesn't exist in the MCU not counting the offspring left by Eddie Brock and Venom. The MCU version does away with the symbiote connection while referencing its vague shrouded-in-myth backstory from Thor: God of Thunder. It still possesses a malicious will of its own, and unlike its comic book counterpart speaks to Gorr when it chooses him as its wielder.
- Adapted Out: Knull and his connections to the Necrosword are completely removed due to Venom's film rights being tied up with Sony. That being said, the underlying concept of the weapon being an Artifact of Doom wielded by a dark god at least remains unchanged.
- Ambiguously Related: The blades conjured by Hela in Thor: Ragnarok were called Necroswords in the official art-book, and her helmet itself was called a Necrosword in What If...?, though their relation to Gorr's weapon — the Necrosword — is unknown, as Thor: Love and Thunder doesn't give much detail about its origins. This is lampshaded in a video for MCU Gorr's debut
in Marvel: Contest of Champions, where MCU Hela briefly controls Gorr's Necrosword alongside her own, to his annoyance. - Artifact of Doom: The Necrosword is a cursed divine weapon said to have been forged at the dawn of time and passed down from wielder to wielder, corrupting them into deicidal dark gods. Even a mere mortal like Gorr is granted power to rival — if not surpass — that of Thor. It also appears to have a will of its own, having "chosen" Gorr. It also physically corrupts and destroys him, such that he dies once it's destroyed, and mentally corrupts him as well, driving him to kill all gods, regardless, not just the Jerkass Gods that mocked his daughter's pointless, drawn-out death.
- Bad Powers, Bad People: Enforced. Due to corrupting nature of the sword, its wielders have no choice to become anything but twisted and evil individuals as they wield its powers over shadows and darkness.
- Black Swords Are Better: The Necrosword is an ancient divine weapon in the form of a black longsword, and is capable of slaying gods.
- The Corrupter: It is physically killing Gorr, as well as giving him a monstrous appearance, with much paler skin, shark-like teeth, and blackened fingers. It also appears to have corrupted his mind, driving him to kill all gods, and not just the arrogant Jerkass God who mocked him and the death of his daughter.
- Dark Is Evil: Is pitch black and all of its wielders have used it for evil.
- Decomposite Character: The sword Hela wields in Ragnarok has the Necrosword's comic book appearance, and the official art book for the film called it the Necrosword, whereas What if...? called her helmet the Necrosword, but it's never called that in the film and Hela's abilities seem entirely different from those normally associated with the sword. Meanwhile Gorr's sword does have those abilities and some MCU-original ones, but looks like a basic longsword.
- The Dreaded: The gods who believe in its existence fear it, and with good reason — as it is capable of killing them.
- Empathic Weapon: The Necrosword has a will of its own and whispers to Gorr when it chooses him as its wielder, telling him that if he desires revenge he should kill all the gods, and to seek out Eternity by gaining access to the Bifrost.
- Evil Counterpart: Notably a dark mirror to Thor's weapons, Mjolnir and Stormbreaker. In contrast to their arcing lightning, it unleashes flowing shadows. It empowers wielders it chooses, including mortals, to standing equal to gods, though like Mjolnir is doing to Jane, it's inevitably fatal. Like Stormbreaker, it can be used to teleport anywhere in the universe, but it's very stealthily done through the monochrome Shadow Realm as opposed to the very conspicuous rainbow-colored Bifrost. Also it's a slashing weapon as opposed to their primarily blunt force.
- Grayscale of Evil: The first sign of its corrupting influence on the wielder is when it sucks the color from them, leaving Gorr colorless beyond his Supernatural Gold Eyes. This is inherent to the Shadow Realm too, Thor, Jane and Valkyrie losing their color when they traverse it.
- Immortal Breaker: The Necrosword is capable of slaying gods with ease, and with its power Gorr is able to take down deities as large as Falligar the Behemoth. It's implied that it was made specifically to hunt gods, the sword itself feared specifically by the gods of the universe and the sword choosing Gorr because of how Rapu destroyed his faith in them.
- Mysterious Past: Its origins and relation to Hela's Necrosword — if any — are left largely unexplained in Thor: Love and Thunder.
- Mythology Gag: The Necrosword draws its power from the Shadow Realm, which in the comics was first introduced in Marvel Spotlight as the home dimension of Mister E and other shadow-men; with King in Black retconning it to be the primordial void that existed before the universe, and from which Knull created the symbiotes — including All-Black the Necrosword and Mister E.
- Names to Run Away from Really Fast: The Necrosword doesn't really convey a reasurring sense of safety, being named after the Greek prefix for death.
- Power of the Void: It is connected to the Shadow Realm, a dimension of darkness, and gives its wielder the power to weaponize shadows and dark energy.
- Soul Jar: Once the sword is used, it binds the user's life force to it, though the user will die from the corruption eventually. If destroyed, the previous user dies within minutes.
- Summon to Hand: Can be summoned by its owner from anywhere just by thinking about it.
- Super-Empowering: It turned Gorr from a mortal alien into a dark god capable of fighting on-par with the likes of Thor Odinson and Valkyrie, warrior deities with centuries of combat experience.
- Tainted Veins: Gives this to its owners, turning their veins black when claiming them.
- Time Abyss: It is said to have been forged at the dawn of the universe, though by whom and for what purpose is unknown.
- Wrecked Weapon: Jane Foster uses the repaired Mjölnir to shatter the Necrosword, but when Gorr performs a Summon to Hand, the weapon starts to repair itself. Undaunted, Jane unleashes a lightning blast that destroys the sword fragments she captured and reduces the Necrosword to dust, truly destroying it, depriving Gorr of its power, and leaving him mortally-wounded.
The Thunderbolt
The Thunderbolt
Appearances: Thor: Love and Thunder
"That is the sound of lightning."
The divine weapon of Zeus, God of Lightning and King of Olympus.
- Artifact of Power: On top of being an impressive weapon with a variety of modes, it allows fast travel throughout the universe, it can imbue others with godly power and lacks the enchantments Mjolnir has, allowing anyone to pick it up and use.
- Magic Feather: In a deleted scene detailing an alternate encounter between Thor and Zeus, the King of the Olympians reveals that the Thunderbolt is actually a technique rather than an actual weapon that theoretically any god can manifest if they're skilled enough to learn the trick. He does admit that he is actually incapable of going to the Altar of Eternity with it, because he's not pure enough to be worthy of entrance.
- Morph Weapon: It can be thrown like a javelin, break off into tinier versions of itself for multiple strikes and broken in half for up-close melee combat.
- Mundane Utility: Zeus is shown using it for a variety of tricks to entertain others, up to and including Fantastic Fireworks.
- Shock and Awe: The kind of weapon you'd expect from someone called the "God of Lightning".
- Super-Empowering: Thor manages to use its mighty power to empower a group of children to fight an army of Shadow monsters and win, imbuing random objects they find with its Shock and Awe abilities.
