Infinity Stone

The Infinity Stones

SPOILER ALERT: This article includes multiple spoilers for the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

The Infinity Stones are powerful alien artifacts in the MCU. Six are known to exist. All contain or channel vast quantities of energy. They are inherently dangerous, and they will destroy most people who attempt to handle them directly. Technology can be used to harness their energy with much lower risk.

Origins

According to the Collector, the Infinity Stones are remnants of "singularities" that existed before the Big Bang. An ancient race of advanced aliens made them into artifacts of immense power. At least one of their uses was to cleanse planets of all life. These aliens appear to be the Celestials from the comics.

Known Infinity Stones

• The Tesseract is a glowing blue cube that was hidden on Earth by the Asgardians sometime in Earths' past. It was discovered by Hydra leader Johann Schmidt and used to power an assortment of high-tech weapons during World War II. It was eventually dropped into the Atlantic Ocean and later recovered by SHIELD. Loki attempted to recover it for an alien benefactor in return for being made ruler of Earth, but his plan failed, and the Tesseract was taken back to Asgard.
• The Aether is a reddish blob of fluid that Dark Elf leader Malekith sought to use to destroy the Nine Realms and return the universe to a state of complete darkness. He was defeated by Thor, and the Aether was taken to the Collector for safe-keeping.
• Ronan the Accuser, a Kree renegade, attempted to use an Infinity Stone (a glowing purple ellipsoid with no specific name given, called the "Orb" after its container) to destroy the planet Xandar. So far, it is the most dangerous to handle directly. Following Ronan's defeat, it was stored in a vault in the Nova Corps headquarters on Xandar.
• The stone in the sceptre given to Loki by Thanos incorporated the Mind Stone (no other name specified). The stone has since been incorporated into an android body created by Ultron.

Gallery

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  The Tesseract

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  The Aether

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  The "Orb"

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  The Mind Stone

Trivia

• There is some correspondence between the "Infinity Stones" and the "Infinity Gems" of Marvel comics. The full list of "Infinity Gems" includes Space, Time, Reality, Mind, Soul, and Power.
• According to Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn, the "Orb" is the "Power Gem" from Marvel comics, and the Tesseract is the "Space Gem". The stone stored in Loki's sceptre has been confirmed to be the "Mind Stone". The "Infinity Gem" that corresponds to the Aether has not yet been identified. This association indicates that the stones' color-coding in the MCU does not match that of the comics.