Avengers: Infinity War is quite the success story for its villain, with Thanos charging through many a capable opponent in his quest to erase half of all life from the universe. Nonetheless, his eventual victory comes at a price, with the despot reluctantly driven to murder his own daughter Gamora to acquire one of the Infinity Stones. But as if losing the one person he loves isn’t bad enough, the Mad Titan also seemingly breaks his favorite accessory, and it’s in this last-minute development that one Reddit user sees the opportunity for Earth’s Mightiest Heroes to turn the tide in Avengers 4.
The damage done to the Infinity Gauntlet as a result of Thanos’ world-changing finger-snap is confirmed by co-director Joe Russo himself on the audio commentary for the Infinity War home video release. It’s a moment that Redditor Iamtheandrew observes as evidence that while the Infinity Stones may be virtually all-powerful, the gauntlet used to wield them still has its flaws and limitations.
“As we all know, the gauntlet itself is wrecked. How? The gauntlet itself is made of Uru, which since Hela crushed Mjolnir, we know that this material is not completely indestructible. However, we know that the infinity stones have infinite power (hence the name) so, we can deduce that the gauntlet is wrecked because it is physically incapable of handling the gems at the full power, and I think this is why Thanos actually holds back several times throughout the movie (like not making Drax blocks a permanent thing, or not shooting a laser powerful enough to destroy Iron Man’s shield). When we see the gauntlet, we also notice that Thanos himself also took a big toll from the exertion of power, and this is a big deal because we know that Thanos can literally beat the Hulk’s ass in a matter of seconds and not even Thanos walked away unscathed from a massive endeavor.”
The theory goes on to argue that not only is the Infinity Gauntlet wrecked, but that it’s also unlikely that anyone will be making a replacement – for Thanos, or for anyone else.
“Next, notice the mold that was shown for the gauntlet: it’s not a pour in mold. It’s actually more like a specially fitted frame, specifically for Thanos’s hand. Eitri doesn’t have his hands, so he doesn’t have the dexterity to actually craft another frame to make a gauntlet for somebody else, so making a new gauntlet for anyone other than Thanos is out of the question.
In addition to that, even if they somehow were able to make another gauntlet of said size do you really think anyone other than Eitri could actually make it considering how many small and carefully crafted individual parts there are for the gauntlet?”
So, if fancy gauntlets are more or less out of the equation from here on, how does Imtheandrew suggest that the Avengers reverse the damage done at the end of their last movie?
“I personally think that the Avengers will have to find Thanos and take the stones from the gauntlet after beating him. Then what? Well, Marvel is notoriously good at foreshadowing and revisiting themes from movies and add this to the real world knowledge that most of the original cast are gone after this movie and we have an interesting predicament. Well who from the original cast is left? Cap, Tony, Thor, Banner, Clint and Nat. That’s six people. What if, just like in Guardians, the original 6 will hold hands, each holding one of them holding a stone, so that the stones made be used in unison? And what if in doing this, their bodies won’t be able to physically handle the power and the original members all die from using the stones to undo everything Thanos did.”
Yikes. Granted, most of us are predicting at least some deaths among the Phase 1 Avengers line-up, but it would be a pretty bold move to kill off the full team in one fell swoop. All the same, this generally seems like a pretty well-reasoned set of points, even if it does seem to contradict the popular prediction that the Mad Titan’s “Snappening” will be reversed via time travel. Regardless, we’ll see just how much truth is in this post when Avengers 4 comes out on May 3rd, 2019.
