Hello and welcome to Comic Drake where I talk about comic books and my name is Drake!
The Marvel Universe is chock full of powerful objects and relics, from the Ultimate Nullifier
to the Comic Cubes, but none are as well known as the Infinity Stones.
Now I’ve seen lots of videos about these guys online but they’re usually just quick
summaries, but here on Comic Drake, it’s my job to go obnoxiously deep, to infinity
and beyond.
So let’s take a look at just what these bad boys ARE, how they work, and what they
mean for the Marvel Comics Universe going forward.
Power, Space, Mind, Time, Reality, and Soul.
These are the six Infinity Stones, the first of which debuted in Marvel Premiere #1 in
1972.
As the first to appear was the Soul Gem, all six of these were collectively known as the
Soul Gems.
Obviously though, this got confusing since only the Soul Gem had power over souls.
In fact, it was Thanos himself who renamed them to the Infinity Gems which caught on
pretty quickly throughout the universe!
However, the gems are known as the Infinity Stones in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and
in a move of corporate synergy, they were retconned to being called the Infinity Stones
in the comics as well as of 2017.
However, it looks like Marvel was committed to renaming them the Infinity Stones before
then considering that at C2E2 2016, Marvel was playing with the idea of releasing promotional
Infinity Stones along with Secret Wars #8 in a similar fashion to DC’s Lantern Corps
rings during the Blackest Night event.
The exact origin of the stones is unknown at the moment, but the most commonly accepted
theory is that they’re the remains of an ancient cosmic being that killed itself, leading
to the creation of the multiverse.
This was originally fleshed out as the cosmic entity, Nemesis, during the Avengers/Ultraforce
crossover event in 1995 which introduced a seventh rock in the set, the Ego Gem.
However, Marvel has retconned this to be non-canon and classified Nemesis along with the events
of the crossover to Earth-93060.
However, the idea of the stones being the foundation of the universe has persisted to
this day.
Nemesis or not, this being’s suicide was essentially the big bang of the Marvel multiverse
and the remnants of its body formed inside of each of the infinite universes as some
incarnation of the Infinity Stones.
So yes, while the stones in each of Marvel’s universes might be different, they actually
all share the same origin and are connected in their own special way.
It’s also worth noting that the Infinity Stones aren’t always stones in each universe.
Take Earth 4,290,001 for example.
Instead of gems, they have six panes of “Forever Glass” which they use to make the “Wishing
Box”.
As explained by The Collector, one of the Elders of the Universe, the stones are essentially
the “source code” of the universe and by using the stones, a being can manipulate
the code to reprogram and rewrite reality itself.
The Soul Stone in particular is special in that it’s basically the “hard drive”
of the universe, a limitless storage device of information.
That’s why the stones can’t be used to destroy themselves.
These artifacts make up the universe and without them, reality just can’t exist.
In fact, these stones can’t even be destroyed with the only time we’ve seen it happen
being when Captain America used them to stop an incursion, preventing two universes from
colliding and destroying each other in the process.
Now, while the stones seemed lost, they’re partly what led to the creation of Battleworld
in Marvel’s Secret Wars event.
More on that later.
Because each of the stones IS their aspect of the universe, they can only be used in
the universe that they’re originally from.
So no, you can’t just go to another universe, gather another set, and be twice as powerful.
Alright so all of that is great and all, but let’s talk about the stones themselves and
what makes each of them special starting with…
The Power Stone.
This puppy embodies all might in the universe in both energy and physical form that does
exist, has existed, or will exist.
Not only can it enhance the physical strength of any who wield it, but it can also duplicate
and/or enhance any additional abilities whether they be natural of superhuman.
The Power Stone is also one of the most important of the collection in that it can be used to
amp up the already awesome power of the other stones, allowing them to reach their full
potential.
Next up is the Space Stone.
This allows the user to perform perfect instantaneous teleportation of themselves or any object,
sometimes on such a level that they can teleport with just their subconscious and arrive at
destinations before they’re consciously aware of needing to be there.
With the Space Stone, the bearer can exist at multiple places at once or even nowhere
at all.
Plus, a wielder can even manipulate space to such a degree that they can literally rearrange
planets, disrupt the kinetic energy of objects in motion, or fold space to change the distance
between objects in a way that defies the laws of physics.
Now unlike the other stones, it’s been shown that constant exposure to the Space Stone
can grant permanent powers even when away from the rock, as seen by Pip the Troll who
guarded it for so long that he permanently gained the ability to teleport.
The Mind Stone is the universe’s collective subconscious.
Its wielder can obtain mastery of all thoughts and can gain a plethora of psionic powers
including telepathy, empathy, and telekinesis.
When amplified by the Power Stone, the Mind Stone can connect and communicate with every
sentient mind in the entire universe all at once.
The Time Stone allows for mastery of time past, present, and future.
Time travel and seeing into the past and future are the obvious applications, but the Time
Stone can also be used to reverse or accelerate the passage of time inside of a bubble, freeze
time, and even create time loops.
With the help of the Power Stone, the wielder can also exist throughout all of time simultaneously.
This one has been called the most powerful and dangerous of the whole set, the Reality
Stone.
This thing is crazy and has the power to manipulate and alter material existence down to the smallest
iota.
Its user can ignore the fundamental scientific laws that govern the universe.
Hell, with the Reality Stone, one plus one can equal seventy five if you want it to.
With this stone, someone can ignore physics, raise the dead, distort reality within a bubble,
and practically anything else their mind can conjure!
The Time and Reality Stones are so powerful that it’s said that using either of them
without the others could result in disaster.
Last but not least is the one that started it all, the Soul Stone.
This thing is perhaps the most unique out of the collection in that the stone sort of
has a hunger for souls and contains an entire metaphysical world inside of it called Soul-World.
Not only that, but the stone’s wielder can access the abilities and memories of those
trapped within it.
The Soul Stone can capture, control, and alter all life forces both living and dead, can
alter the very nature of beings, revert beings back to their natural state, and even create
a soul blast that can render someone unconscious.
While the unpredictable Soul Stone seems to be the most sentient out of the bunch, all
of them talk to each other and have some level of consciousness as evidenced by when the
Time Stone made itself vanish when its counterparts were seemingly destroyed.
I should also mention that you can’t just get the stones and instantly start using them
to their full potential, even with the Power Stone.
It takes an extraordinary mind to get them to work and even beings like Thanos and Adam
Warlock needed a bit of an adjustment period.
Speaking of Warlock, when the first stone made its first appearance, it was sort of
adhered to Adam’s forehead.
When used by themselves, most users wear their stones in a similar fashion and while it’s
not quite clear on HOW it works, the stones can seemingly socket themselves pretty easily.
The most famous device used to contain them is the legendary Infinity Gauntlet, but we’ve
also seen other objects used such as Galactus’ Focusing Crux.
These holsters actually have no power of their own and literally just exist to be bedazzled
by these cosmic gems.
But hey, why bother mounting the stones to a device when you could just be like Thanos
who used the power of five of them to create a large synthetic gem called the Star Gem?
Despite its impressive size, we never really got to see WHAT the Star Gem was capable of
since it was almost immediately destroyed by Iron Man.
The Star Gem was hands down the largest Infinity Stone that we’d see for a long time, but
would you believe that the Power Stone went from looking like this TO THIS?!
Gerry Duggan, the writer of the Guardians of the Galaxy books post Secret Wars, said
in an interview with IGN that “The universe has been reordered after Secret Wars.
There’s no reason that we would see the Stones as they once were.”
he went on to explain that the stones were restored to their “original factory settings”
and that they haven’t been cut into gems yet outside of the Soul Stone.
That’s why the Power Stone became this MASSIVE hunk of rock since (moving back to the computer
code metaphor) Duggan says it’s essentially uncompressed information right now.
It’s also noteworthy in that the Power Stone has changed colors from its normal red to
purple.
See, not only did Marvel use this reboot opportunity to rename the Infinity Gems to the Infinity
Stones to match the movies, but they’re also redoing the colors so that they can match
the cinematic universe as well.
At the time of this recording, not much has actually happened with these new incarnations
of the stones, but it’s shaping up to be monumental and a bigger deal than anything
in Marvel’s past history.
Now originally, this video was going to be a lot longer and include a complete in-canon
history of the stones, but it didn’t quite flow right and I just removed it.
But, if that’s a video that you want to see, let me know in the comments below and
But, if you liked this video why not consider subscribing, or even watching another one?
In fact, the Infinity Stones were a very prevalent in the Marvel Illuminati series, so you might
want to take a look at my video on Marvel’s Illuminati and their complete history.
Anyway I hope you learned at least a little something new, and hopefully I’ll see you
next time.