5 Marvel Weapons That Can Destroy An Entire Universe

Since its Golden Age in the 1960s, and especially in the 1970s, Marvel Comics has often played around with cosmic gods and outsize powers that we puny mortals can never hope to comprehend. Marvel Comics has its own canon of gods and goddesses who can control the very cosmos and embody the nature of everything. Marvel fans will likely be able to tell you about Eternity and Infinity, the bodily incarnations of Space and Time. They might even know about the ineffable Celestials, Lord Chaos and Master Order, the Living Tribunal, and the sisters of Love and Hate.

Of course, the gods of reality aren't exactly relatable in the same way as Peter Parker, a young man struggling to maintain a healthy work-life balance ... and who also has radioactive spider blood that gives him superhuman abilities. Indeed, unknowable space deities don't readily lend themselves to relatively grounded narratives the way Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man does. It's part of why movies about the webhead continue to make billions of dollars in theaters, whereas Marvel Studios' "Eternals" proved to be a trickier sell.

And because the very nature of creation can be monkeyed with in Marvel stories, writers have often come up with magical objects, cursed spells, or blessed energy receptacles that can actually pose a threat to the aforementioned gods or risk undoing the universe itself. Marvel is (arguably) best when it's dealing with cosmic extremes, and some of the best Marvel tales have been born from the fate, acquisition, and employment of mind-bogglingly powerful items that are sought after and/or wielded by ultra-powerful heroes or villains.

Here are five such objects that are probably capable of wiping out the universe.

The Ultimate Nullifier made its first appearance in "Fantastic Four" #50 in 1966. It's a small, handheld device that somehow contains enough power to eliminate any target that it is pointed at. This includes entire planets. It is contained in the collection of the eternally hungry space giant Galactus, and while the Fantastic Four has occasionally had it in their possession, Galactus always somehow gets it back.

It's never been properly stated what powers the Ultimate Nullifier, although some recent wrinkles in Marvel Comics have finally pointed to its origins. It seems that the Nullifier was created by a group of long-lived, all-seeing, non-interfering aliens called the Watchers for use in a war with an alien species called the Prosilicans. The legend has it that the Ultimate Nullifier was once, long ago, used to wipe out about 90% of the universe's living beings.

It's not an energy beam or a gun, though. According to a description in a 1999 issue of "Fantastic Four" (specifically vol 3, issue #24), the Ultimate Nullifier can link to its user's thoughts and intentions and instantly blank from existence anything they happen to be concentrating on. If someone has enough cosmic awareness to keep the whole of creation in their mind at once, then, yes, this object could, in fact, wipe out the entire universe. Luckily, if some average schmuck gets their hands on the Ultimate Nullifier, they wouldn't have a mind large enough to do any damage beyond maybe a few cities. Sadly, the Nullifier will be a threat as long as there are cosmic beings hanging around to use it.

Mainstream audiences are familiar with the Infinity Gems thanks to the Marvel Cinematic Universe's Infinity Saga. They were renamed the Infinity Stones for the MCU, but their effect is the same. There are six of them, each harnessing a major fundamental force in the universe: reality, power, the soul, the mind, space, and time. When assembled and placed on a specialized gauntlet called the Infinity Gauntlet, their possessor is imbued with god-level powers. This is what allows the Mad Titan Thanos (Josh Brolin) to wipe out half of all life in the universe with but a snap of his fingers in the MCU film "Avengers: Infinity War."

In Marvel Comics' "The Infinity Gauntlet" storyline, the Mad Titan Thanos collects the Infinity Gems to impress his would-be girlfriend Death, aka. Lady Death (a character played by Aubrey Plaza in the MCU series "Agatha All Along"). As in "Infinity War," Thanos snaps his fingers and wipes out half of all life in existence, hoping the act will impress Death ... which it doesn't. Later, Thanos faces off with the above-mentioned space deities for control of the universe at large. He's kept on the ropes for a moment, but he's able to fight back and even slay Eternity. As a result, Thanos briefly becomes the keeper of all the cosmos.

So, yeah, if someone can murder literal gods with the Infinity Gauntlet and use it to make themself the Universe, then they could definitely use it to make the universe merely blink out of existence.

In Marvel's comics, Cosmic Cubes are boxes of super-energy that can warp the nature of reality. They come from the realm of the Beyonders and turn up in both cosmic and earthbound Marvel stories with alarming frequency. A Cosmic Cube is even the MacGuffin in the MCU movies "Captain America: The First Avenger" and "The Avengers."

In one of the "Infinity Gauntlet" follow-up stories, "The Infinity Crusade," Marvel's heroes face off with The Goddess, a seemingly benevolent Messiah figure born of Adam Warlock's "good" impulses. She intends to erase all evil from the universe and steals 30 Cosmic Cubes to accomplish that task. Using some kind of eldritch mysticism, the Goddess combines the Cubes into the Cosmic Egg, a repository of energy and magic capable of granting wishes. The Goddess reveals that evil exists alongside sentient life, so she aims to erase all beings from history. I would argue that the Goddess lacks imagination.

The Cosmic Egg is more or less a magical wishing stone that, like the Infinity Gauntlet, can allow its wielder to do anything they think of. If one were inclined, sure, one could destroy the universe. Me, I'd just wish for world peace, an end to hunger and want, no more disease, the ability to fly and speak every language, eternal youth, and a collection of working vintage pinball machines. Destroying the universe is perhaps the last on my list of priorities.

Like so many teenagers, the Marvel Comics universe once went through an awkward H.P. Lovecraft period. It seems that many eons ago, an evil deity called Chthon (not to be confused with Lovecraft's Cthulhu) decided to author a book that collected all the then-known evil spells in the young universe. Written on indestructible paper, the book was bound together as the Darkhold, the very first and most evil grimoire ever penned. Forget the Necronomicon. The Darkhold is way worse. Heck, just reading from it can rob you of your mind and soul, turning you into a monster. You don't even have to know the language; somehow you'll read it and be corrupted. That said, the big, stylized letter "D" on the cover looks a little silly.

The Darkhold factors into the MCU shows "WandaVision" and "Agatha All Along" and the MCU movie "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness," along with the fourth season of the Marvel TV series "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." In Marvel's comics, the Darkhold is used to rid Earth of vampires. Yet, it's so lousy with evil, it later began infecting parts of our world, creating monsters and allowing demons from unknowable hell dimensions into our realm. Likewise, dark sorcerers have used the Darkhold to summon Chthon, which is just a bad idea for everyone.

Luckily for us, the Darkhold is so chaotic a tome that its actual effects remain unpredictable and unfocused. But if that thing gets into the hands of a cool-headed and malevolent master, I imagine it could rend the universe asunder right quick.

The character Quasar has yet to appear in the MCU, but he's a presence in numerous cosmic Marvel Comics stories. He wears super-powerful bracelets called the Quantum Bands, which were magically forged by the bizarre tree-like deity Eon. Eon, who's as old as Eternity, Death, and the Living Tribunal, felt that life in the universe needed a brave protector from the forces of evil. Thus, he chose Quasar, and gave him the Quantum Bands. They essentially allow him to draw whatever power he needs from the Quantum Zone, itself the source of all powers in the Marvel Comics universe. The first protector wore the Quantum Bands roughly five billion years ago, and they've since been passed down over the millennia. 

The Quantum Bands allow one to control all electromagnetic energy in the universe. This means you can use them to do simple things like turning off machines, but you can also drain people's life energy or create energy fields, fire destructive bolts, wormholes, you name it. Hence, if misused, they could wipe out entire planets or rip holes in the space-time continuum (and, by extension, potentially tear the very universe apart). We're lucky that Quasar is a good guy, then.