There Are Two Infinity Gauntlets In The Marvel Cinematic Universe

If you stuck around for the end credits of Avengers: Age of Ultron, you were treated to a bit of setup for Phase Three. As usual, the stinger left us full of questions about the implications for the future of the MCU. But now Kevin Feige has actually offered an answer to one of the questions raised. Read all about the MCU Infinity Gauntlets — yes, that's Gauntlets, plural — after the jump. 

At the end of Avengers: Age of Ultron, Thanos is seen grabbing an Infinity Gauntlet out of a vault. "Fine," he grumbles. "I'll do it myself." However, eagle-eyed fans pointed out that the last time we saw the Infinity Gauntlet, it was in Odin's possession. How did it get out of Odin's treasure room and into Thanos' hands?

Feige promised an explanation for that seeming discrepancy, and he's delivered. "There are two different gloves," he told CinemaBlend. "That was not Odin's vault that you see at the end."

On closer inspection, that shouldn't come as too much of a surprise. The Infinity Gauntlet at the end of Avengers: Age of Ultron looks empty, whereas the one seen in Odin's vault had stones in it. Though they're presumably not the real Infinity Stones, since we'd know about it if the Asgardians had all six in their possession already.

The Infinity Gauntlet is a glove designed to hold the six Infinity Stones: Space (the Tesseract), Reality (the Aether from Thor: The Dark World), Power (the Orb from Guardians of the Galaxy), Mind (Loki's scepter and Vision's gem), Time, and Soul. As confirmed by Feige in a recent interview, Time and Soul are the two that that are not yet accounted for in the MCU. The reason Thanos is so cranky is that he currently has none of the Stones in his possession, despite numerous attempts to claim them over the last several films.

Of course, Feige's reveal that there are two Infinity Gauntlets raises still more questions. If Thanos has one of the Gauntlets, will the Avengers pick up the other Gauntlet? What happens if and when both gloves become active? Or if one person tries to wield both? And what are the MCU filmmakers going to do about the fact that, to be real frank about it, a gold glove with rainbow-colored gemstones looks kind of silly?

Expect the Infinity Gauntlets and their attendant Infinity Stones to keep cropping up over the next several films, building up to Avengers: Infinity War – Part 1 on May 4, 2018 and Avengers: Infinity War – Part 2 on May 3, 2019.