Marvel Cinematic Universe fans know these powerful objects as Infinity Stones, but way back when they debuted in Marvel Comics in the 1970s, they were known by another name: Soul Gems. The gems were introduced as pieces of an ancient cosmic being who died as a result of loneliness. In death, their energy broke apart into six pieces, creating gems that held domain over specific forces: reality, time, space, power, mind, and soul. United, they created a loop of power. It was the Mad Titan Thanos who decided that with that infinite power supply, the gems needed a more apt name, and he coined the term Infinity Gems during his search.
Over the years, the comics have used the term “gem” and “stone” alike, but it wasn’t until they were adapted for the Marvel Cinematic Universe that Infinity Stones became official. There have been a lot more than just those first six Infinity Gems in the comics, the movies, and in other Marvel-related media. The different adaptations have created new power sets and new power levels for the stones, but which Infinity Stone is the most powerful? With the Infinity Stones ranked, a surprising one might come out on top.
Updated on November 14th, 2021 by Amanda Bruce: For the first three phases of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the Infinity Stones were viewed as the most powerful items in the universe. Uniting them is seen as a form of ultimate power. As the MCU grows, there are sure to be even more powerful items, but as comics and video games demonstrate, the six Infinity Stones in the MCU aren't the only powerful gems around. It's unlikely these other options would ever appear in the MCU, but fans can still debate which of them would be the most powerful.
Rhythm Stone
Comic book readers won’t find the Rhythm Stone on the page. This unique Infinity Stone was not created for Marvel Comics, but instead for an animated series. The Rhythm Stone was created exclusively for The Super Hero Squad Show. Not part of the existing Marvel Animated Universe, it aired on Cartoon Network beginning in 2009 and lasted for over 50 episodes. The series featured many of Marvel’s well-known heroes teaming up to take on different villains. One of them was Loki, which is where the Rhythm Stone came into play.
When Thanos became the big bad for a story arc, the series featured the usual six Infinity Stones. It also added the Ego Stone, inspired by one from an alternate universe in the comics, but it was Loki who created the Rhythm Stone. Loki created the stone as a way to distract the heroes from the quest for the rest of the real stones. Yes, real stones. The Rhythm Stone didn’t actually have any powers. Unlike the rest of the real Infinity Stones, the Rhythm Stone couldn’t be combined with the others, provide a power boost, or change reality. It was one big prank from the god of mischief.
Ego Gem
In the 1990s, Marvel Comics introduced a lot of new characters to their pages. One of the characters produced during that time was an entity named Nemesis during a crossover event. Marvel brought in characters from Malibu Comics for a crossover event known as Avengers/Ultraverse, which is where both Nemesis and the Ego Gem were introduced.
Up until that point, readers believed there were only six Infinity Gems. The crossover brought the Ego Gem into the comics as the seventh. Unlike the other gems, which all had separate external powers they affected in their s, the Ego Gem was dependent on the other six. Only activating once it was united with the other six Infinity Gems, the Ego Gem brought Nemesis back into existence. This story revealed that Nemesis was actually the cosmic being who became the Infinity Stones thousands of years in the past. While all of that created an interesting backstory, the Ego Gem still only creates a single being.
Battlerealm Stones
Not long ago, Marvel introduced a mobile game that fans could play on their phones. Called Contest of Champions, it allowed fans to pick their favorite comic book hero to fight villains. When Battlerealm was introduced later, it added tracking down Infinity Stones and going up against Thanos to the mix. The game didn’t rely on just the usual stones from the comics. Instead, a backstory was created to make five more stones.
The Evolution Stone was created from Dark Phoenix hibernating in a cocoon while the Genesis Stone was born from the particles of a substance called Neutronium. That dust, a rare isotope known as Iso-8 in the game, also existed in the comics, but it never birthed an Infinity Stone. Likewise, the War Stone came to be as the result of a battle between Doctor Strange and his enemy Dormammu, and the Nightmare Stone was created by data gathered by M.O.D.O.K. Of the new stones, only the Chaos Stone has unknown origins. Acquired by Spider-Man during the game, the player has to keep it away from Thanos. While all of the stones have some very interesting names and origins that would make the player think they’ve got some fun power sets, their powers within the game aren’t all that well defined, which is why they’re so low on the list. Uniting them all still makes Thanos all-powerful, but it’s not clear what they can do on their own.
The Forever Glass
Throughout the decades of Marvel comic book history, readers have been able to visit multiple realities where one event going in a different direction managed to change everything. One of those other realities was home to the Wishing Gems AKA the Forever Glass. Instead of this version of the Infinity Stones being pieces of stone that look like jewels, the Wishing Gems were made of glass-like sheets. The six sheets of glass would unite to form a cube, also known as the Wishing Cube.
While readers didn’t get to find out what the separate pieces did - or if they were similar to their counterparts in the normal continuity - the Wishing Cube was supposed to be able to make anything happen that the wished. During the events of Secret Wars, multiple realities were colliding, and this Earth, designated Earth-4290001, was on a collision course with the “normal” Marvel universe of Earth-616. The heroes assembled their Wishing Cube in hopes of avoiding the incursion, and it did work for them once, though not in the events of the main story as it was destroyed. It stands to reason that the Wishing Cube had at least some significant amount of power.
The Build Stone
For Lego's Guardians of the Galaxy story, Thanos was up to his old comic book trick: going after an Infinity Stone in Guardians of the Galaxy: The Thanos Threat. This particular stone was created exclusively for Lego’s animated movie. Called the Build Stone, appropriate for a company that teaches children how to build different structures out of connecting blocks, it can create any weapon. Thanos wants to get his hands on it in order to create what he calls the BLT, also called the “Big Laser Thingy.” Drawing from characters audiences knew by using the live-action movie lineup, Peter Quill leads the Guardians of Drax, Gamora, Rocket, and Groot to go up against Ronan the Acc and Nebula, who are on a quest to get the stone for Thanos.
Along the way, the Ravagers, led by Yondu, want the stone so they can sell it to Ronan and get a decent payday. Ultimately, it’s Star-Lord and Rocket Raccoon who get to use the Build Stone during a chase sequence, creating a variety of weapons to use. It's a very cool stone, but despite the ability to create any weapon the wants, it cannot amplify any power or make changes on a cosmic scale like so many other Infinity Stones can.
Anthony
In another corner of the Marvel Comic universe, there’s the Ultimate version of the characters readers know and love. This universe is a bit darker than its 616 counterpart. It’s here that Black Widow betrayed the Avengers and Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver were closer than siblings should be. It’s also here that Tony Stark winds up with a sentient brain tumor. When Tony realizes that his brain tumor is sentient, can solve complex problems, and hold conversations with him, he names his tumor Anthony.
Anthony appears to Tony as a young boy when he hallucinates, and that’s how he’s continually drawn throughout the story. Anthony helps Tony and the Ultimates solve problems and fight villains on numerous occasions. While readers might have initially argued that Anthony was simply a manifestation of Tony’s own intelligence, that wasn’t entirely the case. Instead, Fantastic Four member Reed Richards discovered that an Infinity Gem had been created inside of Tony Stark. Reed eventually kidnapped Tony and performed brain surgery on him to extract the gem, allowing Anthony to " away" in the process. The gem was added to Reed’s collection, though the reader never finds out just what the gem can do on its own outside of Tony’s brain.
Mind Gem
Unlike most of the other Infinity Gems introduced in the comics, the Mind Gem didn’t get its introduction in a big team-up or event story. Instead, it was introduced in an issue of Captain Marvel in 1975. The gem was hidden underground on a planet called Deneb IV. That particular planet was in the midst of a bloody conflict when Mar-vell and Rick Jones came to it, their minds ready to merge to create Captain Marvel. The Kree Supreme Intelligence knew about both the gem and the heroes and wanted to use both to manipulate events to his advantage.
Instead, Mar-vell and Rick’s minds both entered the Mind Gem and sorted things out for themselves, which is a pretty nifty trick. If anyone at that point had more control over the gem, they could have used it to enter the mind of every being on the planet. Those without control need a bit of a boost from another Infinity Gem. The Mind Gem earns this spot because most of its power creates internal assistance for the person wielding it. Yes, it can grant the telepathy and telekinesis if the person in control has the experience to recognize it, but in of raw power, it’s a little bit lesser than the other gems.
Soul Stone
With the Soul Stone being the last revealed in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, audiences were expecting it to have a big splashy reveal and all kinds of power. While its reveal is an interesting one, it doesn’t appear to be quite as powerful as its comic book counterpart with what the audience sees of it.
Using his adopted daughter to get to the stone, Thanos winds up on the planet Vormir. In the comics, Vorms, dragon-like creatures, inhabit it, but it is almost completely abandoned in the MCU as the resting place for the stone. It’s here that Thanos has to sacrifice something he loves in order to get the stone, making this the only Infinity Stone to demand a harsh price to possess it. Arguably, that loss, which causes Thanos to experience anguish, weakens him rather than strengthens him. He does use the Soul Stone to visit the younger version of Gamora in what appears to be the stone’s own realm, but other than that, there is no known external power, like stealing souls, exhibited by the stone itself. Even when Hawkeye and Black Widow make the trip to retrieve it at an earlier point in time, there are no additional displays of power. So, just what does the Soul Stone do other than combine with the others? It's still not clear.
Power Gem
When introduced over 40 years ago, it didn’t even have the name Power Gem just yet, but it was giving The Stranger a bit of a power boost as he sought out ways to make himself more powerful. It’s not entirely clear how The Stranger, a powerful cosmic being who up pops up sporadically in Marvel Comics, ended up with the Power Gem, but while it was in his possession, he was compelled to learn more about it. It led him on a quest to collect the rest of the gems, putting him on a collision course with Adam Warlock and Spider-Man before he was defeated and Thanos stole the gem from him.
The Power Gem is, as its name would suggest, a practically unlimited source of pure energy. It can be used to boost the power of a weapon or machine, to boost the ’s own strength, and to boost the stamina of the person holding it. It sounds like a dream come true for someone who just wants raw strength. Interestingly, it can also allow the to duplicate superhuman abilities - as long as that person has mastered control of the gem. This isn't something that most of the other Infinity Gems allow you to do.
Death Stone
Following the incursions of different realities on one another, a world designated Earth-94241 became New Xandar, and the remnants of its previous reality were a part of the patchwork universe Battleworld. It’s within this reality that a new Infinity Stone known as the Death Stone was created. A young woman named Anwen Bakian grew up in New Xandar. For much of her time, she was left without her family as her mother ed the Nova Corps to assist in the fight against “bugs” that had invaded their home.
Anwen and her allies were able to locate the Reality Stone before Thanos in this reality, and it was with it that she created her brand new stone. She gave it to Thanos in the guise of the Reality Stone, seemingly surrendering to him. However, the Death Stone caused the Infinity Gauntlet that Thanos wore to stop working, limiting his control of the stones, destroying him, and turning him to dust. It might not have all of the powers of the other Infinity Stones, but the Death Stone certainly eliminated the problem of one person becoming all-powerful.