‘Thor: Ragnarok’ Solves the MCU Infinity Gauntlets Problem

Between the first Thor movie to Avengers: Age of Ultron, fans have wondered about a continuity mishap regarding the Infinity Gauntlet. But the latest film from Marvel Studios actually solves the issue with a simple explanation.

In Thor: Ragnarok, the true mystery of the “two Gauntlets” theory is cleared up by none other than Cate Blanchett’s Hela.

Warning: Minor spoilers for Thor: Ragnarok to follow.

After Hela seizes control of Asgard, she goes searching through Odin’s vault to retrieve a powerful item to aid her goal of conquering the universe. While searching the vault she passes many powerful artifacts, including Odin’s display of the Infinity Gauntlet.

“Fake,” she simply says, shoving it off its pedestal.

More items populate the vault, such as the Casket of Ancient Winters and the Tesseract, but Hela’s comments about the Infinity Gauntlet stand out in particular. It explains how Odin could have a fully assembled Gauntlet despite Thanos wielding his own, empty-socketed version in the post-credits scene of Avengers: Age of Ultron.

The fact that Odin would lie about it isn’t surprising, and it clears up the rumors of their being multiple Gauntlets. Fans have speculated if there was a certain implication behind the existence of two Gauntlets or if it was a simple continuity mistake or something similar. Though it’s likely that they just included it as an easter egg and wanted to keep their options open in the future, and used this hand-waving explanation to take care of a minor problem.

It’s even more unlikely that such an explanation was always in the cards, considering that Asgards understand what Infinity Stones are and don’t want to keep them together.

The Infinity Gauntlet first popped up as an easter egg in the first Thor. The God of Thunder takes the Tesseract back to Asgard at the end of The Avengers, though that film did not make it clear that the MCU Cosmic Cube was actually an Infinity Stone. It’s only in Thor: The Dark World does that fact become apparent, when Volstagg tells the Collector that two Infinity Stones should not be kept in the same place and that because Odin’s vault already contains the Tesseract, the Collector is being trusted with the Aether.

So why would they believe Odin has a fully assembled Infinity Gauntlet when they know he doesn’t have all of the stones?

Of course, these kinds of questions are why we can’t have nice things and only serve to take the enjoyment out of escapist entertainment. Why gripe over petty things like Infinity Gauntlet continuity?

Thor: Ragnarok does a decent job in making light of the situation, just don’t dwell on the explanation too much.

Thor: Ragnarok is now playing in theaters everywhere.