We have seen several Infinity Gauntlets for sale over the past couple of years. First came the Thanos Infinity Gauntlet, the genuine glove that Thanos created to house The Infinity Stones– The Power Stone, The Time Stone, The Reality Stone, The Space Stone (Tesseract), Mind Stone (Vision, Loki’s sceptre) and The Soul Stone, and to wipe out half of all life in the universe. Next, they brought us The Nano Gauntlet, as worn by Bruce Banner’s Hulk. However, the Nano Gauntlet malfunctioned and injured The Hulk. Another Nano Gauntlet was created that was much sleeker and was worn by Tony Stark who used it to defeat Thanos. These three different gauntlets were produced under the Marvel Gear line which has also brought us Mjolnir, Cap’s Shield, Stormbreaker and helmets for Iron Man, Starlord, The Black Panther, Spider-Man, Ant-Man, and The Punisher.
But as time went by, we never got any of the props of the Infinity Stones. There was a high-end collectible made of Loki’s sceptre around the time The Avengers came out. It was made out of metal and was expertly reproduced from the film. If you were unable to secure one of these guys, you had to be content with little 3-inch versions from the action figures or find someone at a convention who has made it and is selling them (which is what I ended up doing a few years ago). Now, the Tesseract was probably the easiest one to find a reasonable facsimile of. There are dozens of ads for color-changing cubes that can easily fit the bill, even if the only color you need is blue! So, we are left with no licensed reproductions of The Power Stone, The Aether, The Time Stone and the Soul Stone. Let’s just throw out the Soul Stone right here because there really is no way to make a reproduction of it and, let’s face it, there’s that whole sacrificing your life thing going on.
Last year, Marvel offered up the Eye Of Agamotto in their Marvel Gallery line. Later, in their Marvel Legends series they had the Tesseract which came with a Loki figure in his TVA clothes. So last fall I’m going through my Google News stories (which have a lot of comic book sites) and something caught my attention and my eyes lit up. It was Loki’s Sceptre! Of course, I had to have it but even as I was searching for where to buy it, I thought “Great, this will probably cost a fortune or else it’ll be sold out. Well, it wasn’t sold out and it didn’t cost a fortune. It was $119.00 and it was available at the Disney store. As I looked around for more goodies (they also had an exclusive Loki Marvel Gallery statue), I found they had Loki’s Sceptre (the Mind Stone) and they also had up for order The Tesseract.
I learned they were putting out a whole series of Infinity Props, each containing an Infinity Stone which can be inserted into an item like the Sceptre or the Tesseract and make them light up and make generic toy noises. I got the impression it was meant for you to collect all the props at $99 each (except the Sceptre which was $119) and then be able to take the stones out to place on an Infinity Gauntlet which would release last. All the Infinity Props also came inside nifty boxes that looked like containers meant to house these powerful gems. To my dismay, though, they were only made out of cardboard.
A couple of weeks later (you know I was keeping my eye on the lookout for the next pieces) I found the Aether and the Power Stone! I’ve seen duplicates of the Power Stone but none had the prongy holder thing. Here we had the whole shebang!
So, there I was. Mind Stone: check. Space Stone: check. Reality Stone: check. Power Stone: Check. And the final two pieces arrived. First, there was The Eye Of Agamotto. I had already gotten excited over the Marvel Gallery version but this one surprised me by being larger and heftier than the all plastic Gallery statue. It’s a little larger to be wearing out so leave this one for display and the Gallery one for play.
I was still wondering where the soul stone was coming from. I half expected a Red Skull draped in a shroud to come in a whisk me away from my greed. See the last item they released was the Nano Gauntlet. The one I thought I was supposed to take the stones from my other props and place on the glove. Except, it already came with its own Infinity Stones. Huh. But what’s more is that this looked exactly like the Hulk size Nano Gauntlet from the Marvel Gear release. I could not find any discernable difference between what they were selling and the one I already have and if it wasn’t going to tie into what I already bought then I decided I could do without it. With the exception of the Nano Gauntlet which I’m sure was a re-release of the Marvel Gear one, all the Infinity Props seem to be exclusive to the Disney story although they are not labeled as such. Perhaps one day we will see them released as Marvel Gear. There are also 3 Marvel Gallery statues on the site that I have not seen offered anywhere else.
Even though this puzzle/scavenger hunt was mostly in my head, I still had fun gathering all the stones together. And I was thrilled to finally get Loki’s Sceptre to go with my Loki costume and crown so I can run around my neighborhood shouting to everyone “Kneel before me!”. The 3-day psychological hold on me is over tomorrow and I will be able to run home and assemble my Stones so I can rule the Universe! Still don’t know where that Soul Stone is, though.
