It’s now a given that Thanos will eventually gather the six Infinity Stones in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and wield them all in the Infinity Gauntlet. This will happen in the two Avengers: Infinity War movies that are scheduled for release in 2018 and 2019 respectively.

The Tesseract, the Aether, the Orb and the Mind Stone have all appeared in movies so far and there are two more yet to appear. The likelihood is that they will emerge in Doctor Strange and Thor: Ragnarok respectively, prior to the Mad Titan getting his hands on them and wreaking universal havoc (there might be two gauntlets to house the Infinity Stones in the MCU, but it’s unlikely that anyone other than Thanos will be wielding them all come 2018).

With all six of the stones in his possession, the villain will control the ultimate power and could, potentially, carry out any action he wishes. This article will put that into context by listing ten of the things he might do with the completed Infinity Gauntlet in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Erase Half The Life In The Universe

Although the MCU versions of the Infinity Stones have yet to display the kind of power that each individual stone has displayed in the comic books, the six of them combined may well grant Thanos god-like power.

With that in mind, the villain may replicate what he did in the comic books – in the Infinity Gauntlet arc – when he clicked his fingers and erased 50% of all life in the universe in a shameless attempt to impress the object of his affections, the cosmic being known as Mistress Death.

Nothing close to that level of power has ever been displayed in the franchise to date and it will be interesting to see how the heroes deal with it if it happens – especially given that it might result in some of the heroic characters in their ranks disappearing.

Resurrect Past Villains

Given that the completed Infinity Gauntlet will grant Thanos control over reality, there is every chance that he could bring back villains who had seemingly perished in order to have them work as his henchmen.

In particular, he could bring back those villains who had previously sought out or utilised the Infinity Stones – the likes of Red Skull, Malekith, Ronan and Ultron.

Of course, in Red Skull’s case, he probably isn’t even dead, so Thanos could just bring him back from wherever he is. And in Ronan’s case, Thanos might bring him back to life just to punish him for his attempted deceit. Malekith seems unlikely for commercial reasons – he just wasn’t very interesting – but there are rumours that Thanos actually masterminded the creation of Ultron, so even the robot could be brought back to operate at the Mad Titan’s side. It’s a frightening thought!

Mind-Control Some Heroes

In the first Avengers movie, Loki used the Mind Stone – which was later revealed to be embedded in his sceptre – to control a bunch of characters (including Hawkeye and Erik Selvig) into doing his bidding for him.

One can only imagine that, in the company of the other five Infinity Stones, the power of the Mind Stone will be augmented to heightened levels, allowing Thanos to control people on a much larger scale once he’s wielding the completed Infinity Gauntlet.

With that in mind, there’s every chance that the Mad Titan could mind-control some characters into joining his side in the Infinity War movies. It could be an entire race of aliens, it could be a cosmic being of incalculable power, or it could be some of the iconic heroes we’ve grown to love in the MCU (Hulk, perhaps??). Either way, with assistance in the form of other powered individuals, his threat would be even greater than it already is.

Create Evil Doppelgängers Of Heroes

A recent rumour has emerged that Thanos may utilise a team of evil Avengers doppelgängers against the heroes of the Marvel Cinematic Universe in the Infinity War movies.

Whether he would create them from scratch using the power of the Infinity Gauntlet to conjure them or whether he would pull them from another reality (the Cancerverse, perhaps?) is another matter, but the thought of evil versions of the likes of Iron Man, Hulk, Thor and Captain America appearing is certainly an intriguing prospect.

Can you imagine Robert Downey, Jr., Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth and Chris Evans et al portraying both their regular characters and evil versions of their regular characters? It would be awesome to see that!

Destroy A Planet

Without going as far as making reality itself collapse, what better way for Thanos to display the power he holds with the completed Infinity Gauntlet than by destroying an entire planet with a single concentrated energy blast?

Ronan teased the idea of destroying Xandar with just one Infinity Stone – the Orb – in the Guardians of the Galaxy movie, but it never actually ended up happening and there’s no confirmation that one stone could actually succeed in achieving that feat.

However, there is surely no doubt that the six stones combined could do it effortlessly and seeing Thanos destroying a planet (maybe Xandar) prior to facing off with the Avengers and company would emphasise the scale of the threat they were about to face and put audiences well and truly on the edges of their seats.

Open A Portal To Another Reality

There has been a lot of talk lately about the possibility of the X-Men eventually making their way to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Immediate thoughts about that are generally people wondering how the hell mutants could just suddenly appear in the franchise, having not been acknowledged at all so far.

But what if that problem was bypassed by Thanos’ meddling with the Infinity Gauntlet?

Imagine, if you will, that the Infinity War ends and all is well in the universe. Everything is seemingly back to normal.

Then, in a post-credits scene, it emerges that there is a tear in reality – a window has opened up into another universe. The camera pans towards the window and, inside it, there sits the X-Mansion – meaning the walls between the MCU and the X-Men universe had been broken down. It would be awesome! And if Marvel Studios are planning on bringing the X-Men over to their flagship franchise, there’s no better way to do it than that!

Time Travel / Manipulation

So far, the four Infinity Stones that have been revealed in the Marvel Cinematic Universe are the Tesseract (the Space Stone), the Aether (the Reality Stone), the Orb (the Power Stone) and the Mind Stone (er… the Mind Stone). With that in mind, the Soul Stone and the Time Stone are still to be revealed.

As a result, Time travel is a concept that is yet to emerge in the MCU but, once Thanos gets his hands on all six stones, there’s every chance he could utilise the ability to do so.

Perhaps he could send Captain America “back to where he belongs” in the 1940s, perhaps he could send Iron Man back to the age of the dinosaurs or, using the ability to manipulate time in different ways, perhaps he could de-age Thor and turn him into a child.

It’s an interesting thought, but it definitely seems pointless having the Time Stone if it isn’t going to be utilised in some way.

Horrifically Kill A Hero / Heroes

To date, movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe have lacked the balls to kill off a major heroic character permanently. At different points, Thor, Nick Fury, Phil Coulson and others have all appeared to die, only to be resurrected by various means at a later time.

Quicksilver did appear to die in Avengers: Age of Ultron, but that was seen as something of a cop-out, as audiences hadn’t been building a rapport with the character for several years beforehand and there are even rumours he’ll be back in the future.

With that in mind, someone (at least one hero) has to die in the Infinity War movies. For shock value – and to emphasise the level of threat Thanos poses – it should be a brutal, merciless and violent death. Expect the Mad Titan to use the Infinity Gauntlet to mercilessly slaughter some heroes in front of their allies, highlighting just how powerful he is.

Kill Himself

The heroes of the Marvel Cinematic Universe are going to have one hell of a tough time defeating Thanos with the Infinity Gauntlet once he gets his hands on all six Infinity Stones, but in the end they might not even need to.

There are two ways in which the Mad Titan might actually end up defeating himself. The first is that he might simply get careless and overload his body with the power of the Infinity Stones and the second is that, if Mistress Death is in the MCU and isn’t impressed by his actions, he might simply want to die and end up committing suicide using the six powerful items.

Unless Thanos is somehow tricked into taking the completed Infinity Gauntlet off, him killing himself seems like the only plausible way he could be defeated. The combined might of the likes of the Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy is nowhere near enough to beat him in straight-up combat when he’s wielding the universe’s ultimate power, after all.

Reset Everything

With the completed Infinity Gauntlet at his disposal, Thanos will have the ability to essentially do anything that his mind can conceive – and that potentially gives Marvel Studios the opportunity to continue the MCU franchise while essentially starting from scratch.

Thanos could decide that the universe is an awful place and that he wants to rebuild it in his image. Or he might repent, realise he did wrong and “fix” his deeds by wiping everything he ever did out (Thanos isn’t completely without humility in the comic books – look at how he lived as a farmer after the Infinity Gauntlet arc for proof of that). Regardless of how it happens, it presents Marvel Studios with a chance they might not want to pass up.

With a number of actors’ contracts due to run out, this universal reset could give Marvel Studios the opportunity to start over with new actors in their roles, without the potential changes feeling off in terms of continuity.

What do you think? Will Thanos do any of these things with the Infinity Gauntlet? What else might he do? Have your say below.