The quest for Marvel’s mysterious seventh Infinity Stone is almost over and the nature of this powerful new artifact is about to be revealed. Piecing together the clues shown up to this point, and thanks to a preview for Thor #35, it’s possible to speculate that the new Infinity Stone can control death itself, and that makes it the perfect instrument for Thanos, who wields it to command an undead army in a vision shown to the God of Thunder.
In Thor #6, the son of Odin fought against the Black Winter, a universe-destroying entity that, before being defeated, showed Thor a vision of his death, which featured Thanos wielding Thor’s hammer imbued with the Infinity Stones and commanding an army of undead. That prophecy was not explained until Thanos: Death Notes #1, a special issue where Thor investigates Thanos’ disappearance, finding clues of a connection between the Mad Titan and his grandfather, Bor. Thor discovers that, millennia ago, Bor and Thanos fought for a mysterious seventh Infinity Stone. In the end, the Asgardian god sealed the artifact in a vault that could only be unlocked with his own blood, until Thor opened it in the present.
The Seventh Infinity Stone Is Created From The Souls Of The Dead
Thor was not able to grasp the contents of the vault, but someone else is trying to: Doctor Doom. The ruler of Latveria has ravaged the Asgardian underworld, Hel, and kidnapped its ruler, Hela, while harvesting the souls of the dead for a yet-unexplained unholy experiment that will give him more power than a god. It seems that Doom is following in Thanos’ footsteps, trying to recreate the ritual that Bor’s sorcerers used to create the Seventh Stone, which also involved harvesting the souls of the dead. This is all but confirmed by the cover of Thor #35, in which Hela triumphantly holds a black gauntlet with a dark stone embedded in it, and uses it to control an army of undead.
The Death Stone Was Already Named… Kind Of
This is the same gauntlet that Thanos was wearing in Thor’s vision, and it appears that it’s needed to hold the Seventh Stone because it does not combine well with the other six. This is another clue that the Seventh Stone should be the Death Stone as, during the Secret Wars event, a Death Stone was created to kill Thanos of Earth-94241, by tricking him into adding it to his Infinity Gauntlet. This happened in another reality that has since been destroyed, but it sets a precedent and established the idea of the Seventh Infinity Stone being a Death Stone, and that it didn’t combine well with the others.
Thanos Will Take Control Of The Death Stone
Infinity Stones have in the past gravitated to those most associated with their core trait, so it makes sense that Hela, a death goddess, would be able to control the Death Stone, perhaps snatching it from the hands of her captor, Doctor Doom. The new stone could then easily fall into the hands of Thanos, who has a deeper connection with Death than Hela herself. This would actually be thematically perfect, with the original Infinity Stones controlling all that exists, and a Death Stone controlling what no longer does.
