The last two Avengers films heavily involved the Infinity Stones and the Infinity Gauntlets. Thanos brought his version of Gauntlet in Avengers: Infinity War, and then we saw Stark’s Nano Gauntlets which were quite different but obviously did the job. First let’s discuss the difference between Thanos’ Gauntlet from the comics and his Gauntlet in the MCU. Then we’ll talk about the Nano Gauntlet.
As we’ve explored in the MCU, Thanos got his Infinity Gauntlet from Nidavellir. He forced Eirti to design a weapon that could hold all six Infinity Stones together and enable their usage. Hence Eitri designed the Infinity Gauntlet that could sustain the immense power of 6 Infinity Stones and allow Thanos to use them one by one, in pairs or all together. The Gauntlet was so special that he actually pulled an Emperor Shah Jahan move on Eitri.
Just like Shah Jahan cut off the arms of all the workers who built the Royal Taj Mahal, Thanos cut off Eitri’s arms so he couldn’t make another Infinity Gauntlet for anyone else. None of this happened in the comics though. In the comics, we’ve seen that the wielders of the Infinity Stones do not get harmed whereas in the MCU, only a few individuals could hold on to an Infinity Stone temporarily. Vision could do it regularly as his body was made up of Vibranium. But even a strong individual like Red Skull couldn’t hold on to the Tesseract. This isn’t the case in the comics as people like Moon Dragon and Adam Warlock have successfully kept Infinity Stones within their heads.
This trait of the Infinity Stones also translates to the Infinity Gauntlets. In the MCU, it took a great deal of power to wield an Infinity Gauntlet with all 6 Infinity Stones. Hulk & Thanos were able to do it because of their strength while Tony Stark was able to do that due to his suit. But wielding the Gauntlets and using them came with a personal cost. Hulk & Thanos were severely damaged after using the Infinity Gauntlet and Stark obviously died. None of this has happened in the comics as Thanos suffered no damage when he used the Gauntlet. Even the likes of Reed Richards have worn the Gauntlet without suffering any damage. So basically, the Gauntlet that Thanos wore was just some glove that held the Infinity Stones. It was as normal as the fake Gauntlet in Odin’s vault.
This difference was created in the MCU to nerf down the power of the Infinity Stones and make even powerful beings like Thanos & Hulk relatable. Now let’s come to the difference between Stark’s Gauntlet & Eitri’s Gauntlet. One difference is obviously the color. Tony had put in his Iron Man color scheme since he was the creator. The second difference is that anyone could wear the Stark Gauntlet. Because of the Nanotech, it could grow big or shrink in size in order to fit the wearer. Thanos’ Gauntlet on the other hand was specifically for his hand. But the major difference between Stark’s Gauntlet & Thanos’ Gauntlet was the element they were made with. Eitri probably made his Gauntlet with Uru, and Stark used a hybrid of nano-tech and his own Iron Man suit.
And the difference in the material showed up big time when someone wore these Gauntlets with all six Infinity Stones on them. Thanos’ Gauntlet showed a power surge through his body when he added all six stones on the Gauntlet. But this surge was contained soon after that as Thanos finishes powering up. His Gauntlet contained the energy from the Infinity Stones.
This wasn’t the case with the Stark Gauntlet as the power surge continued to rush through the body of the wearer constantly. It didn’t stop until the Gauntlet was removed or the connection of the Infinity Stones with the wearer of the Gauntlet was broken. This was a clear defect due to the nanotech material found on Earth. But still, Tony Stark made a Gauntlet that could draw power from the Infinity Stones. That was epic in itself. The advantage that Tony’s gauntlet had was that the Nano tech could actually pull the stones out of one place and attract them like a magnet. Tony made this upgrade after he failed to remove the stones from Thanos’ Gauntlet in Infinity War. When he got the chance to do that again, he didn’t fail and we all got to witness one of the most epic moments of the entire MCU.
People were confused about how Tony was able to steal the stones from Thanos. The writers and directors of Endgame revealed the answer to this on the audio commentary track that:
“Joe Russo: …aaaaand nanotech.
Stephen McFeely: That’s right if it’s unclear how he got them, it’s two similar gloves talking to each other in this nanotech-y way.
Joe Russo: And the suit is keeping him alive here.
McFeely: “Well, as the power’s coursing through him, he doesn’t have a lot of time.”
Joe Russo: But when he snaps those fingers…
Christopher Markus: It’s too much.”
Then, Comicbook.com further went on to clarify how the creatives have explained two major aspects that had people confused. The first is how Iron Man got the Infinity Stones, and the second is how he survived having wielded them. They wrote:
Because the “Iron Gauntlet” that Thanos was wearing is made of the same nanotech as Tony Armor, Iron Man was able to simple manipulate the nanobytes in both gauntlets to shift the Infinity Stones over to his hand, instead of Thanos’.
It was reiterated throughout the Infinity Saga that mere mortals cannot survive contact with an Infinity Stone – let alone wield all of them. It’s only because of the advanced tech in the Iron Man armor that Tony has the brief amount of time he does in order to achieve his Snap. However, like any mortal, the effort of using the Infinity Gauntlet is all too fatal, with or without a protective suit of armor.
Thanos’ gauntlet from Nidavellir wasn’t able to do all this. But it did allow Thanos to snap twice. So these were the major differences between Stark’s Gauntlet, Thanos’ Gauntlet, and the Gauntlet from the comics.
