Avengers: Infinity War, one of the biggest Marvel movies of all time, brought together the superheroes of an entire universe. One of the movie’s biggest surprises was the return of Hugo Weaving as the Red Skull, only this time he was the Stonekeeper of the Soul Stone. According to the movie, the universe punished and cursed him for misusing the Space Stone. But with snapping his fingers at the end and destroying half of all life, didn’t Thanos misuse the stones, too. Then why Red Skull was punished for using Infinity Stones?
Avengers: Infinity War was the first part of the ultimate showdown between the Earth’s Mightiest Superheroes and Thanos. Thanos had been the master manipulator of many things that were happening in the MCU since 2012. And Infinity War was the first movie that saw Thanos finally picking up arms and ‘do it himself’. And that saw him gathering every one of the six Infinity Stones one by one. In that journey, he even used some of those to get others, to be more powerful. So, if he was also gathering the stones to be more powerful, what makes him any different from the Red Skull? Lucky for you, we have figured it out and the answer is in history!
WHAT LED TO THE CURSE OF THE RED SKULL?
Red Skull, or Johann Schmidt, was the head of the Nazi Science Division, Hydra, that aimed at global peace by killing off every potential threat. To achieve this, they went back and studies their mythology and figured out that the tesseract, the beacon of the Space Stone, has enough energy to achieve their goal in one swift attack. So, Johann, along with his chief engineer, Arnim Zola, created a device that could harness the power of the Tesseract. They even found a way to store it in small beacons to use in close-combat weapons. By the end, they had a whole arsenal of Tesseract-powered weapons that could vaporize virtually anything in seconds.
This amount of power comes with unending greed. And Johann Schmidt may have been a super-powered individual, but it didn’t save him from greed. When he was on his plane to attack the US, Captain America stopped him by destroying his Tesseract harnessing device. And just like Thanos, this led to him taking things into his own hand. He picked up the Tesseract with his bare hands but, powered as he was, he could not handle that raw power. As a result, a space portal opened and he got sucked into it, leaving the cube behind. For many years, fans presumed him dead, until he returned in 2018’s Infinity War and explained his story.
WHAT MAKES THANOS DIFFERENT?
Thanos was another smart individual, cursed with the knowledge, who set out to find the stones. He also wanted to eliminate life to save the universe, though his numbers were extremely larger than Red Skull ever thought. Like Schmidt, even Thanos never cared who had to die in order for him to get all the stones. But, unlike Schmidt, his methods were completely different. Thanos, being one of the strongest beings in the universe, had a lot of respect for the stones. He never used them with his bare hands (until Endgame, when he was backed into a corner). He made the dwarfs create an Infinity Gauntlet to help him channel their powers.
Moreover, the moment he was done with the stones, he destroyed them and reduced them to atoms. From wielding the first stone to destroying all of them, all it took him was just above 20 days. So, there is a trending theory that suggests that this offense has a timestamp. If you use a stone for the wrong causes for more than a certain amount of period, that’s when the universe punishes you. This theory also implies that there is more than one cursed being out there, but we are yet to see them. This makes a lot of sense as the universe is very old and so are the infinity stones. Many beings might have used them, and bore the curse. And Thanos knew about their existence and made his plan in a way that he didn’t end up like them.
The above theory clarifies why Red Skull was punished for using Infinity Stone and Thanos wasn’t. What are your views on it? Comment down your answers.
Follow us on Facebook, Instagram & Twitter for more content.
Also Watch:
