Marvel Studios’ Infinity Saga was a revolutionary chapter in Hollywood history, fundamentally reshaping the expectations for blockbuster films. Over the course of 23 interconnected films, the Marvel Cinematic Universe meticulously built a cohesive universe with the six Infinity Stones at its core. These cosmic artifacts, each governing a fundamental aspect of existence, were the ultimate prize in a decade-long treasure hunt both for Thanos (Josh Brolin) and fans. That’s why, over a decade, we compulsively analyzed clues to their whereabouts, learning more about their power until the universe-altering snap of Thanos’ fingers. Even after Avengers: Endgame, the impact of the Infinity Stones is still felt throughout the Marvel Cinematic Universe, as their power frequently shapes events in alternate timelines and realities explored in projects like What If…?.
While many characters have interacted with the stones, this list focuses on those who directly wielded their power. This excludes individuals like the Sacred Timeline’s Arnim Zola (Toby Jones), who used the Tesseract’s energy to create weapons for Hydra but never held the object itself. Similarly, characters such as Captain Marvel (Brie Larson) and Quicksilver (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), who were empowered by the stones’ energy, never used one directly. Jane Foster’s (Natalie Portman brief time as a host for the Aether also falls outside this list’s scope, as she was more of a vessel than a wielder.
1) Red Skull
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Johann Schmidt (Hugo Weaving), the fanatical leader of Hydra, was the first character in the MCU to harness the power of an Infinity Stone. Obsessed with mythical power, the Red Skull discovered the Tesseract in Tønsberg, Norway, seeing it as the key to world domination. He used its cosmic energy to create advanced weaponry for his forces, hoping to win World War II. During his final confrontation with Captain America (Chris Evans), Red Skull made the fatal mistake of grabbing the Tesseract with his bare hands. Unable to control its power, he was enveloped in a beam of pure energy and violently transported across the cosmos. It was later revealed that the Space Stone had judged him unworthy, banishing him to the desolate planet of Vormir. There, he was cursed to serve as the spectral keeper of the Soul Stone, a cruel irony that forced him to guide others to a treasure he could never possess.
2) Loki
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The God of Mischief (Tom Hiddleston) has the distinction of wielding two different Infinity Stones during his initial invasion of Earth. In his quest for conquest, Loki was given a powerful scepter by Thanos, which secretly housed the Mind Stone. He used its power to manipulate and control the minds of key figures like Clint Barton (Jeremy Renner) and Dr. Erik Selvig (Stellan Skarsgård), turning them into unwilling agents. In addition to the scepter, Loki also stole the Tesseract from S.H.I.E.L.D. and used the Space Stone to open a massive portal above New York City. This allowed the Chitauri army to swarm through and begin their assault on the planet. His combined use of both the Mind and Space Stones made him one of the most formidable threats the original Avengers ever faced, pushing them to unite for the first time.
3) Malekith
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Malekith (Christopher Eccleston), the vengeful leader of the Dark Elves, sought to use the Reality Stone to extinguish all light in the universe. He wielded the stone in its fluidic form, known as the Aether, an ancient weapon that seeks out host bodies to draw strength from their life force. After the Aether was absorbed by Jane Foster, Malekith forcefully extracted it from her and bonded with it himself. With the Aether flowing through him, he gained the ability to manipulate matter and project waves of dark energy. His goal was to unleash its full power during the cosmic event known as the Convergence, which would have allowed him to plunge all Nine Realms into eternal darkness. He was only stopped when Thor (Chris Hemsworth) used Dr. Selvig’s technology to separate him from the Aether, leaving him to be crushed by his own ship.
4) Vision
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The synthezoid Vision (Paul Bettany) was brought to life through a unique combination of advanced technology, Asgardian magic, and the power of an Infinity Stone. Originally intended as the perfect biological vessel for Ultron (James Spader), complete with the Mind Stone, the body was repurposed by Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) and Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo), who integrated the JARVIS AI. This act gave Vision sentience and a host of incredible abilities, including density manipulation, flight, and the power to project powerful energy beams. The Mind Stone was part of his being, making him one of the most powerful members of the Avengers.
5) Eson the Searcher
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Long before the events of the Infinity Saga, the Infinity Stones were wielded by beings of immense cosmic power. In a presentation given by the Collector, Taneleer Tivan (Benicio Del Toro), a brief but terrifying glimpse of this history was shown. Eson the Searcher, a colossal Celestial, was depicted wielding the Power Stone, which was embedded in his massive, hammer-like staff. With a single strike against a planet’s surface, the Celestial unleashed an apocalyptic wave of purple energy, wiping out all life and turning the world into a scorched, lifeless rock. This demonstration served as a stark warning of the Power Stone’s destructive capabilities.
6) Carina
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While some sought the stones for conquest, others reached for them out of sheer desperation. Carina (Ophelia Lovibond), the Krylorian servant of the Collector, endured immense cruelty at his hands. After witnessing the presentation on the Power Stone’s destructive potential, she saw an opportunity to finally break free from her servitude. In a moment of rebellion, she grabbed the exposed Power Stone and declared, “I will no longer be your slave.” However, as a mortal being, she was completely unable to contain its overwhelming energy. The purple power surged violently through her body, causing her to explode in a violet blast that destroyed her and a significant portion of the Collector’s priceless museum on Knowhere.
7) Ronan the Accuser
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The Kree fanatic Ronan the Accuser (Lee Pace) was initially tasked by Thanos with retrieving the Orb containing the Power Stone. However, upon realizing the true extent of its world-destroying power, Ronan betrayed the Mad Titan and decided to keep it for himself. Although his Kree physiology gave him enhanced durability, he was still nearly overwhelmed when he first made contact with the stone. He managed to survive long enough to embed it into his Cosmi-Rod, a traditional Kree war hammer, which allowed him to safely channel its destructive energy. Drunk on this newfound power and his own zealotry, he launched a direct assault on the planet Xandar, intending to wipe out the Nova Corps and commit planetary genocide before being cleverly thwarted by the Guardians of the Galaxy.
8) The Guardians of the Galaxy
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Defeating a Power Stone-wielding Ronan required a truly desperate plan. After Rocket (voiced by Bradley Cooper) destroyed Ronan’s Cosmi-Rod with the Hadron Enforcer, the exposed stone was sent flying, and Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) instinctively grabbed it mid-air. As a half-Celestial, Quill was able to withstand its raw energy longer than any normal mortal, but it still threatened to tear him apart from the inside. It was only when Gamora (Zoe Saldaña), Drax (Dave Bautista), and Rocket joined hands with him that they were able to collectively contain and channel its immense power. By sharing the cosmic burden, the Guardians were able to turn the Power Stone’s destructive force back on Ronan, completely obliterating the fanatic and saving the entire planet of Xandar from annihilation.
9) Doctor Strange
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As the Sorcerer Supreme, Doctor Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) was entrusted with the sworn duty of protecting the Time Stone, which was housed within the mystical Eye of Agamotto. He demonstrated a remarkable aptitude for its use in his debut film, mastering its dangerous temporal powers to trap the cosmic entity Dormammu (voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch) in an infinite time loop, forcing the Dread Lord to bargain for his release and abandon his invasion of Earth. Later, in Avengers: Infinity War, he famously used the stone to look into the future, viewing over 14,600,005 possible outcomes of the conflict with Thanos to find the single path to victory. During the battle on Titan, he also wielded it defensively, reversing Thanos’s attack that destroyed a piece of the moon.
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Stephen’s alternate self from What If…?, known as Doctor Strange Supreme, had a far more extensive history with the stones. After obsessively using the Time Stone countless times in a failed attempt to save Christine Palmer from her death, he became a monstrously powerful being. In the battle against Infinity Ultron, this corrupted Strange used his own dark magic to seize control of all five stones after Killmonger’s betrayal. He then used their combined power to create a permanent pocket dimension, trapping the villains and the stones in a perpetual stalemate that he would watch over for eternity as the ultimate guardian of the multiverse.
10) Bruce Banner
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After the remaining Avengers retrieved the Infinity Stones from the past in Avengers: Endgame, it was Bruce Banner, in his integrated Smart Hulk form, who volunteered to perform the reverse snap. His body’s natural resistance to gamma radiation made him the only candidate who could survive the gauntlet’s immense energy output. With the combined power of all six stones surging violently through his body, he successfully snapped his fingers, a singular heroic act that brought back every life Thanos had erased five years earlier.
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In the Marvel Zombies episode, after the surviving heroes defeated a zombified Thanos, the Infinity Stones were destroyed and threatened to unleash a planet-destroying energy storm. To contain the cataclysm, this timeline’s version of the Hulk absorbed their raw cosmic energy directly into his body. This act of immense sacrifice transformed him into the Infinity Hulk, a being who became a living anchor for the stones’ combined might, forever containing their uncontrollable power to save his broken world from complete annihilation.
11) Tony Stark
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The hero who started the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe made the ultimate sacrifice to end the Infinity Saga. During the final battle for the fate of the universe, Tony Stark realized there was only one path to victory among the millions Strange had foreseen. In a final gambit, he used his Iron Man armor’s nanotechnology to covertly transfer the Infinity Stones from Thanos’ gauntlet to his own. Knowing full well that the cosmic energy would kill his mortal body, he snapped his fingers and uttered the iconic words, “I am Iron Man,” erasing Thanos and his entire invading army from existence. His selfless act saved the universe, bringing a heroic conclusion to his incredible journey.
12) Ultron
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In an alternate reality explored in What If…?, the genocidal A.I. Ultron (voiced by Ross Marquand) succeeded in his original plan to create a perfect synthezoid body. After bisecting Thanos with the Mind Stone’s power and taking the remaining five Infinity Stones for himself, this new Infinity Ultron became a threat to all of existence. With the full power of the stones at his command, he wiped out all life in his own universe before setting his sights on conquering the entire multiverse. His mastery of the stones was absolute, allowing him to create a massive army of sentries, reshape his own form into godlike armor, and even become aware of the Watcher (voiced by Jeffrey Wright), breaking the very boundaries that separated realities and threatening all of creation.
13) Killmonger
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During the climactic final battle against Infinity Ultron, the Guardians of the Multiverse were joined by an unexpected and opportunistic ally: Erik Killmonger. After Arnim Zola’s digital consciousness successfully took control of Ultron’s body, Killmonger saw his chance to seize ultimate power. He grabbed the discarded armor and the five Infinity Stones it contained, intending to use their universe-shaping power to “fix” his and the other heroes’ worlds according to his own vision. His attempt to control the stones was short-lived, as Zola reanimated the synthezoid body to reclaim them. This led to an eternal stalemate that forced Doctor Strange Supreme to trap both power-hungry villains in a pocket dimension, where they would be locked in a struggle forever.
14) Arnim Zola
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The digital consciousness of Arnim Zola (voiced by Toby Jones) had a fateful encounter with the Guardians of the Multiverse in their battle against Infinity Ultron. When the heroes used a specialized arrow to upload Zola’s A.I. into the synthezoid’s body, his code successfully purged Ultron’s programming. This allowed Zola to take complete control of the powerful vessel and the Mind Stone embedded within its forehead. He then immediately attempted to claim the other five Infinity Stones for himself after Killmonger seized them. His grab for power resulted in an endless struggle with the would-be king, forcing Doctor Strange Supreme to intervene and imprison both of them, neutralizing two major threats to the multiverse at once.
15) Kahhori
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The Mohawk warrior Kahhori (voiced by Devery Jacobs) was empowered by the Tesseract after it crashed on Earth in her timeline, but her direct use of an Infinity Stone came later. During the final battle against a rogue Doctor Strange Supreme who had escaped his prison, she fought alongside Captain Carter (voiced by Hayley Atwell), who was wielding all six stones. After their hard-won victory, Strange Supreme, now reformed, opened a portal for her to return home. As a final act of trust, he handed her the Tesseract. By taking direct possession of the Space Stone, she became its official wielder and guardian. She then used its power to return Strange Supreme to his own solitary universe, taking on the great responsibility of protecting the powerful artifact in her own reality.
16) Captain Carter
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In the Season 2 finale of What If…?, Captain Peggy Carter (voiced by Hayley Atwell) became one of the most powerful beings in the multiverse. To stop a rampaging Doctor Strange Supreme who was attempting to resurrect his lost universe, she donned a suit of Infinity Armor and wielded all six Infinity Stones. With the crucial assistance of Kahhori, who used her own powers to shield Peggy from the stones’ lethal energy, Carter went toe-to-toe with the supremely powerful sorcerer. Her selfless heroism proved she was worthy of wielding infinite power, solidifying her status as a true protector of the multiverse.
17) Wanda Maximoff
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In the Marvel Zombies animated series, a zombified Wanda Maximoff (voiced by Elizabeth Olsen) became the Queen of the Dead, commanding a massive undead horde of the infected. Her ultimate goal was to claim the cosmic power of the six Infinity Stones, which were being channeled by the Infinity Hulk. During the final battle against the surviving heroes at Kamar-Taj, the Scarlet Witch proved too powerful and successfully claimed the Infinity Stones’ power from Hulk for herself. Rather than destroying the world, she used them to reshape reality, creating a worldwide hex that masked the ongoing zombie apocalypse and trapping the survivors in a beautiful, but fake, world.
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