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I only have limited knowledge of this and will probably make a false assumption somewhere in this question. Hopefully what I'm trying to ask is clear and someone can offer corrections.

I understood from watching the movie that Captain Marvel gets her super-powers from the Tesseract. Now that Thanos has broken the Tesseract to get the Infinity Stone that was inside, and claimed that stone in his gauntlet, might Captain Marvel's powers be affected? Why or why not? If not, why are her powers no longer tied to the tesseract?

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    FWIW I was tempted to vote to close this per the future works policy as this will almost certainly be addressed in Avengers: Endgame but I think we have enough information to make a decent educated guess at this now.
    – TheLethalCarrot ♦
    Commented Mar 20, 2019 at 20:24
  • Not necessarily, as per the answers below, but with him in control of the stones it will be a massive plothole if he's not able to depower Captain Marvel and Scarlet Witch with a single thought. Any bets as to whether this will actually be addressed in Endgame?
    – Mason Wheeler
    Commented Mar 22, 2019 at 18:22
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    Let's not have a 'future works' policy. I can't see anything good coming from one.
    – aroth
    Commented Mar 23, 2019 at 1:33

5 Answers 5

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No. The main part that I think you are misunderstanding is that her powers were derived from a power source (the warp drive) made by the Tesseract, but not the Tesseract itself or even the Space Stone, just a source of power made by the Space Stone.

This is kinda similar to how the Maximoff twins gain their powers from Loki's scepter but still retain them perfectly fine even after Ultron breaks it open to acquire the Mind Stone from inside. In other words, the origin of a person's superpowers doesn't have to keep existing to be the source of the powers. Just like the radioactive spider doesn't have to stay alive forever for Spider-Man to keep swinging around.

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    Upvoted for the part about the twins. Wanda can still user her powers after destroying the Mind Stone in IW if I’m remembering correctly.
    – TheLethalCarrot ♦
    Commented Mar 20, 2019 at 20:26
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    @TheLethalCarrot I was thinking that too, but had to rewatch just now to check and she doesn't try to use her powers at all between when the mind stone/vision explodes and when Thanos reverses him back. So it could be possible in some way that destroying a stone could change Scarlet Witch's or Captain Marvel's powers somehow, but no way to know unless they destroy one again, and I personally doubt they would lose their powers.
    – Virusbomb
    Commented Mar 20, 2019 at 20:36
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    Now you have me wondering whether there is still a radioactive spider chillin around NYC.
    – user1717828
    Commented Mar 21, 2019 at 1:27
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    @user1717828 Where do you think all those other Spider-Men come from?
    – zibadawa timmy
    Commented Mar 21, 2019 at 4:01
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    I'm not sure this is completely correct. In Captain Marvel, it was made clear that the energy she absorbed was from the drive, yes, but the power source of the drive was (ultimately) the Tesseract/Space Stone. That said, I agree with the rest of the analysis that Thanos 'owning' the Space Stone does not in any way affect the powers she absorbed.
    – Reginald Blue
    Commented Mar 21, 2019 at 14:40
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No

In Avengers: Endgame her powers seem as they were in Captain Marvel and after a few more years honing her skills they seem stronger even.

Almost certainly not

Her powers come from the Space Stone inside of the Tesseract not the Tesseract itself so breaking the Tesseract shouldn’t really have any affect on her powers. She also absorbed the powers of the Infinity Stone and doesn’t keep drawing power from there per my understanding so again any further affects on the Stone shouldn’t affect her.

Lastly, she somehow manages to get to Earth in the Avengers: Endgame trailer and seeing as her powers involved flight through space she almost certainly gets there using her powers. This is how she leaves Earth at the end of Captain Marvel so it is pretty plausible. After having seen the film this is indeed how she gets to Earth.

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    Regarding "somehow manages..." did you watch the after-credits scene in Captain Marvel?
    – Michael Richardson
    Commented Mar 20, 2019 at 20:33
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    @MichaelRichardson yes but I’m not sure how it explains how she gets back to Earth. She just “appears”. It does explain the why of course but not the how if I’m remembering correctly.
    – TheLethalCarrot ♦
    Commented Mar 20, 2019 at 21:16
  • In context, she had a lightspeed ship. I assume she used that to get around.
    – Richard Rast
    Commented Mar 21, 2019 at 14:28
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    @RichardRast No need, she was clearly shown at the end of CM to be able to fly alongside a lightspeed ship.
    – TheLethalCarrot ♦
    Commented Mar 21, 2019 at 14:29
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From what we know of the Infinity Stones, both from the comic and cinematic universes, they’re kind of intrinsic features of reality. The Space Stone took the form of the Tesseract at one time, but anything the Tesseract can do (like providing Captain Marvel’s power) is due to the Space Stone, which still exists as part of the Infinity Gauntlet.

Presumably Thanos, wielding the Gauntlet, could take away Captain Marvel’s powers (or indeed do pretty much anything else), but he’d have to consciously choose to do so. Clearly, since the six Infinity Stones collectively control the whole universe, they don’t stop everything they were doing when they come under Thanos’s control, as that would imply the universe would end the moment he put on the Gauntlet.

(In fact, without giving away potential movie spoilers, this is key to the plot of the Infinity War comics – things are going on “inside” the Stones, even when Thanos has the Infinity Gauntlet)

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    “The Space Stone took the form of the Tesseract at one time” — judging from Infinity War, the Tesseract was a container for the Space Stone. Thanos shatters it to reveal the Space Stone, after Loki gives it to him.
    – Paul D. Waite
    Commented Mar 21, 2019 at 13:14
  • “since the six Infinity Stones collectively control the whole universe” — isn't it more that they can control their aspect of the universe? Or the wielder of a Stone can do so? If not, wouldn't the minds of everyone in the universe have stopped working when Wanda destroyed the Mind Stone?
    – Paul D. Waite
    Commented Mar 25, 2019 at 9:54
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I think the implication from the movies so far is that the Stones themselves are the sources of power. The Tesseract — like the Orb which contained the Power Stone in Guardians of the Galaxy, Doctor Strange's amulet with the Time Stone in it, or Loki's staff and Vision holding the Mind Stone — was apparently just a container for the Stone.

As such, Carol's powers presumably had nothing to do with the Tesseract itself, and rather came from the presumably-Space-Stone-y energy released when the light speed drive exploded.

It's unclear whether they're dependent on the continued existence of the Space Stone. I don't think there's any particular suggestion of it, but it's possible. As alluded to in Virusbomb's answer, Wanda Maximoff is (or was) our other living example of someone who got powers from an Infinity Stone. Again, there's no indication that she lost her powers after she (temporarily) destroyed the Mind Stone, but it's possible.

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  • If I understood it right, the explosion somehow linked Carol Danvers to the Tesseract - that is, it didn’t “charge up” her powers as a one-off thing, but rather turned her into a conduit – as in, she’s actively connected to the Space Stone, which may end up being important.
    – bobtato
    Commented Mar 25, 2019 at 3:10
  • @bobtato: what was it in the movie that made you think that? I don't recall any suggestion pointing that way. (I don't recall any suggestion pointing the other way either, but still.)
    – Paul D. Waite
    Commented Mar 25, 2019 at 9:52
  • I think I got the idea from when Talos says something like, the lightspeed drive wasn't important because its power came from the "reactor" on Mar-Vell's ship. I am not 100% sure whether he says that also applies to Carol's powers, or if I just inferred that (I only saw the movie once...)
    – bobtato
    Commented Mar 25, 2019 at 11:29
  • @bobtato: sure. I don't think there's much indication that Talos knows anything about Carol's powers. (I don't think anyone knows much about them, although the Kree obviously figured out they were potentially dangerous.) We've seen other things made with the Space Stone's help (the Red Skull's weapons in Captain America, for example), and again, I don't think there was any indication that the Stone was being directly channelled into them. Obviously Carol's powers could be different, but out-of-universe, I'm not sure why that would be particularly useful for storytelling purposes.
    – Paul D. Waite
    Commented Mar 25, 2019 at 11:51
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No. They don't.

The tesseract was a sort of ... interface, that was built to be able to use the Space stone inside. Much like how the scepter was an interface to the mind stone.

Her energy originates from that stone. Not the casing around it. Thanos didn't break the space stone itself. He just broke its casing open.

Similarly, Wanda and Pietro didn't lose their powers when the Scepter was cracked open to get the mind stone within.

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