Science Fiction & Fantasy Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for science fiction and fantasy enthusiasts. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
In Avengers: Endgame, why did they not
use the Gauntlet earlier in the final battle to kill Thanos and his army?
Hawkeye had it, Spider-Man had it, Black Panther had it, and Captain Marvel had it. Any one of them could have used the it to end the battle much as Tony did.
By delaying, many more people died in the battle that could have been saved by ending the battle sooner. Is there a reason for this?
The Gauntlet altered its size to fit the Hulk's hand. It's possible that it was designed to resize itself for whomever tried to wear it, but it's more likely that Tony was directing the shift using his mental control over his nano-machine suits. If that's the case, then there's no way for anyone who isn't Hulk sized to put the gauntlet on until Tony can get there to resize it.
It's also possible that the power surge from the Stones shorted out the Gauntlet's reshaping capabilities. We never see it do anything other than mechanical movement until after Tony comes into contact with it at the very end (and even then it's not clear whether he was interfacing with it directly or using parts of his current suit to steal from the Gauntlet).
It's very easy to get tunnel vision during high stress situations. Nobody who had their hands on the gauntlet had much time to think critically - they were too busy fighting for their lives. Once it was established that it was vital to return the Stones to their own times, it simply didn't occur to them that the Stones could be used for a different purpose.
Thanos snapped his fingers and killed half the universe. Does that mean that you can snap your fingers and kill a specific group of people? Is there like a dial you have to turn from the "kill half of everything" setting to the "kill the bad guys, but nobody else" setting? Tony has a much better idea about how to control the Gauntlet and use it for his own purposes than most of the heroes who were trying to transport it.
Also, Spider-Man at least (and probably a few of the others) didn't have the stomach to murder an entire army with a finger-snap, even if it would save lives. This isn't universal though, so it doesn't get a header.
The plan was actually to get the Gauntlet and the Infinity Stones to the quantum tunnel in the van and use that to put the Stones back into their respective timelines. The plan only changed for the Tony snap when Thanos destroyed the van and Tony had to improvise.
HAWKEYE: Cap, what do you want me to do with this damn thing?
CAPTAIN AMERICA: Get those stones as far away as possible!
HULK: No! We need to get them back where they came from.
IRON MAN: No way to get them back. Thanos destroyed the quantum tunnel.
ANT-MAN: Hold on! That wasn't our only time machine. Anyone see an ugly brown van up there?
VALKYRIE: Yes! But you're not gonna like where it's parked.
IRON MAN: Scott, how long you need to get that thing working?
ANT-MAN: Maybe ten minutes.
IRON MAN: Get it started. We'll get the stones to you.
Avengers: Endgame
Let's see who all had the gauntlet:
Hawkeye: He had personally seen what the Gauntlet did to Hulk. He was definitely not going to survive using the Gauntlet, and he knew it.
T'Challa: He had barely seen the Gauntlet just once. He had no clue as to what it was.
Spider-Man: He was a kid, just back from the dead, and teleported to that location. He was in no condition to make the decision.
Marvel: While she could have wielded it, she too had no clue what it was. From her perspective it was merely a Gauntlet to be returned to the van.
What Tony did in the end, was out of desperation. They were losing. Unable to contain Thanos and his forces. He saw Thor and Cap try and fail. He saw Marvel try and fail.
He knew he had to do something big. That desperation, combined with the fact that he designed the Gauntlet at least in part gave him the confidence to at least try using it.
Extended speculation: Outside of all this, I think the Iron Gauntlet was completely fried from its first use, and lost its ability to shrink back to normal size. No human-sized hand could have fit in it, much less be able to use it.
Any one of them could have used the Gauntlet to end the battle much as Tony did.
Actually, no... As I wrote in my answer to Why didn't other heroes use the Gauntlet while they were playing catch with it? on Movies.SE, there's an interview confirming that basically, only Hulk (and Tony) could do it. You have to remember that the Gauntlet is equipped with all six Stones at that point, which is a whole lot to handle. Even Captain Marvel might not have been able too, and she's easily in the top 3 of overpowered people in the MCU.
Sure, that interview only talks about the "final" snap, but it's probably valid for partial actions as well - in the heat of the battlefield, you won't stop to take a Stone off (to "ease" the manipulation for instance), fire part of a power, reslot the Stone... Sounds like a nice way to lose one, which would jeopardize the overall plan of "in the end, use all six and unsnap".
Q: Why Iron Man has to be the one to do the final snap, couldn’t the people like Thor, Star-Lord or Captain Marvel whom all previously have handled the power of Infinity Stones done it instead?
A: Thor in this movie couldn’t do it, only Hulk was strong enough to do the snap without dying. We are still not sure whether Captain Marvel can also withstand all the power of Infinity Stones at once. The reason we choose to let Iron Man do it in the end was because he was the closest one to Thanos at the time. In all the futures Doctor Strange foresee, Iron Man was the only one who could get close to Thanos and do the snap.
I know this question has plenty of answers, but here's another, from a different perspective.
Thematically it had to be Tony, every avenger movie so far had built to this.
In the Avengers Assemble when Cap and Tony are facing off Cap says "You'd never make the sacrifice play, fall on a wire to save your friends".
However later in the movie Tony makes the sacrifice to
take the nuke on a one way trip to Chitauri-ville and only luck has him survive.
In Age of Ultron it was Tonys
chest blast that blew up Ultrons improvised meteor, but it blew out his suits power, he only survived because Thor rescued him.
In Infinity War, he's defeated
- and about to be killed - by Thanos, he'd have died except Dr Strange saves him.
In every Avenger movie Tony shows he is willing to die to save others, it was always going to be
Tony that would die to defeat Thanos.
Because it would kill them
This is the entire theme of the Infinity War story. The good guys don't want to make sacrifices. They will not make plans that would send someone to their death. They say as much I think in Infinity War. When someone has to be sacrificed for the soul stone they have to fight each other because neither is willing to lose the other one. They are not ready to give up their lives to win. They are not ready to put survivor guilt on their friends.
Thanos does not have this problem. He, without any thought, sacrifices Gamora. This is why Thanos wins, and the Avengers lose the first time. In the final moment Tony sees this. He realizes that sacrifices must be made, and he gives up his life. This completes the narrative tragedy of the Avengers.
Setting aside the physical resilience required to use the gauntlet, magic in the MCU has always been a matter of intelligence, focus, and willpower - see Doctor Strange. Even if you follow the theory that the stones are able to read the intent of the user, it's likely that only a very small number of people on that battlefield could summon the presence of mind to command the gauntlet, especially while their body is being ravaged by its raw power.
Edit - the Gauntlet's magic being directly akin to sorcery is only my conjecture, based off of similar requirements for hand gestures (clicks, clenches, waves) and the Time Stone's integration into the Eye of Agamotto as either a source of dimensional energy or harnessed for its powers directly.
I think when Dr. Strange lifts that one finger to Tony, signaling to him that this is his one chance at winning, Tony knows exactly what he has to do. In another timeline (the failed ones Dr. Strange saw), Dr. Strange may not have lifted that finger and Tony wouldn’t have known to snap and they would have lost.
Tony asked Dr. Strange during the Endgame battle if this was the one time they won... Dr. Strange didn’t want to tell him anything until that moment he lifts his finger, finally revealing that it was their one chance. Anyone else trying to snap would have failed.
I wish that their plan was to get the gauntlet to Hulk to snap again but I’m sure that Dr. Strange already saw that timeline and knew that it wouldn’t have worked. Why not? There could be any number of reasons... it did take him much longer to snap the first time than it took Tony... Tony’s whole agenda in everything has always been to protect the universe. His snap would be most likely above anyone else to work. His goals are the exact opposite of Thanos, but he obsesses over them the same way.
