Is the gem in Loki's staff an Infinity Stone?

Question

During Avengers,

Dr. Selvig constructs a device that uses the Tesseract to create a portal. He built in a fail safe, which Black Widow uses to close the portal; he refers to it as, "you can't protect against yourself."

Here, 'yourself' refers to the Tesseract and Loki's staff, as they have matching energy signatures.

However, in Captain America: The Winter Soldier,

Baron Strucker says of Loki's scepter, "[it] is worth more than any of them ever knew," which to me implies that the scepter wasn't just tapping the Tesseract's power (like the Phase 2 weapons would have).

This makes me think the gem in the scepter could be another Infinity Stone. This would make a certain amount of sense, given the similar energy signatures, and that Loki received it from Thanos.

Is the gem in Loki's scepter an Infinity Stone? If so, do we know (or have an educated guess) which one?

Answer 1

Updated with new information from Age of Ultron; see below.

I’ve left my original answer intact for people who haven’t seen the film yet, and who don’t want to be spoiled.

---

Signs point to Yes

A Marvel event on 27 Oct 2014 gave some new information about Phase 3, with film plans up to 2019. This included the next three Avengers films (incl. Age of Ultron). Inevitably this contains some spoilers for those films, but I’ve tried to spoiler-tag the worst of them.

The title of the third and fourth Avengers films are The Avengers: Infinity War, parts 1 and 2. This seems to confirm the long-standing speculation that Marvel is building towards an Infinity Stone climax.

Among other things, the fans yesterday saw a teaser trailer for Avengers 3: A copy of it has leaked online (YouTube), but I don’t know how long it will be up. The trailer is a montage:

e hear clips of Nick Fury, Odin, Gamora and Peter Quill discussing the Infinity Stones, alongside a clip montage that includes the Tesseract, the Aether, the Orb of Morag and Loki’s sceptre.

I take this as a pretty strong hint that Loki’s sceptre is an Infinity Stone, and that my initial assessment was wrong.

The trailer ends with

Thanos apparently wielding a fully-equipped Infinity Gauntlet. We see purple, red, blue, green and a large orange stone. Blue probably corresponds to the Tesseract, which means maybe Loki’s staff is green, or perhaps there’s a stone which wasn’t visible in this shot.

I’m leaving my original answer intact below, because I still think some of the reasoning holds up. In particular, I’m waiting for them to explain why Thanos would give Loki the sceptre if he was really chasing Infinity Stones, and didn't immediately retrieve it when Loki failed.

---

Reply hazy, ask again later

There's an interview with Kevin Feige where he hedges the question, in the context of Captain America: The Winter Soldier:

Interviewer: We see that Loki’s staff has not been forgotten about. Are we to believe that maybe that’s another one of the Infinity Stones, or is that just pure speculation at this point?

Feige: Well, it’s certainly pure speculation at this point. I’m not even sure if we even recognize Loki’s scepter [as an Infinity Stone], but that’s a big hint as to what will be causing them trouble in the next movie.

However, he’s not shy talking about Infinity Stones. He confirmed in another interview (spoilers for Thor: TDW) that both the Tesseract and the Aether are Infinity Stones. In the same interview, he confirms that the Tesseract is the Space Stone, but the Aether has yet to be assigned a canonical attribute. (Most people assume that it’s the Power Stone.)

Assuming they use the same six attributes as in the comics, the best guess is the Mind Gem, given the way Loki uses it to brainwash Selvig and the other SHIELD/NASA operatives. But for now, Marvel seem to be leaving their options open.

---

Speculation

I don’t think it’s an Infinity Stone. Several lines in Avengers suggest a connection between the sceptre and the Tesseract:

• On the rooftop, Selvig says:

  “She wants to show us something… a new Universe.”

  “She” is clearly referring to the Tesseract. Since he’s under the sceptre’s control, this suggests he has a bond with the Tesseract, so the two are connected. But you could read it either way.

• The line you quoted in the question.

• The Captain’s comment (when describing the sceptre):

  “Sure works a lot like a HYDRA weapon.”

  Depends on how similar you think the gems are, but I think it means the sceptre is fuelled by Tesseract energy specifically.

In the comics, all six gems/stones were different colours. We have blue and red already; I don’t think they would confuse matters by having some gems be the same colour, others different.

Plot-wise, if Thanos is trying to collect Infinity Stones, I don’t think he’d give one that he already had to Loki. That seems like an unnecessary risk. And if he can always get it back if Loki loses it on Earth, then why bother sending Loki in the first place? He could just send that person to pick up the Tesseract, sans risk.

---

In Age of Ultron, it is revealed that

Yes, it is an Infinity Stone. (Or strictly speaking, it contains one.)

Ultron breaks the casing to reveal a yellow stone, similar in size and shape to the Power Stone seen in Guardians of the Galaxy. Thor confirms that it is the fourth Infinity Stone to appear in the MCU; specifically, that it is the Mind Stone.

Answer 2

It hasn't been revealed in MCU that gem in Loki's scepter is an Infinity Stone.

But, if it really is an Infinity Stone, my educated guess says that it'd be analogous to the Mind Gem or Soul Gem as Loki used it to control mind or free will of many.

Update:
Avengers: Age of Ultron movie confirms that

The gem in Loki's staff contains an Infinity Stone. It is the Mind Stone.

Answer 3

It seems to be the mind infinity stone, as the color is a match and Loki uses it to control the minds of certain people (Hawkeye, Selvig, etc.)

Answer 4

Looking through things I'd say the aether was the reality stone, not power. This goes to the orb in Guardians of the galaxy, in the MCU the aether hasn't been assigned a name, for lack of a better word. Because the dark elves want to turn the universe into eternal darkness using the aether Loki's scepter must have some sort of infinity stone. Which I'd say was either the mind stone or the soul stone.

Answer 5

Yes it has been confirmed in Age of Ultron. The Gem was just a casing to protect the Mind stone inside it. Now the Guardian of the mind stone is Vision. The sceptre emitted a tesseract signal because the casing was charged with it to contain the power of Mind stone.

Answer 6

What we know so far...

The space gem is the tesseract, as in Captain America: The First Avenger towards the end, as Cap battles Red Skull it opened up space around them briefly. In Avengers it played a big part in teleporting Loki in. I believe at this stage, the staff and Tesseract are one, even though we saw it mess with people's minds. In a conversation, Selvig says to Loki that the Tesseract has shown him a new world, and Loki asks 'What did it show you Barton?', and he replies "My next target", which indicates to me the staff is not an infinity gem. But we now know that Loki's staff is currently being hold by Strucker and Hydra as in the credit scene in Winter Soldier in which Strucker replies that SHIELD had no idea what they had, which makes you think Loki's staff is just maybe an infinity stone. As for the Tesseract, well Loki probably has it now, as Loki has disguised himself as Odin and taken Asgard.

The power gem is seen in Guardians and is purple, not red, because of the Aether being red. And you notice Ronan as much as Nebula and Yollander craved this stone for power alone so yes this stone is Power and is currently in the Nova Corps vault.

The Aether used to be with the Collector, but as his collection is destroyed it might not be in the Collector's care anymore, and we are to believe this is either the Reality or Soul Gem. More likely Soul, as Guardians 2 is likely to feature Adam Warlock whose cocoon we saw in Thor 2, and Adam gains his powers from the Soul Stone from memory in the comics .

So that's three stones down, possibly four.

James Gunn, director of Guardians, has hinted that the stones/gems are not going to be the same as the comic in terms of colour & powers, so who knows.

So all that's really unconfirmed here is the Time Gem, as we can only second guess if the Aether is Reality or Soul, and until we do, we don't know what stones are still out there. Same with Loki's staff, stone or no stone, that is the question.

So we should probably focus on where the Time Stone is likely to surface. My bet is if not Age of Ultron, then it's maybe likely to surface in either Captain America 3, or Doctor Strange: Sorcerer Supreme.

And one last thing: the gauntlet is apparently seen in Thor in the vault of Asgard when Loki and Thor are kids, or so we are told. So both the Tesseract and the gauntlet are on Asgard which is bad, really bad, and could be a thing to focus on in Thor 3.

That is all I know sorry :(

Answer 7

In Averngers, Fury specifically says that the staff's power comes from the Tessaract (paraphrasing). And Banner states that the energy readings from the staff are the same as the Tessaract (paraphrasing).