Midway through the trailer for Avengers: Endgame, there is a shot of Thanos walking through a field, with the Infinity Gauntlet still stuck -- almost fused -- to his hand, heavily damaged from its massive exertion of power at the end of Avengers: Infinity War, when Thanos used it to kill off half of all living creatures in the universe.
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Joe and Anthony Russo, the directors of Avengers: Endgame (as well as Avengers: Infinity War, part one of this epic storyline) confirmed in their commentary for Infinity War that "using the Gauntlet for such an act took its toll on Thanos, and the Mad Titan will remain permanently damaged because of it. This makes sense, considering the massive levels of power the villain was wielding. Furthermore, with the Gauntlet damaged, there might be no easy fix to the snap."
This leads to the obvious question: Can the Infinity Gauntlet actually be destroyed?
Here is the biggest problem with any sort of theory regarding the Infinity Gauntlet, whether it be the comic book version or the Marvel Cinematic Universe version: up until the crossover event, Infinity Gauntlet, there literally was no Infinity Gauntlet.
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What we mean by this is that the cosmic artifact that we now know as the Infinity Gauntlet was simply one of the gauntlets that Thanos had been wearing in the comics for years, but with Infinity Stones (called Infinity Gems originally in the comics) placed on to it.
Here is Thanos with his gauntlets from his first appearance in the pages of Captain Marvel (the true beginning of Jim Starlin's decade-long exploration into Thanos' quest for power)
Here, then, is Thanos with the Infinity Gauntlet...
See? It's just his own gauntlet with Infinity Stones stuck on them. When you have a set-up like that, it essentially tells you there really are no stringent set of rules that the Gauntlet is playing by in the comics.
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In fact, the only true "rule" we ever got regarding the Infinity Gauntlet was alluded to in Warlock and the Infinity Watch #1, then confirmed in Infinity War, which is that The Living Tribunal (one of the most powerful cosmic beings in the universe) ruled that the Infinity Gems could never be combined together to form the Infinity Gauntlet. The Tribunal made an exception when Eternity, the cosmic being who made the original petition for such a ruling, allowed an exception. In The Infinity War #6 (by Jim Starlin, Ron Lim and Al Milgrom), that exception was permanently rescinded.
However, that "permanent" rule was not followed, as the Infinity Gauntlet has been used numerous times since. In other words, all bets are off when it comes to the Infinity Gauntlet.
Next Page: But Can the Infinity Gauntlet be destroyed?
The first time that the Infinity Gauntlet was shown to be destroyed was in What If...? #49 (by Ron Marz, Scott Clark and Pam Eklund), a story that showed what would have happened had the Silver Surfer managed to steal the Infinity Gauntlet from Thanos' hand while Thanos was distracted by the epic attack by Earth's superheroes (and Doctor Doom) in Infinity Gauntlet #4 (which was Adam Warlock and Surfer's original plan).
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Like most other beings, as soon as he became a god, Surfer began acting erratic. He decided to share his power with his love, Shalla-Bal. However, she fought against him, and in the end, Surfer realized that she was right and that he had gone mad with power. So, he used that power to destroy the Infinity Gauntlet.
However, when Reed Richards tried to do the same thing in the main continuity Marvel Universe, in New Avengers: Illuminati #2 (by Brian Michael Bendis, Brian Reed, Jimmy Cheung and Mark Morales), the Infinity Gauntlet would not allow him to destroy it.
Instead, Reed had to just split the gems up among the members of the Illuminati...
Later, after the Hood stole the gems and put the Infinity Gauntlet back together, the Avengers defeated him and Iron Man wielded the Infinity Gauntlet, claiming that he used the power to will the Gauntlet and the gems out of existence.
Of course, in reality, he just sent the gems back to the members of the Illumanit to look after once more.
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After that, Captain America wielded the gauntlet in New Avengers #3 (by Jonathan Hickman, Steve Epting and Rick Magyar) to stop an alternate reality version of Earth from colliding with the Marvel Universe's Earth. In the strain to stop the incursion, the Gauntlet seemingly exploded.
Therefore, it appears that in the Marvel Universe, since the Infinity Gauntlet is simply Thanos' old glove, it likely can be destroyed given enough strain. It just probably cannot be used to destroy itself.
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Meanwhile, in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, we learned in Avengers: Infinity War that the Infinity Gauntlet was actually a specific cosmic device that the dwarf, Eitri, forged for Thanos on the planet Nidavellir to allow Thanos to channel the energies of the Infinity Stones into the Gauntlet.
Since this version of the Gauntlet was designed for the sole purpose of achieving Thanos' goal of eliminating half of the living beings in the universe, it appears likely that this Gauntlet can be destroyed, especially since Eitri later helped Thor build an even more powerful version of Thor's old hammer, Mjolnir, called Stormbreaker. It seems unlikely that Eitri would have built Thor a hammer, the sole purpose purpose of which was to defeat Thanos, if it could not also destroy Thanos' Infinity Gauntlet.
Coupled with the fact that the Infinity Gauntlet looked quite damaged at the end of Infinity War, and in the trailer for Avengers: Endgame, it appears likely that the MCU version of the Infinity Gauntlet could also be destroyed, under very special circumstances. We shall see what those circumstances are when Avengers: Endgame hits theaters.
Avengers: Endgame will arrive on April 26, 2019. Directed by Joe and Anthony Russo, Marvel’s Avengers: Endgame stars Robert Downey Jr., Josh Brolin, Mark Ruffalo, Tom Hiddleston, Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Jeremy Renner, Chris Pratt, Elizabeth Olsen, Chadwick Boseman, Sebastian Stan, Benedict Cumberbatch, Paul Bettany, Samuel L. Jackson, Cobie Smulders, Benedict Wong, Zoe Saldana, Karen Gillan, Vin Diesel, Dave Bautista, Pom Klementieff, Scarlett Johansson, Tom Holland and Anthony Mackie.