The MCU’s Infinity Stones Have Destroyed Marvel’s Original Tesseract

Warning: contains spoilers for Heroes Return #1!

Marvel has nerfed one of the most powerful weapons in comics in its Heroes Reborn event, and the MCU films and Avengers: Infinity War are to blame. The Cosmic Cube, once an incredibly powerful weapon and held up as the most desirable object of heroes and villains alike, has taken a backseat to Marvel’s own Infinity Stones thanks to a key plot point in the films that changes the nature of both. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Heroes Return #1, which shows just how far the Cosmic Cube has fallen…and, thanks to the movies, will most likely never recover.

The Cosmic Cube first debuted in Tales of Suspense #79 in 1966, in which it was crafted by the evil organization A.I.M. as a weapon capable of making the wielder’s wishes come true – it was, in effect, the perfect reality-warping machine. The Red Skull briefly used it to become the emperor of Earth, but was stopped by Captain America. Details of the cube’s powers have changed over the decades – including the fact that a cube can develop sentience over time – but by and large, they maintained the ability to alter reality on a cosmic scale. This is because, in order to create a Cosmic Cube, one must open an interdimensional doorway to the realm of the all-powerful Beyonders who can bend reality with a single thought. In recent years, however, the cube has taken a giant step back in terms of power and importance, and it’s all thanks to a retcon in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

The current Heroes Reborn event centers around a world in which the Avengers never formed and Agent Phil Coulson is the President of the United States. He’s accomplished this feat with the power of the Cosmic Cube (albeit a hellish version given to him by Mephisto with perhaps different properties), but the Cube is clearly not as powerful as it used to be. Multiple characters remember portions of the old reality, and Blade remembers the entire world as it used to be. When the Avengers reassemble, Coulson decides to utilize the Cube… by using it as a simple energy weapon. Either Coulson has wildly underestimated the powers of the Cube, or the Cube simply isn’t as powerful as it used to be.

The reason for the cube’s tremendous drop in power is simple: in Avengers: Infinity War, the Cosmic Cube/Tesseract is revealed to be an Infinity Stone – namely the Space Stone – which grants the user the power to open gateways that can transport themselves and other through the universe. In the comics, the Cosmic Cube and the Space Stone exist independently of each other – they are different objects and are treated as such. Knowing Marvel’s desire for brand synergy across their properties, like the 2021 Eternals relaunch in advance of their upcoming film, it’s understandable that the Cosmic Cube would receive a downgrade, but the one depicted in Heroes Return #1 is particularly severe.

It must be noted that one requires training and mental discipline to properly use the reality-bending properties of the Cosmic Cube. But as the artifact was given to Coulson by Mephisto and was a crucial part of his plan in Heroes Reborn, it can be surmised that Coulson carried a “user-friendly” version of the device. Yet even with the power in his hand, Coulson couldn’t rewrite reality completely – and for once, the failing isn’t his, but that of Marvel for allowing Avengers: Infinity War to affect the powers of the once-mighty Cosmic Cube.