Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-3123266-20140303175822/@comment-3123266-20140806171553

Marvel is willing to make changes from the source material to fit the plotting for the cinematic universe. So far, all stones are tremendous sources of energy (and can kill most people for touching it directly), though one stone may have one specific power advantage over the other. Like in the comics, each stone are connected to each other through space and time. The Tesseract first opened a door to the mind stone, which Loki had. He then had Selvig open the door to the other stone, where the Chitauri army was.

The Chitauri did not bring the other stone with them. Thanos still has it. By having five other stones at five other places, Thanos has a means to conquer six corners of the galaxy.

"From the one, I reach out to the five." -- Infinity Gauntlet #6