Because petulant as he is, Eternity still acquiesced to LT's authority. If Eternity were to gain the IG's ultimate power, his attitude/subservience toward LT might change -- LT didn't want to risk it. Not to mention that LT wasn't even sure if he had enough power to take the IG from Warlock by force, so he kind of *had* to let Adam do his own thing with the gems... The only alternative was engaging in a reality-busting battle that he might not have even won, lol.
That said, even IF we assume LT>IG, the difference between them is marginal at best.
__________________
"I am tired of Earth. These people.
I am tired of being caught in the tangle of their lives."
Would it be fair to say that it the Living Tribunal doubted the outcome of the battle against the IG wielder because said wielder was Adam Warlock (someone who had greater knowledge of the gems than even Thanos)? Would the LT had similar doubts if Nebula was the wielder?
After all, the power the IG grants is wholly dependent on each user's ability to acclimate with said Godhood -- that's why Nebula and Cap, for example, were FAR less effective with it than others have been. In theory, LT should be able to overcome inept users rather easily, so long as they are not allowed to acclimate with the IG beforehand.
However, notable users like Warlock, Magus, Thanos, etc.(whom were all well-acclimated with the IG) are peers of [pre-retcon] LT at the very least.
__________________
"I am tired of Earth. These people.
I am tired of being caught in the tangle of their lives."
Last edited by Galan007 on Feb 13th, 2018 at 10:56 PM
Also it could be argued that the Beyonders actually split LT up which would explain why he's such a pussy now. If you don't want to go into straight up retcon mode anyway.
Holding two megaverses in his palm
Easily withstanding an IG warp and casually reversing the damage before shutting it down once it had sufficient authority.
Sealing off a universe such that none in the multiverse could interact with it (against korvac iirc)
Requiring several beyonders when one was enough to wipe out the multiversal hierarchy entirely
However despite all its power, it apparently can't just act willingly, there has to be several conditions to be met before it can act, which is why it didn't bother acting when IG Thanos was wrecking havok or when Galactus was eating everything up.
Apparently it was retconned during the beyonder wars as being the multiverse taken form
Then retconned to bring one in each universe in the aftermath
Though by the First firmament arc, it seemed to be back to being only one in all the universes, not sure whether it remained that way now