Marvel’s Villains: Thanos
Thanos, the Mad Titan who made his major debut in the MCUs Infinity War film last year was probably the most talked about villain over the Internet.
As we wait for the Avengers Endgame, which is set for release on April, after the SNAP cliffhanger ending, I thought of starting off this year with writing about the Mad Titan, starting off with his comic book origin…..
The creation of the character
Thanos was created by a comic book writer called Jim Starlin and he made his first appearance in the comics in 1973.
Jim Starlin originally came up with the idea of Thanos during a college psychology class. The original appearance of Thanos was that of a thinner one but was later beefed up.
The character was influenced by DC’s Darkseid (one of the New Gods characters created by a former Marvel comic book artist called Jack Kirby).
But Jim Starlin said that Thanos wasn’t influenced by Darkseid but in his first illustrations of the character, he looked like Metron, who wasn’t as beefed up as Darkseid.
His biography in the comics
Thanos was born on Titan, the moon of planet Saturn, to his mother Sui-San and his father Mentor (A’Lars) and he had a brother named Eros (also known as Starfox).
When he was born, his mother was shocked to see his misshapen appearance, that was a result of the Deviants (a fictional race of humanoids) gene. This gene gave him a rugged purple skin.
Initially, Sui-San wanted to call him Dione but she ‘heard a cold whisper’ say a name that she had never heard and as soon as she said “Thanos”, she went mad. Looking at the child’s eyes was like looking at the eyes of death. Driven by fear, she attempted to kill the baby but A’Lars stopped her and had her sedated.
As she calmed down she ended up saying, “We’re going to die. Just look at that thing. That isn’t my son”.
Unfortunately, the tables turned on her when later, young Thanos remembered this when he was 12 years old when he killed her.
As for his brother Eros, who was more handsome than him, he was jealous of him because he was surrounded by friends and family and was favored more than him.
Being seen as an outcast in Titan, he found comfort in other venues such as nihilism and death, which really fascinated him and while in his youth, later found companionship in the physical form of Mistress Death.
The Etymology of his Name
The name ‘Thanos’ comes from the Greek word Thanatos, which means death. In Greek mythology, Thanos is the personification of death.
Thanos is an Eternal, a type of superhuman, with an array of powers such as superhuman strength, superhuman durability and psychic abilities.
He is immensely strong and resistant to injury, invulnerable to almost all types of poison, diseases and telepathic attacks. Very few heroes have managed to beat him single-handedly such as Adam Warlock (where he beat him by turning him to stone) and Nebula (in the Infinity Gauntlet saga, where she managed to get the Infinity Gauntlet and wish him to disappear into space).
In terms of psychic abilities, Thanos has the ability to control the minds of others, such as The Hulk which is super impressive, because the Hulk’s mind is resistant to telepathic attacks due to his raging anger.
He’s a super-genius in virtually all the fields of advanced science and he has created tech that exceeds that which is on Earth. He’s also a master strategist as he demonstrated this skill in acquiring the Infinity Gems in the Silver Surfer comics.
Thanos’ motives here will be derived from the both the Infinity War movie and two comic books, the Silver Surfer: Rebirth of Thanos and Infinity Gauntlet.
His first motive is to impress Mistress Death.
After Thanos was defeated and turned to stone by Adam Warlock, Mistress Death sought to raise him up from the dead, giving him the task of wiping out half of the universe’s living beings. Mistress Death was convinced that there was a severe imbalance in the universe that if left unchecked, it would lead to an impending peril.
Thanos gets the Infinity Gems (as they are called in the comics) and gets carried away by the unlimited power of the Gems in his Gauntlet. To impress her, he builds massive shrines for her and presents to her a mangled half-dead body of Nebula, his supposedly grand-daughter, showing off his bravado and prowess.
Mistress Death doesn’t show any reaction of surprise or astonishment but merely scolds him. This pisses of Thanos and later he remembers his task of wiping out half the universe and he does this, by using the power of the Infinity Gems in his Gauntlet by snapping his fingers. That led to death on a grand scale.
But despite that grand act, Mistress Death didn’t show any expression of surprise.
His second motive is to restore balance to the universe, for the greater good
In Infinity War, we see Thanos’ justification for wiping out half the universe. His philosophy is that to ensure there’s sustainable life, the solution is genocide, as he explained this to Doctor Strange on Titan. This is the same extreme solution he offered to his home planet that was at the face of extinction.
Due to overpopulation and “Too many mouths to go around”, he suggested genocide at random to both the poor and rich, which to be honest, is an extremist dark solution, and a reasonable reaction for his people to call him a mad man.
This is what he did to Gamora’s home planet, in order for what happened to his planet doesn’t happen to others, like hers. This dark motivation, all in the name of ensuring balance, is what he tells Gamora.
He knows what’s right for the greater good.
This is almost similar to the events that preceded that of the Infinity Gauntlet, which took place in the Silver Surfer: Rebirth of Thanos comic.
Here, Thanos tells the Silver Surfer…
With that, he tells the Silver Surfer that his solution for this is “Euthanasia, by killing off 50%of this universe’s population”.
This is in conjunction with Mistress Death’s request, after she raised him from the dead, “My Mistress Death likes a constant and steady harvest.
The balance must be maintained and that’s why I have returned.” The Silver Surfer disagrees with this, saying that this solution is too terminal.
Thanos was willing to sacrifice Gamora to get the Soul Stone in order to fulfill his quest. This is something the Avengers weren’t willing to do, seeing life as something trivial with the main goal of beating Thanos.
Vision is willing to sacrifice his life to destroy the mind stone before Thanos gets it. This is more of one life for the sake of half universe, which is a tough dilemma that the Avengers face. Captain America refuses to let Vision do this saying….
Well, in the end, Thanos achieved his mission, that cost him everything, as he told young Gamora, despite the efforts of the Avengers, the Guardians of the Galaxy, Black Panther, Doctor Strange and the Wakandan Army.
Anyway, let’s wait to see what the Avengers: Endgame has to offer after that post-snap cliffhanger and how the heroes will beat this guy.
And that’s all about Thanos, the Mad Titan.
