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This Inconsistently Heinous was Headlined on June 2022. | ||
| NOTE: This page will only contain information about the 2018 version of Thanos as the 2014 version was voted Near Pure Evil, thus only information & crimes about the 2018 Thanos are allowed. |
| “ | I know what it's like to lose. To feel so desperately that you're right. Yet to fail, nonetheless. It's frightening. Turns the legs to jelly. But I ask you, to what end? Dread it, run from it… destiny still arrives all the same. But now, it's here. Or should I say… I am. | „ |
| ~ Thanos' famous speech. |
| “ | With all six stones I could simply snap my fingers, and they would all cease to exist, I call that… mercy. | „ |
| ~ Thanos revealing his plan to use the Infinity Stones to wipe out half of all life in a twisted act of "mercy" to Doctor Strange. |
| “ | You should… you… you should have gone for the head. | „ |
| ~ Thanos taunting Thor before he unleashes the full power of the Infinity Gaunlet- one of his most famous quotes. |
Thanos is the main antagonist of The Infinity Saga and the overarching antagonist of The Multiverse Saga in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
In his characterisation, he is a genocidal warlord who seeks to save the universe from overpopulation after having seen what it did to his own home planet, Titan, by eliminating half of all life in it, mainly by attempting to get six Infinity Stone. He is the adoptive father of the Children of Thanos (Gamora, Nebula, Ebony Maw, Proxima Midnight, Corvus Glave, and Cull Obsidian), the leader of the Black Order, the former superior of Ronan the Accuser and Loki Laufeyson, both who eventually betray him, the archenemy of the Avengers and the Guardians of the Galaxy, particularly Iron Man, Thor, Star-Lord, Gamora, and Nebula, and one of the biggest threats in the entire MCU.
He was portrayed by Damion Poitier in The Avengers and by Josh Brolin in the rest of his appearances.
His Evil Ranking[]
What Makes Him Heinous?[]
In General[]
- Despite the gigantic Heinous Standards of the MCU, Thanos easily passes it due to using his resources to their capacity by decimating numerous planets throughout the universe, which he is limited to in terms of scale, and due to committing a nearly unprecedented act of genocide when he obtains and completes the Infinity Gauntlet. This makes him have one of the highest kill counts in the series, surpassed only by cosmic entities from other universes. He is also arguably more personal to the protagonists than other villains.
- While him wiping out half the universe was eventually undone by the heroes, this is still taken with enough gravitas as Natasha had to sacrifice herself to obtain the Soul Stone, which was needed to complete the Infinity Gauntlet to undo the Snap. Not to mention that they had to deal with his 2014 counterpart by the end of their mission which leads to Tony Stark sacrificing himself to stop his plans for good.
Background[]
- He suggested to wipe out half of all life on his planet to prevent the tragedy, which makes it understandable in why he was called a madman. He blamed his people for rejecting his plan and became obsessed with wiping out half of all life in the universe in order to prove himself right. He also ignores any other possible solution such as using the stones to increase the amount of resources (which according to the filmmakers could have been done) which shows he simply wants to prove his original solution was correct by forcing it on the universe.
- He invaded multiple planets, having the population of the entire planet randomly divided into half and then execute them.
- One of these planets was Kylos, where he ordered Ronan the Accuser to kill half of the people, thus leading to the deaths of Drax's wife and daughter leading to Drax swearing vengeance against both Ronan and Thanos.
- He abducted multiple children from all the planets he slaughtered, harshly training and torturing them, being overall an abusive father while showing little care for them.
- The worst case is with Nebula, in which he forced her to fight with Gamora as training and whenever she lost, he mutilated her by replacing one of her organic parts slowly with cybertronics for the sake of making her better even though Nebula doesn't enjoy being modified with, with Nebula saying at one point that her natural eyes aren't black, but that Thanos changed them to make her a better warrior.
The Avengers[]
- He was behind Loki's invasion that nearly lead to New York being nuked.
- His actions also led to Tony getting PTSD from the invasion. This caused Tony to become paranoid about protecting the planet from Thanos and it motivates him to create Ultron to protect the Earth, who ends up backfiring and attempts to destroy humanity.
Guardians of the Galaxy[]
- He made a deal with Ronan the Accuser, promising him to destroy Xandar in exchange for the orb, not revealing it to be containing the Power Stone to get it knowing Ronan's desire, threatening to bathe the star ways in his blood if Ronan fails.
- He threatened Ronan with death if he resisted working with Gamora and Nebula to find the Power Stone, and hypocritically mocked Ronan for letting his "obsession" cloud his judgment, despite being just as guilty of this himself (this is technically said by his 2014 counterpart but it was before any divergence in the timeline so it can be assumed his original self also said it).
- He also shows no concern when Ronan murders the Other out of annoyance, despite the Other's loyalty to the Mad Titan.
Avengers: Infinity War[]
- He invaded Nidavellir and had the Dwarves channel the energy of all the six Infinity Stones safely, before killing most of them and mutilating Eitri's hands to make sure he won't make another weapon like this again, after having misled Eitri into thinking they would be spared if they cooperated. This is also hypocritical since he claims to kill only half of other species and to kill at random, but in this case he killed nearly all of them and did so for personal gain to ensure they couldn't make a weapon to use against him.
- He invaded and decimated Xandar to get the Power Stone.
- Following Hela's defeat, he attacked the ship with Asgardian refugees that were able to survive her reign of terror and the destruction of Asgard by Surtur and killed half of them including Heimdall and Loki, considering a huge portion didn't even survive Hela's reign. Since he later halved them again with the snap, this means he has reduced their population to 1/4 which contradicts his goals, as he actually brought the Asgardians even closer to extinction.
- He massacred half the population of Knowhere and tortured Taneleer Tivan (though he deserved it for his mistreatment of his purple alien maids) and though he did spare him, this would be due to pragmatism only.
- He tries to goad Quill into shooting Gamora, despite knowing he wouldn’t succeed and only did it to psychologically torture both of them.
- He tortures Nebula to force Gamora to tell him the soul stone’s Location. The only reason he didn’t kill Nebula because he would’ve considered it a “waste of parts”.
- He sacrificed Gamora, the only person he truly cares about, to gain the Soul Stone after the Red Skull, the keeper of the Soul Stone, informed him that such is the price to pay for that Infinity Stone.
- This would cause Quill to descend towards grief and despair since his lover was no longer with him, especially with the fact that 2014 Gamora does not share the memories and love for Quill that her deceased counterpart had.
- After entering Wakanda, he murdered Vision in cold blood by ripping the Mind Stone from his head after reversing his previous death by Wanda Maximoff, effectively stripping Wanda of her only moral support.
- This would drive Wanda back into villainy, as she brainwashes an entire town into living in her ideal, yet fake reality in WandaVision, as well as ravaging the Multiverse to find her children in Multiverse of Madness.
- He used the fully-powered Infinity Gauntlet to wipe out half of all life in the universe, with it being decided randomly who would die. This indirectly causes Ronin and the Flag Smashers to both commit their own reigns of terror. As Ant-Man and the Pym-van Dyne family were planning to help cure Ghost of her condition she had during the events of Ant-Man and the Wasp, he ended up, not only snapping the family out of existence, but also leaving Ant-Man trapped in the Quantum Realm for 5 years and missed out on spending time with his family and friends (especially his daughter Cassie). It is unknown what happened to Ghost and Bill Foster if they survived the snap or not. In the upcoming film Thunderbolts*, we can get some answers.
Avengers: Endgame[]
- While he was justified in destroying the Infinity Stones to ensure he would not give into his temptations, he cruelly taunts the Avengers that they have failed and that they cannot undo his half-omnicide.
- Due to his actions, half of the universe was left in despair for over five years, with Thor in particular suffering immense guilt, which led to him becoming an alcoholic and getting overweight and Clint becoming the murderous vigilante Ronin.
- The Avengers' mission to undo what Thanos did also results in Natasha sacrificing herself so that Clint wouldn't have to kill himself for the Soul Stone was also something that Thanos was responsible for.
What Makes Him Inconsistent?[]
- He has a legitimately tragic past of being so desperate to save his entire planet from extinction that he suggested wiping out half of all the people in Titan and being saddened when he watched his entire planet die right in front of his eyes after they rejected his idea, leading him to end half of all life in the universe after personally seeing the horrors of the universe, desperate to save it from suffering the same fate his planet suffered.
- He cares for several people:
- He cares for the people from his home planet, as he was deeply saddened by their deaths, which motivates his actions.
- He also shows deep care for his favorite daughter Gamora, as he was deeply saddened when he had to sacrifice her for the Soul Stone, even shedding tears, and she is the very person he sees in the soul world after snapping. It was because of this that Thanos consoles Wanda after she had to destroy the Mind Stone and kill Vision from preventing Thanos from getting the former.
- He shows care for Ebony Maw as when Dr. Stephen Strange answers his question on if Maw is dead, Thanos then tells "this day extracts a heavy toll".
- When Nebula told the Avengers that he is telling the truth about the Stones' destruction, Thanos thanks her and genuinely apologizes for his cruelty to her. In addition, while he was known for forcibly experimenting with her if she didn't meet his expectations, he sincerely wanted to make her the best version of herself.
- He has a strict code of honor, as he hates lying, was willing to honor Ronan's deal, and shows massive respect for the heroes, only killing them if it has good reasoning and being impressed by Iron Man's intelligence, saying he hopes people will remember him after fulfilling his plan.
- He has standards since he rightfully finds Ronan's wrathful bigotry against all things Xandar pathetic and openly expresses this to Gamora. He also sneers with disgust at Loki when he tells him that he could never hope to accomplish godhood, and while one could argue he is being hypocritical, Thanos himself isn't prejudiced or power hungry at all. He also has standards about hurting Nebula beyond what she could bear, since she says the High Evolutionary was much more cruel and barbarous towards Rocket Raccoon than Thanos was to her.
- The ending of Infinity War has his victory played for sympathy, with him sitting on a farm while watching the sun rise and despite having lost everything, sincerely smiling because he succeeded and believing he fixed the universe.
- Unlike his 2014 version, who places more importance on his own ego and proving that he is right, 2018 Thanos actually has good intentions despite his arrogance, genuinely believing his actions are good and wants to save the universe, even if he has moments of hypocrisy.
- What cements Thanos in truly being a genuine extremist is when he has the process of wiping out half of all life be random, and simply retires to be a farmer after that, destroying all the stones when he easily could've used them to do whatever he likes, because he precisely saw the stones as temptation for himself and others.
Trivia[]
- While this version of Thanos is nowhere close to being Pure Evil or even Near Pure Evil, his 2014 version counts as NPE he nearly outweighs his tragedy by trying to destroy all of life instead of half of it, he does not know who Wanda is and does not feel bad for her, his care for Maw is not mentioned, and his side of honor is hardly seen, with his only preventions being care for Gamora and Nebula, his tragedy (though this is a pretty weak one), and a sympathetic death.
- His version from Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness doesn't count due to only being seen on-screen for a few moments exclusively in a post-mortem state.
- His What If...? versions don't count as IH for different reasons.
- The Thanos from the Star Lord T'Challa had his heinous acts all off-screen, and he is mostly played for laughs in the episode. Regardless, he still passed the in-story standards since the Collector’s kidnappings revolved around fridge horror while Thanos clearly threatened many planets prior to his redemption and had several crimes that were worse than his.
- The Zombie Thanos and Ten Rings Hela universe don't count due to too little minimal screen time. Although this could change during the upcoming Marvel Zombies.
- The Thanos from the Party Thor universe and Nova Corps Nebula universe aren't even seen on-screen and only mentioned by Nebula and Gamora respectively.
- The Thanos from the Infinity Ultron universe, Gamora universe, and 1602 Avengers universes don't count due to way too little screen time and all of their heinous actions being entirely offscreen.
External Links[]
- Thanos on the Villains Wiki
- Thanos on the Magnificent Baddie Wiki
- Thanos on the Marvel Cinematic Universe Wiki
- Thanos on the Marvel Wiki
- Thanos on the Marvel Movies Wiki
- Thanos on the Disney Wiki
- Thanos on the VS Battles Wiki
- Thanos on Wikipedia
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 Inconsistently Heinous
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