One of the most-awaited films of this year, Avengers: Infinity War, is finally coming out, and after 10 years into the MCU, Marvel is expected to leave no stone unturned in making it a crown jewel of the franchise.
DC’s Justice League had six superheroes take on Steppenwolf and his Parademons — but it’s nothing in comparison with the 25-plus superheroes who’ll team up in Avengers to take on Thanos, the ultimate supervillain.
Who is Thanos?
Also known as the Mad Titan, Thanos was born on Saturn’s moon, Titan. Among the many races of humanity in the MCU, Eternals are considered to be the defenders of Earth while the Deviants are their destructive counterparts. Thanos is the child of Eternals Mentor and Sui-San but also has the Deviants gene leading to his hideous looks.Fascinated by nihilism and death from his childhood, Thanos grows up to be a powerful conqueror of planets. He’s also the adoptive father of Gamora and Nebula.
How powerful is he?
Thanks to his ancestry and a gene cocktail most superheroes dream of, Thanos possesses almost all the powers one can imagine. Apart from the obvious superhero strength, the Titan can absorb and project vast quantities of cosmic energy along with telekinesis, telepathy, and matter manipulation. Trained by countless wars over the years, he’s also a powerful hand-to-hand combatant (the trailer shows him sending Iron Man to the ground with a single punch). He’s also a genius, known for employing technology which makes the ones known to humans look like high-school science projects.
What does he want?
In the 1991 comic book, The Infinity Gauntlet, Death (an actual character who Thanos falls in love with and for whom he destroys half the universe), appoints the Titan to collect the Infinity stones and destroy all life in the universe. The MCU, over the last 18 films, have focussed more on what Thanos wants than the character himself. He is after the six Infinity Stones, which The Collector explains in Guardians of the Galaxy as six singularities that have existed before the creation of the Universe. The Big Bang forged those entities into six concentrated stones that can only be controlled by beings of extraordinary strength. When united, the wielder of them gains omnipotence and omniscience and that explains why our villain is hell-bent on filling up the six spaces in his gauntlet.
Is he all by himself?
No. Thanos, when he invades planets, is usually accompanied by his team of elite lieutenants known as the Black Order who’re relatively new in the comic world. Apart from assisting the Titan to collect the stones, they also help him track his illegitimate son Thane. Black Order consists of Corvus Glaive, his wife Proxima Midnight, his brother Black Dwarf (who is called Cull Obsidian in the film which is actually another name for the entire group in the comics), and Ebony Maw. There’s also another character in this group called Supergiant who won’t be a part of the film. Interestingly, in the film, the Black Order is also referred to as Children of Thanos. Each of them has their own set of skills such as super-strength, speed, and intellect.
Why does he look familiar?
For those who follow the films of MCU, they got the first glimpse of the supervillain in the mid-credits scene of The Avengers (2012) when the leader of the Chitauri, the Other, confers with Thanos about the failed attack on Earth. He appears once again in the 2014 film Guardians of the Galaxy where he recruits Ronan the Accuser to obtain an Infinity Stone only to be doublecrossed by him. The film also marked actor Josh Brolin’s debut in the franchise. Thanos also appears in the mid-credits scene of the 2015 film Avengers: Age of Ultron in which he is visibly unhappy over the failure of his minions in obtaining the Infinity stones. He puts on his Infinity gauntlet uttering the words, “Fine, I’ll do it myself”, and that’s exactly what we’ll see him doing in Avengers: Infinity War.