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Quote1 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. I ask you; to what end? Dread it. Run from it. Destiny arrives all the same. And now, it's here. Or should I say... I am. Quote2
Thanos[src]

History

Origins[]

Thanos was a Titan born on the moon of the same name to A'Lars, sometime around the year 1018[4][5], living out there for many years with his adoptive brother Eros. When the moon began suffering from overpopulation and life began struggling due to lack of resources, Thanos concluded that killing half of Titan's population at random would allow for the other half to thrive with more resources available to them. He saw it as the only way to save his world from ruin, but when he proposed it to his people, they called him insane and rejected his idea, but unfortunately, Titan did indeed run out of resources and the Titans were soon all but extinct, with only Thanos and Eros left alive.

Eros fled Titan, but Thanos, now full of feelings of validation from his predictions coming true, decided that he would kill half the population of the entire universe so that no one would pass his suffering ever again. He amassed several armies, including the Chitauri and Outriders, and began his genocidal population control by going from planet to planet and slaughtering billions from his massive warship, the Sanctuary II. All the while, Thanos sought out the legendary Infinity Stones, six gems of immense power that would give him the power needed to complete his task with the snap of his fingers. Along the way, he found several young children on the worlds he razed that he took in as his own, creating the Black Order.

Thanos (Earth-199999) and Gamora (Earth-199999) from Avengers Infinity War 001

Thanos adopts Gamora

Most notable were the Zehoberei Gamora and the Luphomoid Nebula, to whom he gave extensive combat training and cybernetic implants to make them better killers to serve his cause. He forced them to spar against each other frequently, and would replace a piece of Nebula's body with machinery every time she failed to best her sister. This physical torture caused Nebula to grow up with a hatred of both Thanos and her sister, and Gamora witnessing Thanos butcher countless innocents as part of his depraved justice began to eat at her conscience. Thanos, meanwhile, remained cold, cruel, and arrogant, determined to be the hero to the universe that it didn't want.[6][2][1][7][8]

Search for the Stones[]

Over the years, Thanos and his Black Order scoured the galaxy for the Infinity Stones, all the while slaughtering countless innocents. In 2012, Thanos located the Space Stone, also called the Tesseract, on Earth, and so made a deal with the Frost Giant Loki Laufeyson, for him to acquire the Tesseract for Thanos in exchange for a Chitauri army to conquer Earth with. Loki got the Tesseract and used it to open a wormhole for the Chitauri to come through and attack New York City, but unfortunately they were beaten back by Earth's mightiest defenders, a new group of superheroes known as the Avengers, leading Thanos to harbor a grudge against them, particularly their leader, Iron Man.[7]

Thanos (Earth-199999), Ronan (Earth-199999), and Korath (Earth-199999) from Guardians of the Galaxy (film) 001

Ronan communicates with Thanos

Two years leader, the Kree extremist Ronan the Accuser defected from his empire after they signed a peace treaty with the Xandarians. He then came into contact with Thanos, and made an arrangement where, if Ronan could get a metal orb on Morag, secretly containing the Power Stone, Thanos would destroy Xandar. Nebula and Gamora became Ronan's close lieutenants, and Gamora was tasked with retrieving the orb. However, her hatred for Thanos had increased greatly over the years, and so she attempted to take the orb for herself and sell it to the Collector on the mining colony Knowhere for a hefty sum.

Gamora was captured and imprisoned by the Nova Corps, but was able to break her way out with some allies she made in prison, and they took the orb to Knowhere with them. There, they were located by Ronan's forces, who attacked them and took the orb. However, Ronan had discovered by this point that the Power Stone lay within the orb, and so decided he had no more need for Thanos and he would destroy Xandar himself and then kill Thanos, a bitter and vengeful Nebula joining his cause. Unfortunately for Ronan, his siege on Xandar was stopped by Gamora and her allies, a ragtag group of mercenaries that would come to call themselves the Guardians of the Galaxy, who took the Stone and left it in the hands of the Nova Corps.[1]

Thanos (Earth-199999) from Avengers Age of Ultron 001

Acquiring the Infinity Gauntlet

A furious Thanos vowed to accomplish his goal himself, and so around 2015, set off to the forge of Nidavellir, where he forced the dwarf blacksmith Eitri to make him a special gauntlet able to harness the power of the Stones, in exchange for letting everyone on Nidavellir live. Once the gauntlet was complete however, Thanos slaughtered them all anyway, leaving Eitri as the only survivor.[9][6]

War for the Universe[]

Sometime around 2018, Nebula came to Thanos and attempted to murder him, but she was captured and her memories were scanned, allowing him to learn Gamora had found the Soul Stone and knew of its location. Thanos then lay waste to Xandar and decimated its population, and managed to finally acquire the Power Stone, making it the first Stone in his gauntlet. Soon after, he discovered the Tesseract was once again in Loki's possession, who was aboard a spacecruiser called the Statesman with Asgardian refugees escaping the recently destroyed Asgard. With the Black Order in tow, Thanos attacked the Statesman from the Sanctuary II, and boarded the ship, slaughtering half the Asgardians and barely allowing the rest to escape.

Thanos (Earth-199999) from Avengers Infinity War 003

Finding the Space Stone

With the might of the Power Stone, Thanos fought his way through Loki's adopted brother, Thor Odinson, and the incredibly strong human mutate, the Hulk, both former Avengers, with the intent of getting to Loki. The Hulk was teleported away to Earth before Thanos could kill him, but Thanos was able to hold on to and torture Thor with the Power Stone to force Loki to give up the Tesseract, which Thanos then crushed to extract the Space Stone inside, adding it to his gauntlet. He then killed Loki and left Thor for dead in the ruins of the Statesman, ordering the Black Order to Earth to retrieve the Time and Mind Stones, while he journeyed to Knowhere to get the Reality Stone from the Collector.

Peter Quill (Earth-199999), Gamora (Earth-199999), and Thanos (Earth-199999) from Avengers Infinity War 001

Thanos faces the Guardians

As the Hulk warned the Avengers on Earth about Thanos and helped them fight the Black Order, Thor was rescued by the Guardians of the Galaxy and warned them he had two Stones already. Gamora led most of the Guardians to Knowhere, where they found Thanos, who had already ravaged the Collector's museum and added the Reality Stone to his gauntlet. Gamora confronted Thanos and the two fought, with even Star-Lord, Gamora's boyfriend and the Guardians' leader, threatening Thanos to try and let her go, but after Thanos taunted and disarmed him, he teleported anyway with Gamora back to his ship.

Once on the Sanctuary II, he revealed he had Nebula and threatened her life if Gamora didn't give up the location of the Soul Stone. She then revealed the Stone was on Vormir, where they then traveled, and were greeted by the Stonekeeper on a towering cliff, who explained the Stone required the sacrifice of a loved one to acquire it. Heartbroken but still obsessed with his mission, Thanos grabbed a fearful Gamora and tossed her off the cliff to her death. He was then granted the Soul Stone, which he added to the gauntlet, leaving two more Stones before his ultimate victory.

Thanos (Earth-199999), Mantis (Earth-199999), Anthony Stark (Earth-199999), Peter Parker (Earth-199999), and Peter Quill (Earth-199999) from Avengers Infinity War 001

Battling the Avengers

Thanos traveled to Titan to meet the Black Order, but instead found the mystic Doctor Strange, keeper of the Time Stone, waiting for him with the Avengers Iron Man and Spider-Man, as well as the Guardians Star-Lord, Drax, and Mantis, who were then joined in the fight by an escaped Nebula. They battled for a time, and used their powers to hold Thanos in place while Mantis used her empathic powers to sedate him. Iron Man and Spider-Man attempted to pull the gauntlet from his hand, but when the emotional Star-Lord discovered Gamora had been murdered, he went into a fit of rage and attacked Thanos, snapping him out of his sedation as Spider-Man managed to get the gauntlet off, only for Thanos to grab it back and put it back on his hand, resuming his full might. The ensuing battle nearly resulted in the death of Iron Man, and so to save his life, Doctor Strange surrendered the Time Stone to Thanos, and he teleported away to Earth to acquire the Mind Stone and accomplish his goal.

Vision (Earth-199999) and Thanos (Earth-199999) from Avengers Infinity War 001

Ripping the final Stone from Vision's skull

Arriving it the country of Wakanda, Thanos witnessed his Outriders and the Black Order waging war on the Avengers and the Wakandan armies, and saw that the Mind Stone was embedded in the head of the android Vision. Thanos battled his way through the Avengers, and though they fought as hard as they could, he managed to easily overpower them with the gauntlet's might, with not even the powerful Wanda Maximoff able to fend him off, with her destruction of Vision's Stone being reversed moments later by Thanos with the Time Stone. When he finally reached Vision, Thanos picked him up off the ground, digging his fingers into his skull and ripping the Mind Stone out with his bare hand.

Thor Odinson (Earth-199999) and Thanos (Earth-199999) from Avengers Infinity War 001

Final battle with Thor

Placing the sixth and final Infinity Stone in his gauntlet, Thanos became all-powerful, with his first enemy to face with his new godlike power being Thor Odinson himself, who had acquired a powerful axe called Stormbreaker to help him defeat the mad Titan. Thor hurled his axe into Thanos' chest, intending to murder Thanos slowly for killing his brother on the Statesman, but Thanos merely taunted him and snapped his fingers, sending a shockwave of energy through the universe that reduced half of all living creatures in it to dust. Thanos then teleported himself to a planet called the Garden, weakened from Thor's attack and his cosmic decimation, relieved that all his bloodshed and carnage resulted in his victory, and believing he had saved the universe.[10][6]

Final Days[]

Thanos spent the next month relaxing in the garden, farming the land and contemplating his great victory, while all throughout the universe, chaos reigned supreme in the wake of the event that would come to be called "The Blip". Eventually, Thanos realized the Infinity Stones served no more purpose to him outside of temptation, both to him to use them again, and to others to take them from him. He decided to use their power to reduce them to atoms, a feat that left half his body covered in serious burns, fusing the gauntlet to his hand, and nearly killed him.

Thanos (Earth-199999) Thor Odinson (Earth-199999) Steven Rogers (Earth-199999) Natalia Romanoff (Earth-199999) and Bruce Banner (Earth-199999) from Avengers Endgame 001

Thor decapitates Thanos

Two days later, the Avengers made their way to the Garden and ambushed Thanos, attempting to take back the Stones to undo his decimation. However, once the horrified Avengers discovered he had destroyed the Stones and there was no way to restore the dead to life, they fell into a great despair. A furious and guilt-ridden Thor used Stormbreaker on Thanos one last time, severing his head from his body, and the Avengers returned to Earth, defeated.[3]

Legacy[]

Thanos (Earth-TRN734) and Thanos (Earth-199999) from Avengers Endgame

A younger Thanos sees his future

For five long years, the universe attempted to recover from Thanos' mass genocide, having to rebuild many institutions as well as avoiding falling into despair. Eventually, Iron Man's research into the Quantum Realm allowed him to discover the secrets of traveling through time, and the Avengers devised a plan to travel back to alternate, branching timelines and recover the Infinity Stones throughout their history and undo the Blip in their present. One excursion in an alternate 2014 led to the Thanos of that timeline becoming aware of his counterpart's future and the Avengers' plan. Hijacking their time machine and traveling to the present, this Thanos vowed to simply reset the entire universe into a paradise with the Stones the Avengers had collected for him. Against all odds, however, the Avengers were still able to defeat the alternate Thanos and restore the Blip's casualties to life.[3]

Despite this, the five chaotic years before everyone was restored to life left quite an impression on the universe, especially Earth. The cosmic hero Captain Marvel was forced to travel the cosmos to multiple planets to help restore order to the universe during that time, and Earth's economy and governments were seriously thrown off balance by the devastation. Many people, especially those who fought Thanos directly such as Thor and Wanda, were severely traumatized, and the Guardians were devastated by his murder of Gamora.

Nebula was able to move forward and confront her trauma with her father, but for all others, the damage was done, and he would stand for many years as the most powerful enemy both the Avengers and the Guardians of the Galaxy would ever face, with his closest competitor being Kang the Conqueror. Thanos' legacy would always be one of fear, chaos, trauma, and hatred, and even with his greatest work undone, he still changed the universe forever, and not for the better.[3][11][12][13][14]

Attributes

Powers

Titan Physiology: Thanos possesses extraordinary physical powers which are almost impossible to calculate. His physical power allows him to safely hold and wield the Infinity Stones.

  • Superhuman Strength: He has tremendous amounts of bone and muscle power, which was seen to surpass the Hulk's extraordinary physical power and beat him into unconsciousness.[6]
  • Superhuman Reflexes: Despite his large size, he has incredible reflexes, being able to effortlessly dodge blows from the Hulk.[6]
  • Superhuman Durability: His physical constitution is extremely durable, being able to wield the power of all the Infinity Stones and physically touch them without any damage or injury. He could take on tremendous amounts of physical damage and still continue on with his mission.[6]
  • Advanced Longevity: It has been confirmed that Thanos is an extremely long-lived being and was roughly over 1000 years of age by the events of the Infinity Wars and the Battle of Earth. Even during the 2010s, he had displayed no signs of aging or any decline in his physical powers.

Abilities

Master Manipulator: He was able to orchestrate wars and invasions all for the Infinity Stones, so as to gain dominion over time, space, thought and reality.[6]

Master Combatant: Thanos was a master combatant with centuries' worth of experience, as he easily defeated an enraged Hulk in a hand-to-hand fight.[6]

Paraphernalia

Equipment

Transportation

Notes

See Also

Links and References

References

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