Thanos (Marvel Cinematic Universe)

Thanos is a fictional character from the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) film franchise, based on the Marvel Comics character of the same name. He is portrayed by Damion Poitier in his original appearance in The Avengers (2012), and by Josh Brolin in subsequent appearances. In the films, Thanos is an alien warlord from the planet Titan who seeks to bring "balance" to the universe by eliminating half of all living beings in order to stabilize its overpopulation. To achieve this, he aims to collect the six Infinity Stones and gain god-like powers, which brings him into conflict with both the Avengers and the Guardians of the Galaxy, who ultimately join forces to combat Thanos.

The character received universal praise from both critics and fans alike, up to the point where Thanos has been described as "hands down" the best villain of the MCU, as well as one of the greatest movie villains of the 21st century.

Creation and development
Jim Starlin conceived Thanos during a college psychology course, and he introduced the character in a 1973 edition of The Invincible Iron Man. Starlin originally designed the character as skinny and lanky, but editor Roy Thomas suggested he "beef him up." Thanos is a mutant member of the race of superhumans known as the Titanian Eternals. The character possesses abilities common to the Eternals, and is able to demonstrate enormous superhuman strength, speed, stamina, and invulnerability among other qualities.

The MCU began building towards Thanos in the first Avengers film, in which Damion Poitier portrayed the character in an uncredited cameo appearance. In May 2014, Josh Brolin signed a multi-film contract to portray the antagonist, debuting in Guardians of the Galaxy (2014). Thanos was originally going to have a larger role in Guardians, but Joss Whedon felt that the character needed to be threaded more gently. Screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely noted that Thanos' lingering presence in the franchise helped legitimize him as a threat prior to Infinity War. Despite this, little screen time had been devoted to Thanos' history and motivations. Markus stated, "We don't get an element of surprise [with his introduction in Infinity War]... You can count on a lot of scenes where we illuminate a lot about him very early", with McFeely adding, "It is incumbent upon us to give him a real story, real stakes, real personality, and a real point of view."

Avengers: Infinity War (2018) went through numerous story iterations, and over the course of development Thanos' presence in the film grew. VFX Supervisor Dan Deleeuw noted "Thanos went from supporting villain to one of the main characters driving the plot." In one draft, the film was told directly from Thanos' perspective with him serving as narrator. Despite leading the cast in screen time in Infinity War and being considered the main character of the film by many, Thanos had a secondary role in Avengers: Endgame (2019). McFeely explained "we had to give ourselves permission to backseat the villain [...] You're rolling around in the loss and the time heist, and you think it's sort of Avengers against nature." Joe Russo stated that after Thanos was successful in Avengers: Infinity War, he is now "done. He did it. He's retired." Markus and McFeely had difficulty in factoring the older, post-Infinity War, Thanos into the film due to the character already possessing the Infinity Stones, until executive producer Trinh Tran suggested that they kill Thanos in the film's first act. Markus explained that the character's early death "reinforced Thanos's agenda. He was done . . . it was like, 'If I've got to die, I can die now.'"

A major aspect of Thanos' comic book storyline is his attempts to woo the female manifestation of Death. This plot was omitted from the films, as the filmmakers instead chose to pair the character with Gamora and focus on their father-daughter relationship. McFeely explained this choice by noting "[Thanos and Gamora] had a lot of history we wanted to explore" that would add layers to Thanos and would avoid him becoming "the big mustache-twisting bad guy who wants ultimate power just to take over the world and sit on a throne". Avoiding the Death storyline moved away from the tease Whedon used in The Avengers with the character, where Thanos felt that by challenging the Avengers, he was courting death. Though the tease was purposely ambiguous, Whedon felt when he featured Thanos he did not know what to do with him and "kind of hung [Thanos] out to dry". Whedon added that "I love Thanos. I love his apocalyptic vision, his love affair with death. I love his power. But, I don't really understand it." Whedon enjoyed the approach the writers and Russos took in Infinity War, giving Thanos "an actual perspective and [making] him feel righteous to himself", since the Death storyline was "not a concept that will necessarily translate".

Design and special effects
Digital Domain worked on creating Thanos for Infinity War and Endgame, producing over 400 visual effects shots. The company created a new facial capture application called Masquerade, based on the concept of machine learning through computer algorithms, specifically for the film, beginning work on the system 3–4 months before filming began to develop and test it. They presented their results to Brolin, the Russos, and executives from Marvel ahead of filming to demonstrate the subtleties Brolin would be able to bring to the character, which helped inform Brolin how to portray the character. Before the start of filming, Brolin's facial expressions were captured with ILM's Medusa system, which along with his motion capture data from set, were fed to Masquerade to "create a higher-resolution version of what Brolin did on set" so animators could apply that to the CGI character. Kelly Port, Digital Domain's VFX Supervisor, noted the design of Thanos took into account the versions that appeared in previous films, but were adjusted more toward's Brolin's features, which also helped with matching his performance to the digital character.

Early life
Born and raised on the planet Titan, Thanos had an unwavering love for his home and its people. As Titan grew overpopulated and began running low on natural resources, Thanos worried about his planet's lifespan. In an effort to save the planet, Thanos suggested killing half the population at random so that the other half could prosper. The people of Titan rejected this idea and banished Thanos, labeling him a madman. However, Thanos' worries proved valid as Titan crumbled over time and Thanos' race went extinct, leaving him as its sole survivor. Fearing what happened to Titan would occur elsewhere, Thanos dedicated his life to "balancing" the universe by destroying half of all life for the benefit of the other half.

The Mad Titan, as he became known, amassed an army and began conquering planets, building a reputation that quickly spread throughout the galaxy. To further augment his strength, Thanos adopted children that had been orphaned during his conquest, including Corvus Glaive, Cull Obsidian, Ebony Maw, Proxima Midnight, Nebula, and Gamora. During his children's training, Thanos would always pit Nebula and Gamora against each other, and Gamora's consistent victories caused her to become Thanos' favorite child. Conversely, he grew disappointed in Nebula, and every time she'd lose he would replace a part of her body with machinery in an effort to improve her fighting.

Search for the Infinity Stones
Eventually, Thanos learned about the existence of the Infinity Stones, six all-powerful gems that grant their wielder god-like abilities; each Stone having the capability to control an aspect to existence. Thanos made it his mission to acquire these stones, first by proxy. In 2012, he enlists the help of his minion, The Other, leader of the Chitauri, to contact Loki after his defeat at Thor's hands, and task him with collecting the Space Stone, located on Earth and within the Tesseract; in exchange, Thanos and The Other promise Loki a Chitauri army large enough to conquer Earth. While Loki is able to secure the Tesseract and summon the Chitauri to Earth, he is ultimately defeated by the Avengers, and taken alongside the Tesseract to Asgard for safekeeping.

Two years later, in 2014, Thanos turns his attention to the Power Stone, stored inside an Orb on the planet Morag. He enlists the Kree radical Ronan the Accuser and his forces to collect it from him, in return offering assistance in destroying the planet Xandar. Before Ronan's forces can obtain the Orb, it is claimed by Peter Quill, leading Thanos to send Gamora to re-claim it. However, Gamora turns on them and forms the Guardians of the Galaxy alongside Quill, Rocket Raccoon, Groot, and Drax the Destroyer, intending to sell the Orb to the Collector. While enraged by his favourite child's betrayal, Thanos resumes his quest for the Orb and sends Nebula to assist Ronan in obtaining it. They succeed in doing so, but both Ronan and Nebula later betray Thanos, with the former intending to destroy Xandar himself using the Power Stone, and then kill Thanos as well. However, Ronan is thwarted by the Guardians, who kill him using the stone's power, before handing it over to the Nova Corps for safekeeping; leaving Thanos with yet another stone lost, as well as two of his daughters now against him.

After both of these failures to claim the stones, Thanos forces the Dwarves of Nidavellir to build the Infinity Gauntlet for him, capable of channeling all six Infinity Stones. He then proceeds to exterminate the entire population save for Eitri, whose hands he smelts in metal, and dons the Infinity Gauntlet, intending to collect the stones himself.

Assembling the stones, the Snap, and death
In early 2018, Thanos decimates Xandar, claiming the Power Stone. He later tracks down the starship carrying the Asgardian survivors of Ragnarök, and ambushes it using his own ship, the Sanctuary II. After killing over half of the Asgardians, Thanos easily subdues Thor and defeats the Hulk in hand-to-combat, before claiming the Tesseract with the Space Stone from Loki, whom he kills. However, before being killed as well, Heimdall is able to send the Hulk to Earth to warn its heroes about Thanos, who then destroys the ship, leaving any survivors, including Thor, to die.

After these events, Thanos sends his children to Earth to claim the stones located there, while he heads to Knowhere to get the Reality Stone from the Collector, which he succeeds in doing, destroying most of the place in the process. Shortly after, Peter Quill, Gamora, Drax, and Mantis, having been warned by Thor, whom they rescued from deep space, about Thanos' intentions, arrive to stop him, but Thanos uses the stone to trick them into letting their guard down. After defeating the Guardians, Thanos leaves with Gamora, knowing that she learned about the location of the Soul Stone. Revealing that he captured and tortured Nebula after she tried and failed to assassinate him, Thanos convinces Gamora to take him to the Soul Stone's location in exchange for her sister's life. The pair arrive on Vormir, where the stone's guardian, the Red Skull, informs them that they have to sacrifice something they love in order to claim it. While Gamora initially mocks Thanos, stating that he loves nothing, she is shocked to discover that he genuinely loves her and attempts to kill herself, but fails. Unwilling to give up his quest for balance, a heartbroken Thanos reluctantly throws Gamora to her death and claims the Soul Stone.

Later, Thanos arrives on Titan to rendezvous with Ebony Maw, whom he sent to retrieve the Time Stone from Doctor Strange, only to find Strange instead and learn that Maw has been killed. After explaining his motivations to Strange, Thanos is attacked by him, Tony Stark, Peter Parker, Quill, Drax, and Mantis, and, while the heroes manage to overpower him, they lose their grasp on Thanos after Quill furiously beats him upon learning about Gamora's death from a recently arrived Nebula. This allows Thanos to defeat the heroes and wound Stark, though Strange stops him before he could kill him, offering him the Time Stone in exchange for Stark's life. Thanos proceeds to claim the stone and head to Earth to collect the final stone: the Mind Stone.

Thanos arrives in Wakanda and easily overpowers everyone in his path to Vision, who has the Mind Stone in his forehead. While Wanda Maximoff manages to hold off Thanos long enough to destroy the stone, killing Vision in the process, the Mad Titan uses the Time Stone to rewind time, reviving Vision in order to claim the Mind Stone. After killing Vision a second time, Thanos completes his Infinity Gauntlent, just as Thor arrives and stabs him in the chest with Stormbreaker. However, he survives his injury and, by simply snapping his fingers, activates the full power of the Infinity Stones, causing half of all life across the universe to be reduced to dust. While the heroes remain shocked at this event, Thanos teleports away to an uninhabited planet called the Garden, where he becomes a farmer and plans to live the rest of his days in peace, having achieved his goal of restoring "balance" to the universe.

Three weeks after the "Snap," a faction of the surviving Avengers pinpoint Thanos' location and ambush him. After being subdued, Thanos reveals that he destroyed the stones using their own power, in order to avoid further temptations and prevent anyone from reversing his actions. While the Avengers are initially distrustful, Nebula assures them that Thanos, albeit many things, is not a liar. Just as Thanos thanks her and admits that he might have treated her too harshly, an enraged Thor beheads him, much to everyone's shock. With Thanos dead but his victory sealed, the despondent Avengers then return to Earth.

Undoing and final defeat
Five years later, the surviving Avengers discover time travel and use it to retrieve the past versions of the Infinity Stones. However, after retrieving the Power Stone from Morag in 2014, Nebula's cybernetics begin to overlap with her 2014 counterpart, which is discovered by the 2014 Thanos at the moment when he was ordering her and Gamora to assist Ronan in obtaining the Power Stone, and he uses it to ultimately discover his future success, and the Avengers' plan to undo it. With this new insight, Thanos captures present day Nebula, then has her 2014 counterpart, who is loyal to him, replace her and travel to the future, whereupon she uses the Avengers' time machine to bring Thanos' army to the future, just as the Avengers complete their own Infinity Gauntlet and undo the Snap.

After destroying the Avengers' base, Thanos is confronted by Tony Stark, Steve Rogers, and Thor, and informs them of his new plan to use the stones to destroy the entire universe and create an entirely new one, so that no one will attempt to undo his actions. Following a fight with the trio, Thanos summons his army, just as a recently revived Doctor Strange arrives with other sorcerers, the restored Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy, the Ravagers, and the armies of Wakanda and Asgard to combat him. In the ensuing battle, Thanos is still able to claim the Avengers' Gauntlet, but this time, when he snaps his fingers, nothing happens, because Stark steals the stones from him and uses them to decimate Thanos and his forces, sacrificing his life in the process. After helplessly watching his army turn to dust before his eyes, Thanos silently accepts his fate as he also turns to dust, marking his final defeat.

Appearances
Thanos initially made a non-speaking cameo appearance in a post-credits scene of the Marvel Cinematic Universe film The Avengers (2012), where he was portrayed by Damion Poitier. Josh Brolin portrayed the character in later films, starting with the Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), although he was uncredited. Brolin reprised his role in a post-credits scene at the end of Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), and in Avengers: Infinity War (2018) and Avengers: Endgame (2019), where Thanos served as the primary antagonist. Brolin is also set to reprise his role in the upcoming Disney+ animated series, What If...?.

Reception
The MCU's rendition of Thanos has received critical acclaim. Owen Gleiberman of Variety called Brolin's performance "supremely effective" and said, "Brolin infuses Thanos with his slit-eyed manipulative glower, so that the evil in this movie never feels less than personal". Todd McCarthy echoed this sentiment, saying "Brolin's calm, considered reading of the character bestows this conquering beast with an unexpectedly resonant emotional dimension, making him much more than a thick stick figure of a supervillain" Writing for IGN, Scott Collua pointed out that audiences "understand his perspective and believe his pain", making the antagonist surprisingly sympathetic. Peter Travers of Rolling Stone praised both the character and Brolin: "[Thanos is] thunderously voiced by a dynamite Josh Brolin in a motion-capture performance that radiates ferocity and unexpected feeling." The Atlantic called Thanos an "unexpectedly resonant monster, filled with sadness and even a perverse sense of honor."

Critics noted that Thanos was a significant improvement over previous antagonists in the franchise. According to Screen Rant, the MCU struggled to create captivating antagonists throughout its first two phases. However, this changed in phase three with well-received villains such as Killmonger and Vulture, culminating in Thanos, whose "repudiation of the MCU's narrative worship of its heroes creates a deep uncertainty in our expectation that follows through each encounter toward the inevitable, horrifying conclusion." George Marston attributed Thanos' success to "the weight behind his character. Like the best villains in media, Thanos sees himself as a hero. It’s the power of Brolin’s performance that begins to draw viewers into that maniacal goal over and over, almost making Thanos seem likable or perhaps even reasonable, before the utter horror of him actually accomplishing his goal kicks in." Similarly, The Washington Post declared Thanos Marvel's most compelling villain due to his "deep, reflective intelligence" as well as his "profound adherence to his belief system".

Cultural impact
Thanos and his snap spawned much audience enthusiasm. The website, DidThanosKill.Me was created for fans to see if they would have been spared by Thanos or not. The ending also spawned the creation of the Reddit subreddit, /r/thanosdidnothingwrong. A user within the subreddit suggested that half of the approximately 20,000 subscribers at the time be banned from the subreddit, in order to mimic the events of the film. After the community agreed to the measure, the moderators approached Reddit's administrators to see if the mass ban would even be possible. Once the administrators agreed to the random ban of half the subscribers, it was set to occur on July 9, 2018. Notice of the impending ban made the subreddit's subscribers increase to over 700,000, including both of the Russos who subscribed. Ahead of the ban, Brolin posted a video saying "Here we go, Reddit users," and ending it with a snap. Over 60,000 people watched a live Twitch stream of the ban occurring, which lasted several hours. The ban of over 300,000 accounts, which included Anthony Russo, was the largest in Reddit's history. Those banned then gathered in the new subreddit, /r/inthesoulstone. One Reddit user who participated described the ban as embodying "the spirit of the Internet" with people "banding together, en masse, around something relatively meaningless but somehow decidedly awesome and hilarious". Andrew Tigani of Screen Rant said this showed "how impactful the film has already become to pop culture. It is also a testament to how valuable fan interaction can be via social media".

A popular tongue-in-cheek fan theory regarding Thanos' defeat in Avengers: Endgame before the film's release claimed that Thanos would be killed by Ant-Man entering his anus and then expanding himself, blowing off Thanos' body (jokingly referred to by the portmanteau "Thanus"). Several internet memes were created by this. After the film was released and proved it wrong, Christopher Markus revealed that due to the strong nature of the Titans, Ant-Man would have been unable to expand himself and get simply crushed against the walls of Thanos' rectum.