Thanos

Thanos () is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by writer-artist Jim Starlin, the character first appeared in The Invincible Iron Man #55 (cover date February 1973). An Eternal–Deviant warlord from the moon Titan, Thanos is regarded as one of the most powerful beings in the Marvel Universe. Due to his genocidal tendencies, he has clashed with many heroes including the Avengers and the Guardians of the Galaxy.

In creating Thanos, Starlin drew inspiration from Jack Kirby's New Gods series for DC Comics, particularly the character of Darkseid. Thanos is usually portrayed as a villain, although many stories depict him as believing his actions to be justified. Perhaps the character's best-known storyline is The Infinity Gauntlet (1991), the culmination of several story arcs that see him gather the six Infinity Gems and use them to kill half of the universe's population, including many of its heroes, to woo Mistress Death, the living embodiment of death in the Marvel Universe. Although these events were later undone, the storyline has remained one of the most popular published by Marvel.

Debuting in the Bronze Age of comic books, the character has appeared in more than five decades of Marvel publications, as well as many media adaptations, including animated television series and video games.

In the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the character was first played by Damion Poitier in the film The Avengers (2012) and then by Josh Brolin in Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), Avengers: Infinity War (2018), Avengers: Endgame (2019), and the first season of the animated series What If...? (2021).

Creation

Writer-artist Jim Starlin conceived of Thanos of Titan during college psychology classes and was inspired by Sigmund Freud's concept of human Death drive, or Thanatos. As Starlin described:

I went to college between doing U.S. military service and getting work in comics, and there was a psych class and I came up with Thanos… and Drax the Destroyer, but I'm not sure how he fit into it, just anger management probably. So I came up to Marvel, and editor Roy Thomas asked if I wanted to do an issue of Iron Man. I felt that this may be my only chance ever to do a character, not having the confidence that my career was going to last anything longer than a few weeks. So they got jammed into it. Thanos was a much thinner character and Roy suggested beefing him up, so he's beefed up quite a bit from his original sketches ... and later on I liked beefing him up so much that he continued to grow in size.

Starlin has admitted the character's look was influenced by Jack Kirby's Darkseid:

Kirby had done the New Gods, which I thought was terrific. He was over at DC at the time. I came up with some things that were inspired by that. You'd think that Thanos was inspired by Darkseid, but that was not the case when I showed up. In my first Thanos drawings, if he looked like anybody, it was Metron. I had all these different gods and things I wanted to do, which became Thanos and the Titans. Roy took one look at the guy in the Metron-like chair and said: "Beef him up! If you're going to steal one of the New Gods, at least rip off Darkseid, the really good one!"

Publication history

Thanos debuted in The Invincible Iron Man #55 (February 1973), featuring a story by Jim Starlin that was co-scripted by Mike Friedrich. The storyline from that issue continued through Captain Marvel #25–33 (bi-monthly: March 1973 – Jan. 1974), Marvel Feature #12 (Nov. 1973), Daredevil #107 (Jan. 1974), and Avengers #125 (July 1974). He returned in an extended storyline that spanned Strange Tales #178–181 (Feb.–Aug. 1975), Warlock #9-11 (Oct. 1975 – Jan. 1976), Marvel Team Up #55 (March 1977), and the 1977 Annuals for Avengers and Marvel Two-in-One (Thanos does not actually appear until the end of Warlock #9). He was also featured in a short backup story in Logan's Run #6 (June 1977) and had a small role in the graphic novel The Death of Captain Marvel (April 1982).

The character was revived in Silver Surfer vol. 3, #34 (Feb. 1990) and guest-starred until issue #59 (November 1991), while simultaneously appearing in The Thanos Quest #1–2 (Sept. – Oct. 1990) and The Infinity Gauntlet #1–6 (July – Dec. 1991). After an appearance in Spider-Man #17 (Dec. 1991), Thanos had a recurring role in Warlock and the Infinity Watch #1–42 (Feb. 1992 – Aug. 1995). This was followed by crossover appearances in Infinity War #1–6 (June – Nov. 1992), Infinity Crusade #1–6 (June – Nov. 1993), Silver Surfer vol. 3, #86–88 (Nov. 1993 – Jan. 1994), Warlock Chronicles #6–8, Thor #468–471 (Nov. 1993 – Feb. 1994), Namor The Sub-Mariner #44 (Nov. 1993), Secret Defenders #11–14 (Jan. – April 1994), Cosmic Powers #1–6 (March – July 1994), and Cosmic Powers Unlimited #1 (May 1995).

Thanos appeared in a connected storyline in Ka-Zar vol. 2, #4–11 (Aug. 1997 – March 1998), Ka-Zar Annual (1997), and the X-Man and Hulk Annual (1998), before featuring in Thor vol. 2, #21–25 (March – July 2000) and the 2000 Annual. The character was next used in Captain Marvel vol. 4, #17–19 (June–Aug. 2001), Avengers: Celestial Quest #1–8 (Nov. 2001 – June 2002), Infinity Abyss #1–6 (Aug. – Oct. 2002) and Marvel: The End #1–6 (May – Aug 2003).

In 2004 Thanos received an eponymous title that ran for 12 issues. In 2006, the character played an important role in Annihilation: Silver Surfer #1–4 (June – Sept. 2006) and Annihilation #1–6 (Oct. 2006 – March 2007). The character was re-introduced in Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 2, #24–25 (April – May 2010) and played a major role in The Thanos Imperative: Ignition (June 2010) and The Thanos Imperative #1–6 (July – Dec. 2010).

The character returned in Avengers Assemble #1 (March 2012). A mini-series titled Thanos: Son of Titan by Joe Keatinge was planned for publication in August 2012, but was cancelled.

The character's origin was expanded in the five-issue Thanos Rising miniseries by Jason Aaron and Simone Bianchi which was published monthly beginning in April 2013. Later that same year, Thanos played a central role in the Infinity miniseries written by Jonathan Hickman and drawn by Jim Cheung, Jerome Opeña, and Dustin Weaver.

In May 2014, Jim Starlin and Ron Lim worked together on the one-shot Thanos Annual, which is a prelude to a new trilogy of original graphic novels. The first, Thanos: The Infinity Revelation, was released the following August. Beginning in February 2015, Starlin also penned a four-issue miniseries titled Thanos vs. Hulk, which was set prior to the graphic novels. The second installment in the trilogy, Thanos: The Infinity Relativity, was released in June 2015. The third graphic novel, Thanos: The Infinity Finale, as well as the connected mini-series The Infinity Entity were published in 2016.

At the same time Starlin was writing these graphic novels and tie-ins, the character also appeared in New Avengers #23–24 (Oct – Nov 2014), Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 3, #18–20 (Oct – Dec 2014), Legendary Star-Lord #4 (Dec 2014), a six-issue miniseries titled Thanos: A God Up There Listening (Dec 2014), Avengers vol. 5, #40–41 (Mar – Apr 2015), and Deadpool vol. 3, #45 ("#250") (Jun 2015). Thanos also played a major role in the five-issue miniseries The Infinity Gauntlet vol. 2, (July 2015 – Jan 2016), a tie-in of the cross-over Secret Wars (2015).

In 2017, as part of Marvel NOW!, Thanos received his own solo title written by Jeff Lemire and drawn by Mike Deodato. After 11 issues, Donny Cates and Geoff Shaw took over as the creative team. This storyline crossed over with Cates' Cosmic Ghost Rider storyline.

In 2021, Thanos was later reintroduced as a primary antagonist in the comic series Eternals vol. 5, #1–12, by the writer Kieron Gillen and artist Esad Ribić, and plays a prominent role in exploring Eternals mythos and retcons.

Fictional character biography

Thanos was born on Saturn's moon Titan as the son of Eternals A'lars and Sui-San, the grandson of Kronos, the nephew of Zuras, and the grandnephew of Oceanus and Uranos. His brother is Eros of Titan. Thanos carries the Deviants gene, and as such, shares the physical appearance of the Eternals' cousin race. Shocked by his appearance and the belief that he would destroy all life in the universe, Sui-San went insane and attempted to kill him, but she was stopped by A'lars. During his school years, Thanos was a pacifist and would only play with his brother Eros and pets. By adolescence, Thanos had become fascinated with nihilism and entropy, worshipping and eventually falling in love with the physical embodiment of Mistress Death.

At some point in his youth, a younger Thanos was sent to Earth by Mephisto where he fought the prehistoric Avengers where he was repelled.