La Ron S. Readus
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The Problem With Thanos (VIDEO SCRIPT)
🕑 Added 2019-04-25 22:30:59 +0000 UTC
(La’Ron sits on his couch in front of the camera, and prepares to say the line he always says whenever he’s recording a video essay)
La’Ron
I wanna talk about Tha-
Owen
(Appears on his television screen) La’Ron, wait!
La’Ron
(Looks up) Owen, what are you doing here?
Owen
You’re about to make that Thanos essay you’ve been teasing for a year, aren’t you?
La’Ron
Well, yeah
Owen
(Nods) I knew it (Matt Draper’s theme starts playing in the background) Wait, what’s that
La’Ron
(Face palms) Oh God
Matt
(Matt’s logo appears on a tablet) Hey, guys! What’s up?
Owen
Oh, right; you DID mention Matt when you said it
Matt
Said what? Who said a thing? Was it a cool thing? Also, hey Owen!
Owen
Hey Matt. And that’s up for La’Ron here to decide
Matt
Oh, La’Ron’s here? Hey La’Ron! Sorry, it’s hard for me to see when all I am online is my voice and my channel logo
La’Ron
So are you guys GOING to tell me why you’re here or...?
Owen
What, you don’t remember what you said?
La’Ron
(Thinks about it, then chuckles) Oh, come on, dude; that was a bit I made for a sketch! You guys actually LIKE Thanos; why would you wanna hear me talk shit about him for an extended period of time?
Matt
Oh, we’re talking about Thanos? I LOVE Thanos!
La’Ron
(Makes a motion toward the tablet)
Owen
Look La’Ron, it’s not my decision. You said in a video that you were gonna make a Thanos video essay and were gonna involve Matt and myself in it. That’s how this works; it’s part of the canon of your YouTube channel now
Matt
You know what? I DID get a memo about that somewhere!
La’Ron
(Looks between the two of them) You guys can’t leave until I finish making this, can you?
Owen
Nope.
Matt
I don’t know what’s happening! :D
La’Ron
(Huffs) Fine. (Takes a deep breath)
La’Ron, Owen, and Matt
We wanna talk about Thanos.
_______
/Thanos is a Marvel character created by writer/artist Jim Starlin in 1973. He’s a well-known villain in both comics and movies; the former to Mar-Vel the original Captain Marvel and Adam Warlock before becoming one to pretty much the entire Marvel Universe, and the latter from...from fucking JUMP STREET, ARE YOU KIDDING ME?? He’s also one of the only characters in the existence of superheroes, supervillains, comic books and movies that I can honestly say I absolutely fucking HATE./
Now I’m definitely gonna say this near the end of the video, but because people are a thing, I feel inclined to say it now. Despite what I bring to the table in this video regarding points, research, comparisons, etc., this is in no way shape or form me telling you that you should not like Thanos if you do. The purpose of this video, is me addressing my problems with the character, and what he does, can and will represent in the way that he was and is currently being used in media across the board, as a writer, a reader and a consumer of said media.
Because when you take a look at everything that Thanos is and represents, both in the comics and in the MCU, there are a lot of things that he gets that he doesn’t deserve, and a lot of things that are done to him that just don’t work. Despite the initial use of his character by his creator in the comics, there are things about Thanos that make me wanna tear my hair out. And translating him from comics to film just opens up a whole new can of worms, because now there are elements that survived the transfer that not only don’t hold up well, but the new ones added make him even MORE of a less than worthwhile character with the ironic intention of making him sympathetic and meaningful.
Jim Starlin’s Thanos (Why He Was Meant To Be A Walking Contradiction)
/Thanos made his debut in Iron Man issue 55, where he and pre-modern Drax the Destroyer fought him and his henchmen The Blood Brothers while he was stationed on Earth. This would be the prologue of what would eventually be The Thanos War -- a story arc within Starlin’s run in Captain Marvel from issues #25 to #33 where he seeks the Cosmic Cube in order to pretty much become a god./
While I didn’t necessarily think this arc was bad, I couldn’t help but notice some things about Thanos that would start me on the path leading to “Fuck This Dude” ville. Two specifically being his personal code, and the overall presence of Death.
/Like, yes, he made traditional villain tropes; the main ones being monologuing his plans and his accomplishments to his enemies instead of eliminating them -- which is something that even Captain Marvel pointed out -- and summoning minions to take care of the heroes after he reached godhood instead of doing it himself once he became all-powerful. These are classic villain stereotypes that I was not surprised Thanos had. Annoyed that he followed, but not surprised./
/But during the Thanos War arc, when he finds the location of the cosmic cube, he’s challenged by Drax. After defeating him by putting him through the equivalent of the “Second Rate” musical number from Return of Jafar, he’s given the opportunity to kill him, but doesn’t. Instead, he says “senseless slaughter is not the Thanos way.” This is the first time we’ve seen any hint of Thanos having a moral code since his introduction. Yes, he’s killed before since the arc started, but there was always a reason behind it; the most common one being when his minions failed him to a certain degree. Ironically enough, this was said when Mistress Death was present in the room with him. And if that’s not irony, then I don’t know what the fuck is!/
I say that because the next arc we see him play an antagonistic role in is between 1975 and 1977, with the main protag switching from Mar-Vel to Adam Warlock. This time he’s after the infinity gems. Not to be confused with Infinity Gauntlet, where he’s after...the infinity gems. This was his first attempt at the infinity gems, where he siphoned off their power into one master gem not to RULE the universe this time, but to destroy it.
/You see, even during his introduction arc in Iron Man and Captain Marvel, Thanos had Mistress Death in his corner, just silently watching his actions. Even when he became a god with the help of the Cosmic Cube, his dialogue stated that he was doing all of this to impress her from the moment he met her./
“All goes well! Are you not pleased, my darling beauty? I am presenting you a gift that no other lover could match! I am giving you...the universe!”
- The New Captain Marvel, #32
/In this arc in the Adam Warlock comics, not only did he confess that he met her during his exile off Titan while gathering his massive army of misfit aliens, he also admitted that he fell in love with her. And with a second lease on universal domination, he exchanges ruling it for -- and I quote -- total stellar genocide./
But senseless slaughter is not the Thanos way, though.
/That’s when we see him resurrected by Death to take care of the universal imbalance that leads to The Infinity Gauntlet event after he was killed by Adam Warlock. We see that it’s not just the chance to breathe actual air again that gets him excited to come back to life, but the fact that he gets another shot at impressing Death. When he’s taking Silver Surfer on a tour around the universe on some Ghost of Christmas Present-ass shit, he’s spewing facts about humanity and life in general using up the universe’s resources as if he ACTUALLY CARES ABOUT THE SHIT, when he was just trying to eliminate ALL life by taking out the stars the last time he was alive, and just trying to RULE over them all before that!/
The core -- the very ESSENCE -- of Thanos as Starlin writes him, is a walking contradiction. Whatever traits, motives or rules he gives himself can be easily thrown out of the window and replaced with brand new ones that come out of nowhere, specifically whenever an opportunity is presented for him to have another shot at some bone-pussy.
It's because of him being a walking contradiction -- along with the fact that he doesn’t stay dead long enough for the folly of his ways to actually have an impact with the reader -- that he doesn’t have the same impact as villains like, Kang the Conqueror or even Magneto on a lesser scale. Because not only do the villains that I just mentioned have goals and ideologies of their own, but they’re allowed to grow and adapt and -- dare I say -- develop what’s already been established about them. If everything about Thanos changes upon the start of a new arc or event, then what about him is there to hold on to? What is there to develop? He might as well just be a brand new character.
But Thanos being a walking contradiction in Starlin’s stories in the MCU isn’t even the most mind-boggling about him. It’s the fact that Starlin himself wrote him like this on purpose.
/When interviewed about the character, he said “I don’t consider him a villain or a hero. He’s...a complicated character that has a lot of contradictions in his personality. I see him as appetite that is never satisfied...he sabotages himself more than he ever loses to anybody.”/
La’Ron
(Visibly Frustrated) Matt?
Matt
Yeah, La’Ron?
La’Ron
(Still Visibly Frustrated) You like Thanos, right?
Matt
...Sure, let’s go with that!
La’Ron
(Even Still Visibly Frustrated) You wouldn’t happen to know why Starlin thought this decision was a good idea, would you? Because I...have NO fucking clue...
Classic comic book Thanos’ contradictory nature can be seen as a shortcut to character depth because it presents itself as a fatal flaw that’s more like a tragic hero than a villain. Of course, most villains are flawed because they’re the antagonists - the stories they’re in show them to be wrong and by the simple nature of needing to be defeated, they need to have flawed logic or various negative characteristics that allow the heroes to win in the end. But Thanos is often positioned as the protagonist of stories like The Infinity Gauntlet, where he brings about his own failure.
You could say that Thanos’ tragic flaw is self doubt. Like you said, La’Ron, that changes a lot in how he’s presented from story to story, even when told by the same writer, but what stays consistent is that the character often undermines himself because he’s never satisfied with his choices.
If that self-doubt was expressed through a smaller character with smaller stakes in a more human story instead of a cosmic epic where everyone keeps getting killed, it wouldn’t seem so wild. But that’s comics. They like to get big. And as a result, Thanos becomes more than just the simple galactic destroyer, he becomes a more complicated individual whose quest for conquest and death is more about who he is as a person than the simple big bad that the heroes need to defeat.
On the other hand, film Thanos doesn’t really have that contradictory nature. He’s incredibly assured of himself and never expresses any second doubts regarding his plans to wipe out quintillions of lives. He’s just a psycho that’s a little sad when he drops Gamora like a hot mic.
La’Ron
We’ll... We’ll get to that topic in a little bit, Matt. I... I a-fucking-ssure you...
But yes, I do see your point in your explanation of Starlin’s point of view regarding the character; it’s the fact that he’s never satisfied that tries to make him grounded enough for readers to find him compelling. The reason why it doesn’t necessarily work with me is because I’ve seen characters like Thanos in comics given the “It’s Complicated” Facebook status in better ways.
/Two books that immediately come to mind are Lex Luthor: Man of Steel and Watchmen. The way that both Lex and Ozymandias respectively deal with their confliction and complications is in my opinion handled in ways that properly give the characters a proper foundation in regards to seeing them as they truly are. Even All-Star Superman does it in a way with Lex that allows us to see him go through the flaws in his overall logic and thinking in how he views Superman near the end of the story, without contradicting him and holding on to what initially makes Lex Luthor, Lex Luthor./
The fact it’s been proven that villains can have interesting flaws and depth within their characters without sacrificing what’s established about them through contradictions and the like, makes it pretty hard for me to buy what Thanos is selling in Starlin’s first initial stories with him. If anything, it just started me down the road I’m currently on with the character, specifically with the comics. Especially when they tried to get me to believe something that I found to be absolutely hilarious.
And that’s the the fact that Thanos is a Nihilist. In which case -- and I can’t believe I’m about to say this -- I have to quote a line from Thor: Ragnarok
Is He Though? (Is Thanos Really a Nihilist)
/In The Infinity Gauntlet, Nihilism is referenced twice. Once by Doctor Strange after finding out about the Infinity Gems by Silver Surfer when he calls Thanos “A madman, a nihilist.” The other by Thanos himself after the snappening.
“The universe will now be set right. Made over to fit my unique view of what should be. Let nihilism reign supreme!”
- The Infinity Gauntlet, #2/
And it's in that line that showed me Thanos’ bitch-ass ain’t a nihilist.
Nihilism is the belief that life has no true meaning. Thanks to edgelord followers of German philosopher Friedrich Nietzche that we all went to school with and mainstream pop culture takes on it like Bojack Horseman and Rick & Morty, it’s finding its way up there just in time to make WatchMojo.com’s list of top 10 philosophical ideologies of the 21st century. I am...NOT looking forward to THAT video AT ALL
I say that as an individual who initially turned away from the philosophy, because the representatives it currently has in the format it chose to present itself in the 21st Century -- Bojack Horseman and Rick Sanchez specifically -- constantly leave a bad taste in my mouth, and I wanted no part of the pessimism and the potential self-destructiveness it brought.
That’s why when I read that Thanos was a self-proclaimed Nihilist, AFTER I read all of the things he did in Captain Marvel, Adam Warlock AND Infinity Gauntlet, things didn’t really add up for me. He’s egotistical. He believes himself to have purpose and meaning. He thinks the universe should be a specific way, despite that way constantly changing every time he’s a villain in a story arc. All of this completely goes against the philosophy of Nihilism.
Thanos in these stories believes that there is an inherent purpose and meaning to his life. To be a Nihilist is to recognize that inherent meaning doesn’t exist. Not individually, and not on a grand scale.
- Nihilism: A Philosophy Based In Nothingness And Eternity, Pg. 45
And the snap? That whole “let Nihilism reign supreme” bit? He only did half the job. If Thanos were truly a Nihilist, first of all, he wouldn’t have done what he did with the Infinity Gems just for the sake of winning the love of Death. He would’ve done so after coming to his own unforced moral decision. Not because he was resurrected by Death and was willing to do whatever it took to please her, but his own decisive inclination.
- Nihilism: A Philosophy Based In Nothingness And Eternity, Pg. 48, 49
He then would’ve replaced what he believed to have no value -- aka half the universe he snapped away with the gauntlet -- with what he believed DID, without giving in to materialism and luxury. He did NOT do ANY of that in Infinity Gauntlet.
/Instead, he built a shrine to Death -- the force that compelled him to make this choice in the first place with the unspoken promise of her undying love as his reward -- made a lover of his own just to try and make her jealous, and revelled in the materialism and luxury of power that the Infinity Gauntlet granted, up until he got his ass handed to him./
- Nihilism: A Philosophy Based In Nothingness And Eternity, Pg. 124
If Thanos was supposed to be a villainous depiction of extreme Nihilism -- a philosophy that mainstream media tends to focus on the more pessimistic and self-destructive aspects of in order for their characters to appear flawed and damaged enough to get people interested in seeing what they’re gonna do next -- then he is a pretty bad one. Justice League: Crisis on Two Earth’s Owlman on the other hand is...perfect.
/Not only does he depict the positive aspects of Nihilism that mainstream ignores in order for the audience to get a well-rounded idea of the philosophy, but he also reflects the dangers if they’re taken to their most extreme. He acts on his own accord, completely unmotivated by the higher powers of Ultraman and the Crime Syndicate which make his decisions as moral as possible. His level of sociopathy allows him to see the irrelevance of universal truth and inherent meaning. And because he knows that it will go on if his kind were either completely gone or never existed due to him ACTUALLY caring about it’s state, his plan to rid the multiverse of everyone who ever lived and ever WILL live by destroying Earth Prime is both rejecting what he believes has no value -- humanity -- and REPLACING it with something that does -- the lack thereof./
But despite him being the creator of the character, I can’t just focus on the works of Jim Starlin when it comes to how he’s depicted in the comics from then on out. Plus, I’ve been informed by YouTube itself that neither Owen or Matt can actually leave until they provide what they consider to be a decent contribution to this video because of what I said last year.
La’Ron
(Looks at TV) That’s stupid. That’s very stupid
Owen
Yeah, YouTube’s Self-Fulfilling Prophecy algorithm ain’t nothing to fuck with!
Matt
I didn’t even know that was a thing until now!
La’Ron
Well, since I just did about...a segment and 3/4th’s worth of this essay by myself so far, and considering what portion of the essay is coming up next, I think the most effective method is to leave the next one up to you.
Owen
You want me to talk about the non-Starlin Thanos shit, don’t you?
La’Ron
I want you two to talk about the non-Starlin Thanos shit, yes.
Owen
God damn it...
Matt
Oh, this is gonna be GREAT! :D
Thanos After Stalin
When it comes to talking about a comic book character and their longevity post their original creators, discussing Thanos without Jim Starlin is slightly more tricky than a lot of other characters, as Starlin was (for the longest time) so involved with the writing of the Mad Titan, involving the villain in pretty much most major stories he wrote for Marvel Comics. However, Starlin doesn’t have an exclusive grip on Thanos, and especially in the past decade or so (as the character has gained in notoriety, especially after his post-credit cameo in 2012’s The Avengers), Thanos has become a more frequently used antagonist in the main Marvel Comics stories. Case in point, Jonathan Hickman’s 2013 story arc, Infinity. It’s probably worth noting off the top that Infinity (alongside Stalin’s original Infinity Gauntlet storyline), was one of the major inspirations for the Infinity War movie (and maybe Endgame also, I don’t know… this video’s being recorded before I’ve seen it), with elements such as the Black Order, which were created for this storyline, and Thanos’ invasion of Wakanda. Infinity, the comic book, though, is a fair bit different to the movie that took inspiration from it, and presents a Thanos with different motivations entirely. You see, Infinity’s Thanos is one post-Infinity Gauntlet, and post-Snap, and henceforth, the character’s reasoning for invading Earth is more to do with finding and killing his illegitimate son, Thane (who is part Inhuman).
Another non-Starlin Thanos book that I think is worth discussing is Jason Aaron and Simone Bianchi’s Thanos Rising mini-series, which ran from April to August 2013. This book aimed to tell the origin story of the Titan, something that Starlin had never touched on in great detail. In this, we see everything from Thanos’ birth, and the complex relationship with his mother (who literally tries to kill him at first sight), his upbringing on Titan as an intellectual and a pacifist, before learning about how he developed his twisted worldview. You see, in this story Thanos is presented as somewhat of a loner and an outsider, partially due to his traumatic youth and also his appearance, all of which is compounded by an equally traumatic event where he and his friends end up trapped in a cave by fallen rocks, where Thanos discovers his friends eaten by lizards before managing to escape. Upon his return, the people of Titan believe Thanos killed his friends, but finds solace in the form of a girl who encourages him to avenge his friends by abandoning his pacifist ways and kills the lizards, starting off a bloodlust that results in the Mad Titan dissecting and killing animals before murdering several of his peers, all in the name of knowledge and science (which, by the way, is fucked up).
The turning point in this story comes when Thanos confesses his bloodlust to the girl, who rejects him, telling Thanos that “the only love he knows is the love of killing”. The comic is bookended by current-day Thanos visiting his mother’s grave (where it’s heavily implied that Thanos murdered her when trying to cut his insanity out of her), before he’s visited by the girl from his childhood, who is revealed to have been Mistress Death. The comic ends with Thanos and Death travelling to a distant world where one of Thanos’ many sons resides, where he kills both his former lover and his child in an attempt to please Death, who tells him that in order for her to love him, he has “a lot more people to kill." I guess the TL;DR here is Mommy issues, mixed with not taking rejection well and an innate desire for affection is a recipe for a pretty fucked up individual. It’s also worth noting that Thanos’ lack of hesitance to murder his own children in order to achieve his goals is something carried over into his live action incarnation also (which La’Ron is going to touch on in a moment).
From Comics to Movies
I’m not going to say that the changes that were made to Thanos in order to fit the MCU were horrible. Not only would that be rude as fuck, but it’s just not true. While I do have my criticisms of MCU Thanos, and while I plan on making them as vocal as my criticisms of 616 Thanos, I felt that what they did with MCU Thanos was a step in the right direction as far as adapting him for a modern audience.
/The personification of Death is out of the equation. Now, eliminating half of all life in the universe is a personal goal of his and properly reflects the Nihilism Thanos was trying to deliver in the comics. Which would be cool, if MCU Thanos was a Nihilist, but he’s not. Whereas 616 Thanos was a self-proclaimed Nihilist, MCU Thanos is a self-proclaimed pragmatist./
Pragmatism is a philosophy that assesses the truth of meaning of theories or beliefs in terms of the success of their practical application. It differs from Nihilism here because it says that not only does meaning exist, but we can study and learn from it, and thus apply it to everyday life in the most efficient ways possible. And while there’s no visual evidence of this with Thanos in the MCU, it’s present all throughout the Infinity War tie-in novel “Thanos: Titan Consumed.”
The thing about MCU Thanos on the other hand is that he’s selective when it comes to what he learns and utilizes from his level of pragmatism, and things like his background, his upbringing and his level of hierarchy can’t help but be factored amongst them. The complications and contradictions to his character in the comic books have been replaced with privilege in the MCU. Privilege that reflects a specific riot during the 1968 Columbia University protests.
/You see, privileged white students that attended Columbia University took it amongst themselves to protest the potentially racist development plans in Harlem, since there was a lack of concern for the black community it affected by the university itself. But they too were dismissive of the black community, and were both very aggressive in their protests and opportunistic regarding the situation by using the development controversy to springboard the protest being about the Vietnam War. Their “activism” soon got out of control. They occupied buildings, took the the dean of the school hostage. They took advantage of a situation that they knew nothing about, involving a group of people they refused to learn nothing about, and made it about them. Giving an even more sociopathic meaning to Peter Arnett’s famous paraphrase of Justice Edgar Wright’s quote: It became necessary to destroy the town to save it.”/
- A Generation of Sociopaths: How the Baby Boomers Betrayed America, Pg 68
In the MCU, Thanos is the privileged white student, and has the credentials to prove it. According to “Thanos: Titan Consumed,” despite being born brutish and with a skin tone matching that of Titan’s dedicated color of death, he was the brilliant son of A’Lars, one of Titan’s master architects. He found out that all life on Titan would be destroyed by overpopulation and after doing the appropriate tests and experiments, broadcasted a message to every citizen that half of the population had to die in order to avoid it. He was banished because of it, but the event soon came to pass.
In Chapter 30, after said cataclysmic event left him the only survivor of Titan, he and his friend Cha Raigor traveled to Fenilop XI, to which he asked Thanos why.
/“I’ve been studying it. It has similar environmental and population dynamics as Titan. We’re going to save them from themselves, Cha. You were right: The end of Titan is not the end of my quest. And I was right, too-we must kill half to save the rest. This time, I won’t fail. This time, we have proof, the evidence of Titan’s fall. We will succeed.”/
- Thanos: Titan Consumed, Pg 277
It had similar environmental and population dynamics as Titan. Similar, but not the same. While the Fenilops did admit that they WERE in grave danger of environmental collapse, similarities at the end of the day are not the same as equivalences. To assume that any people, place, background and what have you are the same just because the similarities are close enough to your liking, instead of being properly informed or learning about said differences to the best of your ability is a privilege that Thanos takes advantage of on the regular, even on screen.
/Nebula’s multiple “enhancements” are the perfect example of that./
Of course when Thanos presented the ultimatum of eliminating half of their population, the Fenilop disapproved of his methods. So before going off to the next planet to warn them of their “potential” demise, Thanos ordered the Chitauri army to wipe out the planet’s population completely.
/“They’re all going to die anyway, Cha. We saw the results on Titan, did we not? Hastening their demise may save some of the planet’s resources, making it available for settlement by a wiser species at some point in the future. Besides, this way I am sparing them all the slow death of disease and geologic upheaval, granting them a swift merciful death.”/
- Thanos: Titan Consumed, Pg 282
/That was how Thanos handled things in the MCU before starting his crusade for the Infinity Stones. Attacking planet after planet that had SIMILARITIES to the dangers of Titan, when they refused his ultimatum. This happened up until he attacked Zehoberei and found Gamora, where he first made the decision to just kill HALF the planets population instead. When it came to how he initially attacked planets before acquiring the Infinity Stones, to MCU Thanos, according to his own understanding of how everything should be and only relying on SIMILARITY as opposed to ACTUALITY -- which to be honest is kind of a hypocritical thing for him to do being a being of science -- it becomes necessary to destroy the town to save it. Or in this case, the planet./
And this isn’t the only example of how those same factors affect MCU Thanos’s pragmatism. You can find it in his overall movement to bring balance to the universe, both on screen and in the reading supplements.
The majority of the MCU Thanos apologists I’ve talked to brought up multiple reasons why using the Infinity Stones to just create more resources isn’t a viable alternative to eliminating half the universe. The reality stone doesn’t work that way. Unlimited resources doesn’t solve the problem of overpopulation. But at the same time, his initial plan to go from planet to planet eliminating half -- if not all -- of their populous -- both with and without the Infinity Stones -- isn’t a viable solution that fits under the pragmatic thinking he’s supposed to have in the MCU either. Because once more, his privilege and ego are a higher priority than his pragmatism.
And to help me explain why, let’s talk about the 2009 financial crisis in Greece.
In that year, Greece entered a financial quasi-depression after entering a 118% debt-to-GDP (gross domestic product) ratio after joining the Eurozone. And because they had no credibility when it came to paying off their debt, the banks appropriately called in their loans. Meanwhile, countries like Japan and China -- who had even higher debt to GDP ratios, not only were able to avoid a financial crisis similar to Greece, but also had governments in place to keep everything in working order in regards to their national finances.
- A Generation of Sociopaths: How the Baby Boomers Betrayed America, Pg. 158
Now imagine if those countries were planets. And instead of debt, it's the lives of its civilians. Planets Japan and China have a high population count. But because of how they’re regularly maintained regarding its resources and whatnot, they’ve been able to avert destruction. Planet Greece on the other hand has a slightly less population count, but is on the brink of collapse because the decisions made by its higher ups can’t properly maintain the growing population, even with the assistance of whatever galactic system it’s part of.
MCU Thanos’s twisted sense of pragmatism that has been corrupted by privilege and ego -- despite one planet clearly being worse for wear -- tells him that both with and without the Infinity Stones, all THREE of these planets need to have half of their populous destroyed. His logic for justifying doing it to planets Japan and China? Despite their efforts in maintaining things as well as they have been, they will eventually fail.
/It’s director Joe Russo that gives the best explanation as to why he thinks this way when it comes to his flawed pragmatic way of thinking. “Well, he was told ‘no’ to an idea that he had that he felt was the only solution, and then was proved right to himself when that solution was not acted upon. So his messianic complex — he is now committed to following through on the idea he had many many years ago. He is not a stable — although he appears stable at times, he is not a stable individual.”/ https://www.thewrap.com/infinity-war-directors-explain-thanos-double-universe-resources/
It all circles back to what I said at the beginning of this segment; the changes that were made to Thanos in order to fit the MCU aren’t horrible, and what they did with him was a step in the right direction as far as adapting him for a modern audience. The way his pragmatic ideology is so skewed with his overall sociopathy, his extreme sense of privilege, and his resolve to see things done in the way he believes is the only way possible in order to give relevance to his ego and messiah complex, make for a very threatening and dangerous villain...once.
Because now that its established that these are the choices that were made in order for him to fit in the MCU, Thanos is extremely limited in where he can go as far as the progression of his character is concerned if he wants to prove to be a threat in another crisis. And by extremely limited, I mean nowhere at all.
If this was the route I knew they were going with Thanos in the MCU -- just a one and done threat of a sociopathic warlord that believes he’s the savior of the universe without trying to get us to feel sympathy for him by making us think he’s capable of caring about anything else other than his crusade -- I wouldn’t have a problem with this version of Thanos. But, I DO have a problem with this version of Thanos, because the Infinity War and Endgame writers wrote him with the intent of trying to pull off exactly that. And they did it by having Gamora say three small words:
This Isn’t Love
Thanos sacrificing Gamora to obtain the Soul Stone shouldn’t have worked.
/In order for Thanos to obtain the Soul Stone in Infinity War, Red Skull tells him that he has to lose that which he loves; a soul for a soul. So with tears in his eyes, he turns to Gamora, says “I’m sorry, little one” and tosses her over the cliff. Good writing would’ve been that when he does it, the Soul Stone REJECTED his sacrifice. He would’ve gotten mad, tried to beat Red Skull’s...skull in for thinking he was lied to, that he sacrificed Gamora for nothing. Then, because he REALLY wants the Soul Stone, he has to truly reflect on who he is and what he truly loves in order to get it./
And in doing that, Thanos would’ve realized what has been evident since his first speaking appearance in the MCU. He doesn’t KNOW what love is, because he had no one to SHOW him. And yes, that Foreigner reference WAS done on purpose.
But, no. Part of the reason why Thanos doesn’t work as well as he could have worked in the MCU is because they tried to make an emotionally detached sociopath with a very streamlined goal sympathetic to an audience, by giving him something that he didn’t deserve to try and justify those feelings to us.
As I stated before, the tie-in novel “Thanos: Titan Consumed” gives us a lot of information about Thanos’s upbringing regarding where he gets a lot of his traits and mannerisms from. Because of his size and skin colorization he developed an incel-like personality, spending the majority of his time away from the people of Titan and missing his window of opportunity to absorb what its like to regularly interact with people. MCU A’Lars, while still more engrossed with his work than Thanos like in the comics, raises and treats him not with the care of a parent that thinks their child can do no wrong like how Jason Aaron portrayed him in Thanos Rising, but very cold and like a drill sergeant, only making provisions for him so that he’d be less in the way.
One of those provisions was supplying Thanos a best friend, Sintaa, who A’Lars had to literally blackmail the boys family in order him to regularly hang out with Thanos. This was Thanos’ main way of interacting with the people of Titan for a very long time. Yet even when he was a child and he had doubts that his friendship with Sintaa was genuine, they had this conversation.
Thanos
You are the first thing my father has brought to me that I actually enjoy.
Sintaa
I’m not a thing. I’m a person.
Thanos
Of course.
- Thanos: Titan Consumed, Pg 19
A THING. That was Thanos’s viewpoint of conscious life as a child. A CHILD. And it carried over to adulthood, despite Sintaa trying to possibly establish a reconnect of emotional bonds and a sense of “humanity” to him. How his father raised him, his sociopathic tendencies mixed in with his pragmatic beliefs, his lack of understanding why people find life worth living, and his overall REFUSAL to understand by just finding it simpler to sum up different races and species by their habits and biological traits due to his lack of living his own life, brought him to the point where his entire emotional spectrum is just naturally fucked up.
And it’s even more established during he and Sintaa’s last confrontation after he pretty much told half the planet to kill themselves.
Sintaa
You have to take it back. You have to recant. Immediately.
Thanos
Recant? I said nothing false. Everything I said is empirically true.
Sintaa
Thanos, no one cares about your empirical truth. Have you seen the reports? After your broadcast, there were riots in the Eternal City! Panic-driven. People fled to their homes. Accident rates quadrupled. There are reports of suicides. Suicides. Do you know the last time there was one suicide in the Eternal City, to say nothing of multiples? You have to recant. Say it was a really bad practical joke. Or say you’ve rechecked your math and you were wrong.
Thanos
I will do no such thing. I will not lie.
Sintaa
Then at least rescind this euthanasia plan of yours. Tell people you’ll come up with a better way.
Thanos
There is no better way. Ive expended considerable time and thought into this, and my plan is the only one guaranteed to work.
Sintaa
Then do something that’s not damned guaranteed! You can’t just say you’re going to kill half the planet!
Thanos
But I did.
Sintaa
...I think you should leave, Thanos.
Thanos
But-
Sintaa
There’s nothing else for me to say to you.
Thanos
I thought we were friends.
Sintaa
Would you kill me if your algorithm dictated?
Thanos
...Of course. I’m going to kill myself, too, Sintaa.
Sintaa
Go home, Thanos. There’s nothing more to say.
- Thanos: Titan Consumed, Pg 88-90
Thanos in the MCU is a character who sees himself as so absolute in his way of thinking from the sociopathy, from the pragmatism, from his intelligence, and from his privilege, that to make him detached from his emotions and lose whatever sense of idea he could gain about how others portray living life is one of the best routes to take the character.
It’s all the more reason why I find his sacrificing of Gamora to get the Soul Stone and it actually WORKING all the more irritating and a complete left-field use of the sympathetic villain card when he doesn’t deserve it. He doesn’t know how to properly love another individual, and we see that through how he treats Gamora and Nebula.
His sociopathy, lack of empathy and matter-of-fact pragmatism causes him to constantly put the two against each other, predicting that they’ll be less likely to betray him as a form of brainwashing. He’s constantly making Nebula more mechanized in order for her to be Gamora’s equal, while constantly refusing to see Gamora’s obedience to him as the survival tactics that they truly are, even after she leaves his side to join Peter Quill and the rest of the guardians.
To MCU Thanos, love is a form of control, because that’s how HE was raised by his father. The only emotional attachment to his form of “love” is the time and effort he put in to brainwashing and grooming Gamora and Nebula into the respectable heir and assassin that they are, and its something that Thanos has proven time and time again in the MCU that he could easily do again.
Which is why this scene at the end of Infinity War will forever piss me off.
(What did it cost?)
Bro. The very essence of your character gives you the freedom to not give a fuck about life in the universe. You made your decisions on which planets needed to be “saved” based on similarities to years old data you discovered about the destruction of Titan, who you ALSO couldn’t grow an emotional attachment to. Imposing your will on the universe while you’re so emotionally detached from the lives people live in order to carry on with your messiah complex, and refusing to acknowledge even the possibility of you being wrong, allows you to never consider the thoughts and considerations of anyone else.
/Yet despite this complete disconnect from basic emotions and the entire universe, just because you were forced to give up the glorified social experiment you were grooming to be your heir while constantly confusing those feelings for an emotion that you don’t even know the beginning of how to properly channel, you think it cost you everything? Everything, bitch?? There is such a disconnect between you and the rest of the universe that your very mentality gives you the privilege of easily replacing anything of possible value to you that you could’ve lost, including possible character development. This cost you nothing! FUCK YOU!
How To Fix Thanos
So how do we fix Thanos? How do we make the insatiably flawed self-contradictory character in the 616 that never truly learns from his mistakes, and the selfishly emotionally detached sociopathic character in the MCU that thanks to his Baby Boomer-level superiority complex will always believe that his way is the best way, no matter if its proven wrong? By exposing him to the same element that started his comic book saga in the first place: Death.
Regardless of how you shape him to fit the mold of whatever purpose, ideology or universe you want to put him in, Thanos is an avatar that represents those who hold stubbornness, selfishness, elitism, pride, and stagnation for the sake of self to such a high regard that there is no logical room for growth.
Because he will never change unless the change was done himself, because he will always believe he knows what’s best, because he constantly refutes the possibility that he is ever in the wrong, the only thing he can do in order to leave a significant impact and still retain the value that Marvel Comics associates him with, is self-realization and sacrifice. In order for him to accomplish this -- regardless if it’s the 616 or the MCU -- Thanos has to not only die, but he has to come to his OWN realization WHY he has to.
We got that in Jim Starlin’s mini-series “Thanos: The End.” It takes him eliminating the ENTIRE UNIVERSE for him to realize that he is what’s wrong with it; that the thing that needs to be removed from the equation because it has no value so that it can properly thrive as if it gained value is himself. That would’ve solidified Thanos as a true nihilist. That would’ve not only given the character the value Marvel identifies with him, but also make Matt’s earlier point regarding why Jim Starlin had him be so contradicting have so much more merit. It would’ve done so much for the character...if only Marvel made that story canon in the 616.
The same could be said of the fate for MCU Thanos as well, but it could go either one of two ways because of it. The first way is that he actually does what I suggested earlier on in the previous segment and use the opposition of the heroes of the MCU -- and possibly them beating him -- to actually do some self-reflecting and come to the same realization and motivation to remove himself from existence like his comic book counterpart did. The other way on the other hand -- because let’s just be real here, this is MCU Thanos we’re talking about; it’s gonna take some stronger shit than just self-realization to prove to him that he needs to do the right thing -- would be to have his reflection show him that his own actions brought about the materialization of his worst fear. By the actions he made in his quest to bring balance to and save the universe -- wiping out half of or entire species because they wouldn’t give in to his ultimatum, and even using the Infinity Stones to eliminate half of the populous of the universe -- Thanos actually FAILED.
This tactic was used for a thematically similar, yet better written villain in the Marvel Universe, Gorr the Godbutcher from Jason Aaron’s freshman run on Thor.
/After having his plan to destroy every past present and future god in the Marvel Universe destroyed thwarted by past, present and future Thor, the personification of his self-loathing in the form of Gorr’s son appears before him and calls him “The God of Hypocrisy.” Gorr as his title might explain, HATES gods and even refuses the title when it’s given to him before, despite his actions over the course of the arc stating otherwise. But it’s seeing the image of and hearing these words come out of the mouth of his own son, that make him realize that he had truly become the one thing he hated most; his worst fear had manifested itself. Y’know, before having his head chopped off by past Thor./
I haven’t seen Endgame at the time of me making this essay, so I won’t know if any of these choices were used for Thanos if ANY of them. And also -- like I said in the beginning -- this video was less of me trying to convince people who like either version of Thanos that they’re wrong for doing so, and more my problems with both versions of the character in the comics and the MCU as a reader, writer and a media consumer.
So for some of you, there may not BE a problem with Thanos.
But for me, one of the main things that keep me from joining that bandwagon is that his constant use and the multiple attempts to make us sympathize with him do more harm than good.
When in reality, all he has to do to fix that about himself... is this. *snap*
