‘Who Is Thanos?’ And 10 More Post-Avengers Comic Book Movie Rumors
I’m telling you right out of the gate, this article contains spoilers for The Avengers. If you have not seen the movie (how’s life been under the rock this weekend?), you should probably bookmark this for reading later.
You’ve been duly warned.
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The big news this weekend wasn’t that The Avengers owned the box office, smashing the previous opening record held by Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2. It was the appearance of Thanos, the Mad Titan, in the end credits.
Who is Thanos?
If you’re not a comic book fan, you probably have never heard of him, which makes his inclusion in the movies a nod of appreciation to the fans and a feeling that future movies from Marvel Studios will lead to even more stellar sequels to The Avengers.
That’s because Thanos is a more powerful villain than The Avengers have faced before.
Thanos is an Eternal of the planet Titan, born with the Deviant gene. This means he looks different than all the other Eternals. He’s a bit self-conscious about it.
Being an Eternal, he has some special powers:
Thanos possesses the superhuman physiology of all Eternals, granting him superhuman strength, endurance, reflexes, and agility. His skin in nearly invulnerable, particulary against heat, cold, electricity, radiation, toxins, aging, and disease, and he can survive indefinitely without food or water even before his “curse” from Death left him immortal, unable to die. His mind is also invulnerable to most forms of psychic attack, and can project a psionic blast of energy as well as blasts of plasma/cosmic energy from his eyes and hands.
Yeah, he’s kind of a big deal.
Hey guess what! In the RSS feed the SPOILER IS IN PLAIN VIEW! THANKS FOR NOTHING, PJM!
Brilliant move, guys.
Ug. Mark Ruffalo was the feeblest link in The Avengers, the only weak spot in an otherwise incredible movie.
If we have to deal with more of what passes for acting in his mind I fear this iteration of the movies has passed its peak and is doomed to go nowhere fast from this point on.
They better do some concise back story on this guy if he’s to be the baddy next time. I’ve never heard of him – I thought it was Red Skull when I saw the movie.
If it’s not broke, don’t fix it. As someone who once owned every comic the Avengers and Iron Man appeared in from origin to 10 years later, I can rightfully claim I loved those comics.
I do not love the Iron Man movies – they are not MY Iron Man but they have raked in a lot of dough so I will have to have a No. 3 that appears might be an even more acting-oriented stage for Downey, rather than the character. I love Downey as an actor, just not as Stark.
I thought the Avenger film pretty much just sat there – fun to watch in parts but neither smart nor clever – it is not big time moving making in the sense of a fun screenplay that surprises like Die Hard, The Fifth Element or The Mummy.
I’m somewhat mystified as to why the Avengers is raking in so much dough. The comic has been dead a long time now but the ticket sales seem fueled by young people. Anyway, I’m not a big fan of Thanos – I’d like to see Namor or Kang the Conquerer. I can at least say the Avengers film was more true than the despicable John Carter, which completely wrecked Burroughs novel, or the last Conan.
I still own several years’ worth of the Avengers (East and West), plus most of the rest of the Marvel titles going back to the Sixties. (One reason? In high school and college, I worked part-time at a local comic shop.) Which is why the choice of Thanos seems a bit odd to me, too.
I’d have expected a villain more along the lines of Ultron, Henry Pym’s creation (that he wished he’d never thought of). Not to mention Kang, the Masters of Evil, and of course Wanda Maximoff (aka The Scarlet Witch), whose life story would make a movie in itself.
On one list of Top 10 Avengers Villains, Thanos only comes in at No. 6, barely ahead of Michael Korvac and behind Norman Osborn, whom only hardcore Marvel fans have ever heard of. (Yes, I know who they were.) Even Loki only checks in near the bottom, just above the Taskmaster; possibly the most ineffectual Marvel villain, with the possible exception of the Trapster aka Paste-Pot Pete. (IIRC, he once got thumped by… Howard the Duck.)
On the same list, Ultron came in at Number One. I think he deserves it, just on the grounds of having given the Avengers more grief over their history than any five other villains combined.
I’m not going to pass the movie up on DVD or Blu-Ray just because Thanos is the chief baddie. But I’d have to say he’s a peculiar choice for the first outing, so to speak.
cheers
eon
I think they’d choose Thanos because they can depart somewhat from the canon and still make a story out of it, and they can probably reuse most of their Hulk CGI software to animate him.
Give Infinity Gauntlet Crisis now Marvel!
A bit of an odd choice, but we’ll see. They’ve done very well (except with Hulk 1 and 2) so far so some trust is warranted.
Ruffalo may not have been the best ever, but Avengers was the best Hulk movie.
And I’d love to see New Mutants with Cannonball and company.
Bring us the tragic, glorious Immortals.
Or Jack Kirby’s last great creations, the Forever People and Kammandi- the last human orphan in ruins populated by intelligent animals.