Marvel: Thanos/ Infinity Stones

Note: This post is outdated, but has been kept up for historical reasons…updated post will be coming soon!!

Marvel’s phase-III has officially been launched with the debut of Captain America: Civil War and this means that now everything that Marvel puts out there will contribute heavily to their Phase-III endgame of Infinity War. Now, we know Thanos is one bad dude and as they said in Guardians of the Galaxy; Thanos is one of the most powerful beings in the Universe. But what exactly makes him so dangerous and so powerful?

A brief Background on the complicated character of Thanos: In the comics, Thanos is from a race of beings called the Eternals who possess powers that dwarf the powers of most Earth-bound heroes. He is called the Mad Titan because he hails from the moon of Jupiter called Titan and he destroyed his own civilization while attempting to conquer it. He was born with a drastically different appearance from the rest of his entirely human-looking race (specifically, his massive size, purple skin and the strange lined grooves that are on his chin) and most speculated that his dark personality came from a deep-seated feeling of rejection from his own people.

Now, If the movies follow a similar path to the comics, which they seem to be doing in regards to Thanos so far, then the conflict of Infinity War will revolve around Thanos gaining possession of the Infinity Stones (also called the Infinity Gems) and what he does when he obtains them. In the films so far, we have been introduced to these Infinity Stones and what they are capable of. The Tesseract in Avengers was the Space Stone, The Aether from Thor: The Dark World was the Reality Stone, the stone in Guardians of the Galaxy was the Power Stone, the stone in Vision’s head that was from Loki’s staff is the Mind Stone, and finally the Soul Stone and the Time Stone have yet to be fully identified.

At the basic level, the Infinity Stones give their wielder power over that specific Infinity Stone’s attribute. However, in the comics when the Infinity Stones are collected and all brought together to be placed on the Infinity Gauntlet, then something even worse happens. When all six of the Infinity Stones are wielded by one person, that person gains complete control of the entire universe itself! This is why Thanos wants the Infinity Stones; he wants to gain complete control over the entire universe. With the Infinity Guantlet in his hands with all of the stones on it, Thanos could literally do anything that he desired. If they are going in this direction with the films, then the Infinity War films will be the largest, most epic, and the most difficult battle that cinematic superheroes have ever been faced with! That’s why Thanos is such a bad dude and may possibly become the greatest Marvel villain in the films to date.