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I don’t like him.

Thanos’ psychology is so well studied and developed by Jim Starlin that it would take, I think, a proper psychology treatise to explain it. The nihilistic phase (“I’m gonna kill all life and get all-powerful mystical items to make Death love me”) ends after the Infinity Gauntlet saga; after that, it gets complicated.

The first point is that Thanos has always been extremely intelligent since he was a child. Born the deviant syndrome, he has always been very different from the other Eternals, stronger, smarter and all alone. In those years those philosophical questions about the nature of reality began to arise in his mind which, in different measures, are basically present in all of us, and while thinking about it in an almost maniacal way, Thanos came to the conclusion that life, in its diversity and complexity, was essentially CHAOS. And it was that chaos that kept him from finding his answers and his place in the grand scheme. He began to hate the concept of life and fell in love with death.

But it was only the first step in his evolution, the personality of Thanos could be defined as a "religious" type, he feels the action of forces beyond his control, forces that determine the course of his life and his destiny (his parents and to climb Kronos, Chaos and Order, Eternity, The Living Tribunal and ultimately God himself or as Marvel call Him: The One Above All) and it doesn't suit him, he wants to be free, he wants to be the master of his fate, he wants control, he wants freedom! And the only way to be free is by becoming omnipotent, to overcome those entities that determine everything or (its first solution) to destroy all life, since these cosmic entities act on life and by destroying it he could escape their influence making them impotents.

The solution of everything in the annihilation of all life forms is an initial position on this path of his, for the realization of which Thanos has begun to accumulate knowledge of all kinds for centuries. Did you read that? I wrote knowledge, not power. Because that’s what Thanos truly values. THANOS FOLLOWS KNOWLEDGE, in all its forms, from genetics to engineering, from philosophy to arcane arts, etc... . everything. KNOWLEDGE IN ITSELF IS POWER. Or as Thanos himself once told Tyrant “knowledge is power and Thanos of Titan did not stop accumulate power yet”.

Even the secret of the Infinity Gems was first discovered by Thanos by spending a lot of time contemplating the INFINITY WELL, a source of knowledge in the dimension of Death, and that way he was able to learn things that were hidden even to Eternity itself.

In essence, THANOS THINKS. Always thinks, continuously, possibilities about possibilities, scenarios, hypotheses, schemes, experiments, projects.... Which, combined with the knowledge acquired from otherworldly and omnipotent experiences, places him on a purely cultural level above anyone else in the Marvel Universe.

In fact Thanos treats basically all Marvel characters as morons, but not only from a power level’s point of view, but from a verbal/ideological point of view, no one is able to compete with Thanos in a "purely verbal" challenge, neither Thor, nor Silver Surfer, not even Reed Richards or Doctor Doom.... Thanos is always 3 steps ahead of everyone, that's why he is an unparalleled strategist (league above Doom... Doom can't defeat the Fantastic Four, Thanos has come to conquer Eternity more than once. Doom wants the power of the Beyonder, Thanos disdains the power of the Cosmic Egg, a construct created using more than 30 cosmic cubes put together. Doom failed to eliminate Akhenaten, Thanos managed to totally fool him and gains the power of the Heart of the Universe for himself). The only Marvel character that can match Thanos in a verbal and philosophical debate is Adam Warlock because the two went through a similar journey and share a similar knowledge about the true nature of the cosmos. All the other Marvel characters next to Thanos come out as nothing but uneducated simpletons. It’s not a matter of power, it’s a matter of knowledge and logic. Thanos arguing with the other Marvel characters is like watching Nikola Tesla trying to explain engineering and physics to a five year old kid. So far more complex and culturally superior Thanos is compared to the other Marvel characters.

The complexity of Thanos is then clearly seen when he actually reaches Omnipotence. Because there is also a part of him that hates himself, that does not consider himself worthy of divinity and true freedom, and it is in fact always Thanos himself who unconsciously lays the foundations for his own defeat.

The only one who can keep up with him, as I said, is Adam Warlock, who shared a similar path (loneliness, philosophical questions, etc.) albeit with different solutions. And he is also the only one who has shared experiences of divinity and omnipotence and therefore has a grasp and understanding of reality similar to his own. Adam understand aspects of Thanos that are not clear even to Thanos himself and that is why he is the only one to stand up to him, to surprise him and put him in difficulty in discussions of a purely intellectual nature. And that’s why over times Adam is the only one that not only Thanos considers his equal but also his only friend. Thanos talks about Warlock in a way that he doesn't talk about anyone else. Even Gamora, who, is the first and one of the few beings that Thanos learned to sincerely love (like a daughter of course).

So Thanos’ journey for greater power is much more than just a fanboy’s dream (like said: Jason Aaron writing Jane Foster as the best hero ever at the expense of Thor and Odin). It’s a deep and fascinating journey of a man (because like all Marvel and fictional characters Thanos is a metaphor for humanity in the end) that seeks to be free from the forces that control its life and its fate. Thanos is a metaphor for all those men costantly struggling against the system, against a life and a universe that is not going the way they’d like. I always thought of Thanos as Marvel’s equivalent of Lucifer Morningstar (Neil Gaiman and Mike Carey's version of course): not just because they’re both OP but because, at heart, they are both the ultimate rebels. They follow the ideal of John Milton’s Fallen Angel. An angel who lost Heaven because he questioned God. And he is now forced to walk a path of insecurities, in search for answers. He is “a puppet that can see the strings”. Yes, just like Watchmen’s Doctor Manhattan. But while Manhattan’s response to that knowledge was to isolate himself from all humanity and to become a heartless nihilist void of emotions, so that he did not have to suffer, Thanos’ response was to rebel against the system and to try to change it, at least for himself. That makes Thanos so much more than just a villain. He is his own tragic hero, the hero of his story that we read. A modern Ulysses or a modern Prometheus that pursues a knowledge that is forbidden to mere mortals and thus he’s doomed to fail because that’s what always happens at the end of the greek tragedy: mortals who challange the gods or fate itslef fails and get punished. Always.

If that doesn’t make Thanos the most fascinating Marvel character ever created, I don’t know what else would.

The guy above me is the one who write articles about the simp, he tries too hard, but I appreciate it.

OT: He is a simp like all of us.

@antebellum:

He's a "simp" (that word will probably never stop reading to me as an abbreviation of "simpleton"...) to Mistress Death only in the seventies (Jim Starlin's Captain Marvel and Warlock) and in Infinity Gauntlet, so if you hate "wants to bone Death", well, you stopped at the few stories that contains it, really.

In the midst of the direct sequel of Gauntlet, Infinity War, there’s an episode that Thanos may or may not have imagined: Mistress Death comes to speak to him for the first time, to encourage him to take out Adam Warlock for her (seeding his existence as the increasingly “formal” champion of Life to Thanos’s “champion of Death”). He chooses, even after she has spoken to him--though he, too, is not entirely convinced this actually occurs--to defy her because he came to deeply respect Warlock and also because the threat of Magus was more urgent. This is quite thoroughly the end of the immaturity of this obsession. In the main story, he’s speaking of her somewhat coldly, distantly (bringing the Infinity Watch to her palace--maybe with a little too much “I don’t care!” to be believed) and otherwise not at all. This is no longer his drive.

All that said: not trying to tell you you have to like him more, less, or otherwise--just that "simp Thanos who wants to bone Death and is stronger than everyone else" really isn't the character he was written as, barring, well, The Infinity Gauntlet. And of course the whole thing is more muddled than that, as he's totally unaware (at that time) of how his own ambition is what hurts their hypothetical relationship (see: Thanos Quest)

the MCU argument for "balance" comes from Silver Surfer #35 btw (which Starlin wrote). The part where Thanos explains to the Surfer that Death chose him to solve the overpopulation problem in the universe.

I agree that MCU Thanos is more interesting than the way comic Thanos is being written since 2013 (screw you Aaron, Bendis and Cates). But the way Starlin wrote him? Nah, that guy was intimidating because he was unpredictable. You never knew what he was going to do or how he was going to react and he could be your ally or your enemy depending on what he was scheming. He could destroy the universe or help save it from another villain depending on his mood and his intentions. He could team up with a omnicidal maniac like Annihilus for something as simple as curiosity. It's also the reason why you have stories with the Avengers and other heroes either fighting Thanos or them teaming up with Thanos. Even Death didn't know what Thanos planned especially since gathering the Infinity gems was his idea and she didn't like the fact that he messed up the cosmic order while trying to be her equal (even though Death was fine with the way he was) but then he becomes more powerful than her and it's why in Infinity Gauntlet she's upset with him.

He's also a contradictory mess because he claimed to be a hardcore nihilist and yet he loves Death. He also claims to love Death and calls himself her most humble servant but he has done so many things to defy her for his own personal reason. He's arrogant and postures himself as the greatest but he also has a lot of self-loathing. He's also neither completely a hero or a villain, He’s been the good guy as often as he’s been the bad guy so depending the story he can serve as both (either way hero or villain I do prefer it when he's the antihero protagonist).

MCU Thanos is fine, I honestly never thought Starlin Thanos can be adapted into a 2 hour movie even though the MCU did a good job of adapting part of his motivation in the Silver Surfer issues that lead to the Infinity Gauntlet trilogy. Still I never really cared for the idea of a Thanos with a martyr complex and something about him felt off to me.

Also Starlin Thanos no matter how crappy of a dad he was (turning Gamora into a cyborg, almost killing her and raising her to be his assassin) he's still a better father to Gamora than MCU Thanos was to Gamora (even when he was going to destroy the whole universe he couldn't bring himself to kill Gamora and according to his creator SHE is the person he's most loyal to). The way MCU Thanos dared Star-Lord to shoot Gamora in Infinity War was awful and something I don't see Starlin Thanos doing because he didn't like seeing her emotionally distressed. He also wouldn't take in a kid that he didn't care for (which is why Gamora is the only one he claims as his daughter) and when he tortured Nebula (who isn't his daughter in the comics) he at least had the reason that Nebula had insulted him by claiming to be his grandaughter just to scare his former minions into following her, unlike MCU Thanos who just abused Nebula for years because he considered her worthless.

I also really, really, like Thanos' interactions and bromance with Adam Warlock and the MCU will most likely never have that.

I think Thanos is much more similar to Lucifer Morningstar than Darkseid.