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Thanos

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Thanos is also a historic name for the Arizona Tewa.

Thanos is a fictional character created by Jim Starlin and published by Marvel Comics. He is a Titanian Eternal and is often referred to as The Mad Titan.

Contents

Character biography

Thanos was born on Saturn's moon, Titan. He is a mutant of the race of Eternals that live in a colony on that moon. He is a son of the colony's ruler, Mentor, and brother to Eros (Starfox).

For unknown reasons, he was born with purple-grey, hide-like skin and a massive body. Although treated fairly by his people, Thanos grew distant and obsessive. By means of bionic implants and long hours of strength and ability-augmenting meditation, Thanos became the most powerful of the Titanian born Eternals. As his powers grew, so too did his ambition. (Note that the demonic Dragon of the Moon has claimed to be the influence of Thanos' evil tendencies.) He was eventually exiled from Titan for hideous crimes, including matricide.

Eros and Thanos have a custom whereby each year they bury the hatchet and convene at a neutral place, usually bearing gifts. This ritual was an initiative of their father, who demanded that the two meet every year to remind them of their shared blood. The meeting is called The Truce and the two meet alone, with the exception of one appearance by Quasar, and do not fight.

Thanos, since childhood, has been obsessed with the occult and, more specifically, Death. His obsession developed into a twisted love and devotion. Thanos took hundreds-of-millions of lives in mass-killings throughout the cosmos to appease his love, attempting to become her male companion. It is thought that Death was attracted to his philosophical dedication to nihilism and his willingness to do anything, even commit the genocide of his own people, to appease her. One attack by Thanos on the Titan Eternals resulted in millions of deaths.

Later, Thanos arrived on Earth, killing a family that accidentally saw him land. This event lead to the creation of Drax the Destroyer and the origin of Moondragon. Thanos stole the power of Earth's Cosmic Cube, but was defeated by Captain Marvel, the Avengers, and the Titanian Eternals. When he carelessly left the Cube behind, Captain Marvel destroyed it.

Thanos later came to the conclusion that the Magus was a menace to his plans, raising the female assassin, Gamora, to destroy him. He joined forces with Adam Warlock to defeat Magus, but secretly drained some energy from Warlock's Soul Gem in the process.

After this, Thanos gathered energies all of the other Infinity Gems to power a machine to destroy all the stars in the universe as a gift to Death. Warlock attempted to prevent this but Thanos killed Gamora, and Pip the Troll, and mortally wounded Warlock. All three had their souls absorbed by the Soul Gem. The Avengers, Captain Marvel, the Thing, Spider-Man and Warlock's spirit (rising up from the Soul Gem) killed Thanos by turning him into stone.

Thanos with the Gems (note that this picture is a reversed image, making it appear that they are on the wrong hand. The Soul Gem is missing, not yet recovered from Adam Warlock at this point)
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Thanos with the Gems (note that this picture is a reversed image, making it appear that they are on the wrong hand. The Soul Gem is missing, not yet recovered from Adam Warlock at this point)
Years later, Thanos was revived by Death, who wanted him to reduce the overpopulation of the universe. Thanos created the Infinity Gauntlet by stealing the gems from the Elders of the Universe, making him omnipotent. Once again he carelessly lost it, this time to the space pirate Nebula, who claimed to be his granddaughter. Warlock (having raised himself, Pip, and Gamora from the dead) recognized that Thanos was thwarted not only by intervention of superheroes, but by Thanos' own self-doubt.

After Thanos was told, he helped Warlock take the Gauntlet from Nebula. Under its influence, the belief that Thanos is capable of changing, and the need to keep an eye on him, Warlock made Thanos a member of the Infinity Watch, giving him the Reality Gem to guard.

Ultimately, the Infinity Watch was disbanded. Thanos returned to villainy, albeit half-heartedly. Later, he claimed that these subsequent appearances were all half-formed clones. Thanos eventually lost his interest in trying to become the consort of mistress death and his motives became more mysterious.

In one story that is not part of offical canon, Thanos came into possession once again of omnipotence that surpassed even the Living Tribunal, but had to give it up to fix a flaw in the universe. Since this story is not part of actual continuity it is debatable to how much of it actually happened in the main MU or how much of it can be applied to the set-up of the Marvel universe. This story can be found in Marvel: The End.

Recently, at Christmas, Thanos apparently had decided to make another try at villainy. He came to Earth with a weapon called the Pyramatrix, intending to charge it with the life force of everyone on Earth and use it to conquer the universe. He was promptly defeated by Squirrel Girl, who was returning to the HQ of the GLX from an errand. The Watcher showed up and confirmed that it was the REAL Thanos, not a clone, or robot, or simulacrum (parodying creator Jim Starlin's tendency to retcon appearances of Thanos that did not uphold his ideals of the character as any of the above).

Thanos currently has a role within Marvel's Annihilation event, specifically within the Silver Surfer limited series, in which he has allied himself with Annihilus for an unknown purpose.

Powers and abilities

Thanos possesses nearly incalculable superhuman power. The most powerful of the Titanian Eternals, Thanos is an Eternal mutant whose massive thick-hide body grants him the ability to synthesize cosmic energy for his personal use. (This is a trait that Thanos shares with his father, Alars, and the Earth-born Eternals, but not with most Titan-born Eternals.) Through bionic amplification, Thanos has vastly increased his physical strength and resilience. Through meditation, certain mystical techniques, and the aid of Death itself, Thanos has augmented his power in still other ways - enabling him to tap, transform, and direct vast quantities of cosmic energy for destructive force.

Thanos has also demonstrated psionic abilities (e.g. telepathy, astral projection, mental domination). Thanos possesses a very high level of invulnerability, allowing him to take almost any sort of damage without being harmed and be almost completely resistant to reality manipulation and matter transmutation. Thanos possesses a vast array of highly advanced technology, one such example is a compact device (always concealed on him) enabling him to teleport vast distances and protective shielding.

Perhaps deadliest of all of Thanos' attributes is his mind; his superhuman intellect and legendary cunning are dedicated to the annihilation of life and the mastery of any technology or mysticism that will allow him to achieve this goal.

Tyrant vs. Thanos The Mad Titan
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Tyrant vs. Thanos The Mad Titan

Aside from his great power, Thanos is a superb tactician and is well-versed in many areas of arcane lore. He possesses technology that allows him to travel through time and between alternate dimensions. Thanos is also a highly formidable hand-to-hand combatant, having fought the likes of Odin, Lord of Asgard, and the Galactus-Spawned Tyrant (with the aid of one of Tyrant's power orbs) to a stand-still. Thanos also trained his adopted daughter Gamora to become one of the universe's most adept and feared female assassins. As powerful as he is, Thanos usually seeks to avoid physical confrontations and prefers outwitting his opponents and working through agents and thralls. Thanos is, and will always remain, a threat to all life and one of the most dangerous beings in the universe.

Quotations

References

In 2003, Thanos received his own ongoing series; it was originally written and illustrated by Jim Starlin, but as of #7 Keith Giffen took over until its ending with #12.

Other media

Thanos appeared in various episodes of the The Silver Surfer Animated Series on the FOX Network." In this version, Thanos worships the female personification of Chaos, due to Fox's refusal to allow any use of the word 'death' in their children's programming. Mentor appears in a 2 part episode "Learning Curve". Due to a creative decision, he is Thanos' brother instead of his father.

Wikibooks has a manual, textbook or guide to this subject:
Thanos also appeared as the final boss in the Capcom game Marvel Super Heroes in a story adapted from the Infinity Gauntlet mini-series. He re-appeared in without the Infinity Gems (although he inexplicably uses four of the same Gem-related super moves from his last incarnation - Power, Reality, Space, and Soul; losing Time and Mind - albeit greatly reduced in effectiveness and power).
Thanos in Marvel Super Heroes.
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Thanos in Marvel Super Heroes.

See also

References

 

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.

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