Thomas Roach asks whether Marvel introduced Thanos too early to the Marvel Cinematic Universe…
Thanos is currently the big bad of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Since his appearance at the end credits sequence of The Avengers we knew that the Mad Titan would eventually appear on the big screen in a grander fashion. So far though we have only seen him in the end credits scene of Avengers and a brief scene in Guardians of the Galaxy, and that’s left me very underwhelmed with the character and the direction they are going in.
I assume that Avengers 3 will follow the Infinity Gauntlet storyline and I am sure that will be fantastic. However the fact that we have been introduced to Thanos a bit more in Guardians of the Galaxy has ruined it for me. I felt that Thanos should not have appeared in Guardians at all and only been mentioned. The reason for this is now we know what Thanos looks like in his entirety and what he sounds like. I felt that having a villain literally in the shadows would have worked better until we get to see him as the real antagonist.
The tease at the end of Avengers should have been all we saw of Thanos. To fix the scenes in Guardians I would not have wanted Thanos to talk and would not have seen his face. I liked the fact that he was a mysterious being, but since he spoke and had interactions with characters that has broken the mystique. This may seem a bit conflicted but the fact Thanos has done nothing makes me think he is not all that. For example, fans will know that Thanos is very keen to please Death so he needs to kill people. The idea is that the Infinity Gauntlet will grant him a great deal of power, allowing him to kill enough people to impress Death. Now here is my problem.
Thanos was behind Loki in the first Avengers movie and when Loki failed Thanos really didn’t seem to care. Not only did Thanos fail to wipe out the Earth but he also lost the Tesseract which had been given to Loki. Then in Guardians when Ronan betrayed him and took the Infinity Stone for himself, Thanos continued to do nothing. Fans say the reason he did nothing is because he knew both Loki and Ronan would fail, but that is very stupid of Thanos.
If he is to impress Death he needs all the Infinity Stones and the Infinity Gauntlet and when he lost two of the gems he was essentially moving backwards in his plan. If Thanos is that desperate to impress Death and is as powerful as people say he is, then why does he not seem to give a damn about doing anything? Now this may be part of a master plan of acquiring all the stones, but if he had two in his grasp and lost them then surely his plan will just take longer to complete.
The fact that Marvel appears to be spoon feeding us Thanos is a good thing as it allows his presence to be felt before we see him as a villain in a movie, but in my opinion they have given us too much too soon. We may not even get Thanos in Avengers 3. He may come a lot later – we just don’t know yet. Don’t get me wrong, I want Thanos to work and be a great villain in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but after seeing him in Guardians of the Galaxy I am less impressed than I was at the end of The Avengers.
How do you think Marvel is handling Thanos? Let us know your thoughts…
Thomas Roach
Originally published August 12, 2014. Updated April 13, 2018.
