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Whether held true by Marvel the publisher or Marvel the film studio, Thanos Wins is a fairly unimpeachable axiom. But what drives this premier villain to achieve his great and terrible victories, like snuffing out half of all life in the universe, as he did in both Marvel’s 1991 Infinity Gauntlet series, by Jim Starlin, George Pérez and Ron Lim, and its 2018 film adaptation, Avengers: Infinity War?
In a word: obsession. Thanos is obsessed, not only with serving universal constants, but becoming one himself. That grotesque aspiration has been influenced by various prime motivators, of course, depending on the story and medium. In the Marvel Cinematic Universe, he is driven by the idea of universal balance, while in the Marvel Comics universe, his muse is more directly sinister. Thanos loves Death, both in concept and its manifestation in a powerful and, to him, alluring cosmic being. Recently, however, Marvel has been adding a fascinating wrinkle into Thanos’ disturbing adoration, marrying perhaps the most unlikable version of the character with an impulse, which, frankly, is even more disgusting than his unslakable lust for Death.
Thanos Has an Uncomfortable Obsession with His ‘Two Mothers’
As explored to unnerving depths in Marvel’s 2013 miniseries, Thanos Rising, by Jason Aaron, Simon Bianchi and Ive Svorcina, Thanos’ birth mother was an Eternal named Sui-San. Driven mad by the first glance of her newborn Deviant son, she immediately tried to kill him and, thus, end his threat to the universe. Incidentally, that inclination was shared by the MCU’s War Machine, although to more comedic effect, when he suggested something similar in Avengers: Endgame. It’s no surprise, then, that Thanos developed a complicated relationship with his parents.
Tragically, he still tried to connect with his mother (even though she was committed to an asylum later in life), which, in many ways, led further to his downfall. After being rejected by Sui-San, the young Thanos was so alone and bereft of “human” contact, he befriended a young woman he perceived to be a fellow student on Titan. It was later revealed, however, that she was Death, or at least a figment in his addled mind that pretended to be her.
Thanos’ obsessive attention finally turned to her, and away from his mom. In fact, this other woman inspired him to vivisect his own mother. In doing so, Death not only undermined the maternal role in Thanos’ life, in an odd way she also usurped it as a more influential authority figure.
Of course, the idea of Death as a mother and paramour to Thanos began years earlier, specifically in 1987’s Silver Surfer #34, by Starlin and Lim. In this, the first issue of the “Rebirth of Thanos” storyline, Death resurrected the Mad Titan to rectify an imbalance in the universe, a similar motivation to the one that would drive him in the MCU. In the following issue (after giving the Surfer a lecture on pollution and climate change, of all things), Thanos revealed he had been chosen to correct this imbalance by thinning the herd, thereby currying favor with the one he loved and who gave him life: Death.
When Death resurrected Thanos in this story, she became his mother, “birthing” him back into existence as a conscious effort. As such, she filled for him the role that his mother could not, by giving him intent, a purpose he could serve but didn’t feel compelled to have explained. This was more pure to Thanos: Serve the person you love most, who was responsible for your very being, by doing the one thing they ask of you… even if that one thing is killing half the universe. It was an opportunity neither his father nor his mother afforded him when they brought him into the universe.
Thanos replaced the commitment and love he had for his mother by instead serving Death, but he married it together with what could only be described as romantic, even sexual, feelings, making his interest and obsession even more uncomfortable. In one scene in Thanos Rising #3, the villain lounged in postcoital repose, having found himself in the arms of an alien lover after disavowing murder for a time, and instead searching for meaning through love and connections.
In this moment, we see Thanos think back on his mother, and then on Death: the two beings who gave him life and whose love he was desperate to earn. That these two women flit through his mind, especially in this moment, is telling. So, too, is a more recent, and arguably much more profane, example of Thanos’ disturbingly merged obsessions.
Kid Thanos Proved Why He May Be Marvel’s Most Disturbing Villain
In Avengers #53, again written by Jason Aaron, with art by Juan Frigeri and David Curiel, readers got a recap of “Kid” Thanos’ backstory. Given its similarity to the Thanos Rising timeline (and Aaron’s involvement), this Mad Titan was seemingly time-displaced right after he murdered his mother, so the mental trauma was still fresh. More disturbing than those memories (which is saying something) is a scene later in the book, when Thanos infiltrates the Avengers’ dead-Celestial base and begins cutting into its flesh, as he did Sui-San’s.
After saying he could “spend all day climbing through your insides” to the dead Celestial — itself an evocative mental picture — Thanos thought about how proud his mother would be, before pressing his face adoringly, and in a disturbing sort of comfort, into the opening of flesh he made. It isn’t revealed whether Thanos’ face here reflects his desire to crawl into the wound of a dead thing, or the womb of someone he considers a god, but in his mind, that distinction may no longer exist, thanks to his confused relationship with Death and his mother. And that’s what makes his obsessions so disconcerting.
Thanos Wins, yes, but only because he has lost so much – not least of which has been his grasp on reality. His obsessive attentions may not immediately be described as Oedipal, simply because he has no overt desire to replace his father in so direct a fashion. However, his love of Death and his mother is no less complex, interwoven or disturbing.
What is tragic, of course, is that, like Thanos’ mother, Death would spurn his advances later in his life, be it when she turned on him in Infinity Gauntlet #5, or in the more ambiguous ending of the Thanos series, by Donny Cates, Geoff Shaw, Dylan Burnett and Antoni Fabela, where she impishly instructed Thanos to kill himself (or at least a future version of himself). In that tragedy of repetitions, it may be more fair to say that in love, in life and in Death, Thanos can’t win, and that has made him both disturbing and very, very dangerous.
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