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The Thanos: Infinity Trilogy introduced an all-powerful version of the MCU villain who became one of the strongest beings in the Marvel Multiverse.
In almost every corner of the Marvel Multiverse, Thanos has always been one of Marvel’s most powerful and deadly forces, and the space-faring villain often requires entire armies of heroes to contend to be defeated. But in Jim Starlin and Alan Davis’ three-part Infinity saga, one version of Thanos found a way to effectively become the single most powerful being in all of creation.
Possessing far more power than the Infinity Gauntlet could ever give him, Thanos could only be defeated by, ultimately, himself. Now, we’re taking a closer look at how Thanos once became the totality of a Marvel Universe, and how one unlikely plan proved to be the only thing that could stop him.
Starting with 2018, Thanos: The Infinity Siblings — the first of three stories by Jim Starlin, Alan Davis, Mark Farmer and Ciane Dusk — focused on the titular Mad Titan. Reflecting on his past failures, Thanos decides he needs a “worthy foe” to clear his mind. Detecting a strange temporal disruption on the ruins of Thanos and his Black Order went to investigate. There, he discovered an older incarnation of his brother, Eros, the former Avenger Starfox. The aged Starfox explains that in the 47th century, Kang the Conqueror had encountered a mysterious battle between a horde of shadow creatures and a towering version of Thanos, who gas grown to a giant size and seemingly become more powerful than ever before.
Hoping to change a future that Starfox hints would result in his death, Thanos is brought to a mysterious world, where he actually meets his powerful future form. Working together, the two versions of Thanos are able to identify the shadowy threat as the cosmic monster known as a universe-eating parasite called the Hunger. By traveling to a specific battle in the past, Thanos is able to eradicate the being and protect his future self’s life. The future Thanos explains to his present-day counterpart that with this threat dealt with, the only means of defeating him would be to manipulate the time-stream. Confronting the Lady Death of the modern day, Thanos is shocked at how inherently furious she is upon seeing his future incarnation. This is because the future version of Thanos has actually become Death, replacing her.
This is because Thanos was able to do so with the use of the Astral Regulator, a mysterious and powerful artifact hidden in a different realm. This discovery of the Regulator was the key to the future Thanos becoming so powerful, and his intervention in the time-stream has advanced those events. Using the artifact, Thanos was able to absorb the majority of the cosmic beings in the Marvel Universe, such as Galactus, Eternity and Death, effectively killing them and taking their power for his own, starting with Lady Death.
By doing so across the universe, Thanos even eventually absorbed the Living Tribunal and the Above-All-Others, becoming the embodiment of all time and space. His intervention set the present-day Thanos on that path much earlier, with the pair eventually fusing into a single unstoppable form.
Eventually coming to see all life as just a cycle of pain and despair, this all-powerful Thanos at the core of the universe decided to end everyone’s suffering by turning his powers against himself and wiping out all of reality. However, Kang — one of the last major beings capable of confronting Thanos — was able to indeed use the time-stream to stop him. Using his technology, Kang and Adam Warlock were able to keep Starfox from being absorbed by Thanos, providing a perfect distraction for the present-day Thanos to briefly gain control of his future self. With access to the full scope of the galaxy’s power, Thanos was able to reverse the events that had transpired and prevent himself from ever gaining the power in the first place, allowing Thanos to save all of creation at the cost of never reaching such a powerful state.
While objects of power like the Infinity Stones can functionally give Thanos omnipotence, this is a whole new level of power for the villain. This Thanos was briefly one of the most powerful versions of the character in the entire multiverse, wielding a level of cosmic power that is usually reserved for the highest echelon of Marvel’s gods. While Thanos even sacrificed his love of Death for his ultimate power, this story goes to show why the best person to take down Thanos is Thanos.
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