Guardians of the Galaxy opened this week. It is one of the most anticipated movies of the summer. Overall it lives up to its potential. It has humour, adventure and vast cosmic vistas. Each character brings something to the story.
When I first sat down to write this I was going to be critical of how Thanos is portrayed. He gets betrayed three times and is virtually insulted to his face by an ally and does nothing but sit in his chair and let it happen. This did not seem like the correct response for a character being developed to be such a big villain that it will take the entire cast of heroes from the marvel Cinematic Universe to stand up to him.
As I was going over each of those betrayals and how Thanos’ non-responses made him seem less and less like a serious threat, I realized that he was staying absolutely true to character.
My first encounter with Thanos was in Jim Starlin’s run on the Adam Warlock series. Warlock is facing a future version of himself called the Magus. The Magus is the despotic leader of the Universal Church of Truth. Warlock is horrified by what the Magus does and what his church represents. Shortly after Warlock begins his war with the Church Thanos and Gamora show up and offer their assistance.
With Thanos’ help, Warlock is able to defeat the Magus. Later Warlock discovers that the Magus was to be Life’s Champion against Death’s Champion, Thanos. Warlock’s life path was intentionally and subtly altered so that Thanos would have to face a much less powerful opponent. It took the combined efforts of the Avengers, The Thing, Spider-man, and the ghost of Adam Warlock to defeat Thanos.
Thanos came back in the Infinity Gauntlet saga. This time it took all of Earth’s heroes, Galactus, the Celestials, and most of the cosmic entities to defeat Thanos. This defeat convinced Thanos that he was his own worst enemy and he gave up trying to destroy creation.
However, as fate would have it, Thanos also served as the defender of the universe on several occasions. He never did it to be the hero. His motivations were always selfish: to preserve his own life or to prevent others from achieving what he could not.
Whether he was trying to destroy everything or save it, he always used the same strategies. He would manipulate others to arrange the playing field to best suit his strategies. He would only come out into the open once the situation was as much to his advantage as he could make it.
This is the Thanos we see in GotG. He is not one to get all emotional and egotistic when things don’t go his way. He would rather let a minion be killed in front of him than distract an ally from the objective. Each betrayal was a setback, but they never brought the final objective out of reach.
Thanos’ inaction was not a sign of weakness. Rather, it was a sign of his cunning, resolve, and determination to be victorious at all costs. It shows just how dangerous a villain Thanos really is.