Thanos: 1977 Comics vs. 2018 Movie

   Thanos’s original motivations started in Avengers Annual #7 (1977). Thanos was obsessed with death, so much so that he falls in love with the physical embodiment of death, Mistress Death (who is a skeleton that somehow has boobs and wears a tight-fitting silk robe. You can’t blame the man, really). The actions he takes in the comics are all motivated by his desire to impress Mistress Death.

The writer and artist who originally came up with the idea of Thanos was Jim Starlin. Jim Starlin served as an aviation photographer with the U.S. Navy during the Vietnam War. When he wasn’t on active duty, he would draw comics and send them in to Marvel and DC Comics. Between serving and writing comics, Jim also was taking a course in Psychology. It was in this class that he says he conceptualized Thanos.

   So Thanos was conceptualized during a time where a counter-culture developed that rejected consumerism, materialism, and capitalism in favor of a more spiritual and grounded existence. War was bad, because war caused death. Meanwhile, Jim Starlin is immersed in an environment of violence and death and is simultaneously studying the workings of the human mind. Nihilism and mortality were likely to be on his mind, and what better villain for a time like this than one that glorifies death ultimately and above all else? As people shout, “Make Love, Not War,” Thanos takes his love and uses it to justify a mass genocide of all life.

   Move forward to 2018, where Marvel’s Avengers: Infinity War is released. It features a familiar Thanos, but here his motives are somewhat different. Director of the film Anthony Russo stated that they struggled with incorporating Thanos’s original character into the more modern Marvel Cinematic Universe. They didn’t want to try to introduce the metaphysical being that is Mistress Death into the context of the MCU, as it would have pulled attention and precious screentime from telling Thanos’s story. As a solution, they opted to interpret Thanos’s obsession with death as an obsession with balance of life and death. Thanos speaks of there being a finite amount of energy and resources in the universe, and that there is an imbalance in the consumption of said energy and resources.

   This concept can be attributed to the increase in popularity of environmentalism within the younger population of America in the 21^st century. This itself can be attributed to the relatively recent inclusion of environmental studies in classroom curriculums. Whether they intended to or  not, they made Thanos into something of an anti-villain to younger audiences. A perfect example of this is the subreddit “/r/ThanosDidNothingWrong,” where Reddit users post forum topics and memes regarding the noble motives and truth behind Thanos’s mantra.