While Thanos proved to be the most formidable threat the Avengers have faced thus far in the MCU, Dragon Ball Super’s evil Goku proves himself to be a much more dangerous villain as he takes Thanos’ Infinity War plan much further than the Mad Titan.
In Avengers: Infinity War, Thanos obtains all six Infinity Stones so that he can channel their cosmic power and wipe out half of all life in the universe. Much to the shock and horror of the Avengers, Thanos succeeds in killing trillions with the snap of his fingers. After his dark mission is complete, Thanos goes to a far off world where he intends to live out the remainder of his life in peace. However, in the sequel film Avengers: Endgame, the remaining Avengers track down Thanos and attempt to steal the Infinity Stones to undo the damage he’s caused. While their efforts are valiant, they are too late. Thanos has already used the stones to destroy the stones so that his “necessary” mission can never be undone.
In Dragon Ball Super chapter 20 by Akira Toriyama and Toyotarou, Goku and Vegeta travel to an alternate future where a powerful villain named Zamasu has decimated the world. Zamasu, who was a Supreme Kai-in-training, gains the power necessary to wipe out all mortal life in existence by wishing upon the Super Dragon Balls to switch bodies with Goku and become the all-powerful Goku Black, effectively becoming an “evil Goku.” After he gains everything he needs from the Super Dragon Balls’ magic, he destroys the magical artifacts. This way no one can use their power to stop him in his dark mission to eliminate every mortal in every known universe, as he believes cleansing the universes of life is the only way to truly save all of existence.
Like Thanos, Zamasu is on a cosmic quest to murder trillions for what he believes to be the greater good. Another similarity between the two is their shared strategy of ensuring their success by destroying the very artifacts that grant them god-like powers in the first place so that no one who wants to stop them can ever be a serious threat. However, Zamasu takes Thanos’ Infinity War plan much further by not only working to eliminate all life in the universe as opposed to Thanos’ plan to wipe out half of all life, but to do so in every conceivable universe across the multiverse.
Both villains are completely focused in their righteous crusades, and both turn out to be nothing more than genocidal forces of cosmic evil and destruction the likes of which neither the Marvel or Dragon Ball universes have ever seen before. In the end, both are foiled and the evil they bring about is undone and erased by the heroes of their respective universes. While they each commit atrocious crimes against nature, Zamasu proves to be much worse as Dragon Ball Super’s evil Goku takes Thanos’ MCU Infinity War plan much further than the Mad Titan would ever dare.
