Marvel’s Thanos is one of the most terrifying villains the company has ever created, but there’s more to the Mad Titan than fear – and his last words in the comics prove it while the MCU ignored it entirely. The Marvel Cinematic Universe steadily led to a battle with Thanos for years until he gathered the Infinity Stones and shockingly defeated the Avengers in Avengers: Infinity War; Thanos then became one of the few supervillains who actually enacted his plan successfully and saw it through to the end. But his last words in the comics before being killed by Drax the Destroyer confirm Thanos is far, far smarter than he let on – and Death was his most studied subject.
In the MCU, Drax is a member of an alien species that possess superhuman strength and durability, but in the comics, he is a human named Arthur Douglas. An attack by Thanos leaves Douglas’ wife and daughter dead (though the latter is eventually revealed to have survived, becoming Moondragon) and Douglas swears revenge after being placed into a new body. The rivalry between Thanos and Drax survived the transition to the MCU, where Drax believes Ronan the Accuser murdered his family on Thanos’ orders.
Thanos is vastly stronger in the comics than in the MCU: he has tremendous physical strength, can withstand more damage than the Hulk, and even has telepathic abilities that rival Jean Grey. But so is Drax, and the Destroyer finally gets his vengeance fulfilled in Annihilation #4 by Keith Giffen, Andrea Divito, Laura Villari, and Cory Petit. Here, Drax kills the Mad Titan by punching straight through his torso. Instead of crying out in pain or attempting to save himself, Thanos can only mutter “Interesting” before finally dying. Drax the Destroyer kills Thanos – and in the process, shows what the MCU left out: Thanos’ obsession with Death and his quest to understand it.
Aside from being a powerful warrior, Thanos is also a brilliant scientist, capable of great feats. He isn’t afraid of Death, but rather fascinated by the prospect of experiencing something new. It must also be said that Thanos is in love with the avatar of Death in the comics, and the 1991 Infinity Gauntlet crossover event chronicles Thanos’ attempts to prove his undying devotion to her. Thanos eventually grows so powerful that he even eclipses Death’s own might, and she spurns his advances anyway.
The MCU unfortunately set aside Thanos’ fascination with acquiring new knowledge (and his fascination with Death overall) in favor of his pure physical power. The comics show a more nuanced Thanos; his entire life from his birth to death is a tragedy, not just his time on the dying world of Titan. Thanos as a scientist is far more terrifying than Thanos as a simple physical threat – and the fact that he did not betray the slightest sense of fear after beign killed by Drax proves it.
