While fans of Venom may not think of Thanos as the kind of villain who’d choose to bond with a symbiote, the Mad Titan actually ruled over an entire reality thanks to a symbiotic alien, even as it created a new weakness that allowed him to be killed off for good. Ever since Jim Starlin graced the pages of Marvel Comics with Thanos in 1973, the Mad Titan has remained one the greatest adversaries that Earth’s heroes have ever had to deal with. Thanos is a merciless, bloodthirsty, and genocidal cosmic warlord who destroys everything in the way of achieving his goals. Despite having been killed many times in the past, the Mad Titan’s relationship with the embodiment of Death means he never stays down for long. However, it was this love of Death that led Thanos to be tricked by the Poison Queen.
In the lead-up to 2018’s Venomized event, Marvel fans were introduced to the Poisons – a predatory alien race who feed on symbiotes like Venom and Carnage. The Poisons are rather weak on their own, but they can assimilate symbiotes and bend them to their will. Leading the Poisons was another reality’s version of Thanos – one who had fallen under the thrall of the true Poison Queen after it convinced him that it was a manifestation of his beloved Death. Against an army of alternate-universe heroes and villains infected by the Poison, Marvel’s heroes had to don their own symbiote suits, while Venom and the X-Men led the charge to defeat this invasion.
Poisons slowly kill their hosts over time, so this version of Thanos was doomed from the start, but ultimately, he was killed when the young, time-displaced Jean Grey killed the Poison Queen. This saved the day, and it also revealed how to kill Thanos so that he stays dead. The Mad Titan is nearly invincible due to his genetic heritage, bond with Death, and past experimentation with various cosmic energy sources. But by becoming a life-form with a specific vulnerability, Thanos can be laid to rest permanently.
The Poison Queen’s connection with her offshoots meant that when she died, so did this version of Thanos, allowing Jean Grey to kill a variant of the Mad Titan at the height of his power without even needing to engage him at all. With this knowledge, the heroes should then focus their efforts on transforming Thanos into something with a lot of weaknesses. This is actually a tactic the vampire hunter Blade uses to address unusual threats – first transforming them into vampires, then utilizing their new vampiric weaknesses to quickly put them down with stakes, garlic, sunlight, or similar trustworthy weapons. The Marvel Universe is incredibly vast, however, and there are many forms beyond vampires and the Poisons which could render Thanos newly vulnerable.
The Poisons were an incredibly difficult enemy to beat, and Thanos was chosen as their commander because of his unsurpassed strength and power. However, in a world of alien planets, alternate realities, and divergent timelines, Thanos‘ version of Venom proved that whether it’s symbiotic aliens or the undead, the key to taking him down in a meaningful way is to disassemble the Mad Titan on the biological level, turning him into something there’s actually a way to kill for good.
