The Thanos Problem

I’d like to point something out if I may, a problem that’s facing the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

The Marvel films have made millions of dollars, shattered box office records, and revived the superhero film in a new vibrant iteration that has earned it recognition as a new genre. Heck, even the films which aren’t that good in the Marvel Cinematic Universe are still better than a lot of contemporary films.

I swear I’m getting to a downside with this.

In that time so many of the Marvel heroes have been revived and presented to a film going audience and each has, over the course of various films, had their unique personality traits and quirks explored. In turn, each Marvel villain that’s appeared for their select film must have an equally strong personality, especially if they survive to make multiple instalments like Loki. As a result the Marvel Cinematic Universe, including its television offerings, has a gallery of villains that are interesting, memorable and in some cases very human.

So there’s one problem hanging over all of this and his name is Thanos.

“But Mike,” I hear you say, “What could be wrong with Thanos? You love Thanos! Thanos is the Mad Titan who butchered his own mother to understand Death and is the greatest master of the Infinity Gauntlet. His legacy is amazing! Heck, Thanos just needs to talk and he’s twice as witty as most heroes out there!” Yes friends, I agree in the comics Thanos is easily a character that can simply appear and say a few lines and be incomparably effective.

But this isn’t the comics.

Guys, we’re going to have to be honest, Thanos the Mad Titan despite how important he’s going to be hasn’t done a damn thing in the films. We can quote countless comics where Thanos has been amazingly effective as a villain and all he did was talk to the heroes. Heck in Silver Surfer issue 34 he spends the entire issue teleporting Surfer from planet to planet talking and tricks the Surfer into murdering half a planet. But that’s something you’d only know if you’d obsessively started trying to collect old issues of the Mad Titan out of morbid curiosity rather than develop a meaningful relationship.

But enough about my Friday nights.

When a villain is introduced in a lot of hero movies there’s an impetus for them to display whatever qualities make them villainous as soon as they appear, sometimes even before they’re revealed. This is to show how effective the villain is. Thanos, by comparison has done nothing. We only find out after the fact what he’s done.

This isn’t going to be easy and it doesn’t help how many directors are shying away from actually having him do something. James Gunn said it himself back during his many, many interviews for Guardians of the Galaxy:

“There’s pressure with Thanos because you’re setting up this gigantic character that, in one way, isn’t really a part of your movie”…”His presence doesn’t really serve being in Guardians, and having Thanos be in that scene was more helpful to the Marvel universe than it was to Guardians of the Galaxy. I always wanted to have Thanos in there, but from a structural standpoint, you don’t need him. So that’s part of it, and then part of it is the fact that you’re setting up this incredibly powerful character, but you don’t want to belittle the actual antagonist of the film, which is Ronan. You don’t want him to seem like a big wussy. So how do you make that work?”

He’d later go on to say how, despite these troubles he still wanted Thanos in the film but the biggest issue of the character is that he exists for future Avengers films and not the ones in which he appears. Even mighty Joss Whedon expressed his discomfort at using the Mad Titan: “We have to stay grounded. It’s part of what makes the Marvel universe click – their relationship to the real world. It’s science-fiction, and Thanos is not out of the mix, but Thanos was never meant to be the next villain. He’s always been the overlord of villainy & darkness.”

Thanos needs to be established as a villain that is capable of easily bypassing a single hero on his own. That means if any sense is at work, Marvel needs to have him successfully repel at least one Marvel hero, maybe more. With Thor: Ragnarok coming up that’s a good place for him to be where he can fight several powerful gods (or outwit them) and take an Infinity Stone. Come on, how great a sell would that be if Thanos was shown to take a blow from Mjolnir like he can in the comics?

I’m not asking for much. Just this.

He also needs to start doing things in other films beyond being an overlord in the shadows. Hopefully his acquisition of each of the Infinity Stones will be memorable and interesting . My theory is that Adam Warlock will show up in Guardians of the Galaxy 2 with the Soul Gem and Dr. Strange will have the Time Gem but that’s just a guess.

But whatever happens must be big, powerful and strong enough to justify the little dollops of appearance we’ve gotten to this point. So much of the MCU has pinned its hopes on the future investment of what Thanos will do and in the wake of so many compelling villains can he succeed?

Man I hope so.