Avengers: Infinity War Cliffhanger Ending's Comics Origin, Explained

WARNING: The following article contains major spoilers for Avengers: Infinity War, in theaters now.

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The Marvel Cinematic Universe was tossed on its axis with the shocking cliffhanger at the end of Avengers: Infinity War. The Mad Titan, Thanos (played by Josh Brolin), successfully puts together all of the Infinity Stones needed for his Infinity Gauntlet, and with the powerful cosmic item now at his command, Thanos makes good on his threat to eliminate half the population of the universe and Bucky, Black Panther, Groot, Scarlet Witch, Falcon, Star-Lord, Mantis, Drax, Spider-Man and Doctor Strange all vanish from existence.

This ties into a promo that Marvel had released recently featuring Thanos snapping his fingers (Thanos snaps his finger earlier in the film, but do note that we don't actually see him snap his fingers when he kills off half the universe).

This is obviously a shocking turn of events and throws the future of the sequels of many Marvel films into chaos ahead of the release of the next Avengers film (the post-credits sequence also sees Nick Fury similarly fade into non-existence as he calls Carol Danvers, Captain Marvel, for help). However, for longtime fans of Thanos, this is paying off something that has been part of Thanos' back story for most of his history and was a major moment taken directly from the iconic Thanos-starring crossover event, Infinity Gauntlet. We'll explain the history behind this move, as well as show you how the scene was done in Infinity Gauntlet.

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After introducing Thanos in the pages of his extremely short-lived run on Iron Man, Jim Starlin found himself with the opportunity of taking over Captain Marvel, the series starring the Kree warrior Mar-Vell, who had broken from his people to become the defender of Earth. Starlin took over the series with Captain Marvel #25 (initially working with co-writer Mike Friedrich) and in the second issue, he brought Thanos over to the series from his brief Iron Man stint to become the new main villain in the series. Thanos showed up at the end of Captain Marvel #26 and he brought with him a mysterious entity - the personification of Death itself!

We would soon discover what Thanos' plan was, that he was going to take over the Cosmic Cube, one of the most powerful items in the universe, all part of his mad quest to take over power of the universe itself.

The fascinating thing was that in these early issue, we don't see precisely why Thanos is so obsessed with his task. It is not until Captain Marvel #31 that he reveals his secret. He is not doing all of this out of some mad idea of hatred for the universe. No, in reality, this is all about his twisted love for Death and his desire to impress her. You see, Thanos had outright fallen in love with Death.

The problem with Death, for Thanos, is that she is a truly fickle mistress and she quickly abandoned him as soon as his battle with the heroes who had formed an alliance to stop him (the alliance included Captain Marvel, Drax the Destroyer, a being built specifically to stop Thanos, Moondragon, Thanos' brother, Eros, and his father, Mentor, plus the might of the Avengers) looked like it was not going to go the way that he expected...

Soon after, Thanos decided to prove his love for Death in a different manner. His Cosmic Cube plot had failed, so now he collected the various Soul Gems (what the Infinity Stones were called back then) and used them to power a sort of Cosmic Egg that he would use to destroy the Milky Way Galaxy, as he explained to the Thing in Marvel Two-In-One Annual #2 (also by Jim Starlin)...

However, it was not meant to be and instead, Thanos is killed by a time-traveling Adam Warlock and Thanos is turned into a statue and ends the comic in tears over his failure to succeed in his task for his love...

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When next we meet Thanos and Death, they are in a much better situation. Jim Starlin returned to Marvel Comics and Captain Marvel for the very first Marvel Graphic Novel, which showed Captain Marvel struggling with an enemy that he cannot defeat - terminal cancer! As he slowly reaches the end of his road, he is visited in his dreams by his old enemy, Thanos. Only this time, Thanos is here almost as a friend. At the very least, Thanos is here to help Captain Marvel embrace Death as much as Thanos always has.

Captain Marvel comes to terms with his death, but he is not foolish enough to see Death as a beauty. He knows who she truly is and he embraces her anyways...

Now, you might have gotten the impression that Mistress Death does not think much of Thanos, but that is not necessarily the case. After being gone from Marvel for most of the 1980s (not counting his work for Epic Comics), Jim Starlin returned with a bang in Silver Surfer #34 (with artists Ron Lim and Tom Christopher), as he revealed that Mistress Death has determined that the universe has become out of balance and that there are now too many people living and so she resurrects Thanos (which seems to be counter-intuitive when you're complaining about a life/death imbalance) for him to fix that imbalance...

Thanos then became a recurring figure in the pages of Silver Surfer, as he tries to go about his momentous feat. Eventually, Thanos' pursuit of Mistress Death's request leads him to the miniseries known as The Thanos Quest (by Starlin, Lim and Christopher). In it, Mistress Death calls for Thanos and reminds him that he has not actually gotten around to doing the task that she had asked of him and he explains to her that he finally figured out a way to achieve the goal she asked of him - he was going to seek out the Soul Gems again (only he now comes up with the name "Infinity Gems" to describe them)...

By the end of the series, Thanos has succeeded in collecting all of the Infinity Gems and he is now perhaps the most powerful being in the universe, but he is shocked when he discovers that now he is too powerful for Mistress Death!

A lot of these comics seem to end with Thanos crying, huh?

Okay, so now Thanos has ultimate power but he doesn't have Mistress Death's approval. How would he go about getting that, do yo think?

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Sure enough, Thanos Quest led directly into Infinity Gauntlet, where Thanos (and his new aide, Mephisto) reflect on Thanos' obsession with Mistress Death and how he can't seem to get her to love him. He does a number of things throughout the issue, like build her a gigantic shrine and bring her his granddaughter, Nebula, and torture her in front of Death to see if it will amuse her.

Instead, he realizes that he has not yet done what she asked of him all those issues earlier in Silver Surfer #34. So, in Infinity Gauntlet #1 (by Jim Starlin, George Perez and Joe Rubinstein), he follows through on his vow and, with a snap of his fingers, kills half the population of the universe...

Just like Avengers: Infinity War, however, that would prove to just be the beginning of the fight!

In theaters April 27, Avengers: Infinity War is directed by Joe and Anthony Russo and stars Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Scarlett Johansson, Paul Bettany, Anthony Mackie, Paul Rudd, Elizabeth Olsen, Tom Holland, Benedict Cumberbatch, Chadwick Boseman, Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Bradley Cooper, Vin Diesel, Tom Hiddleston and Josh Brolin, among others.