Thanos's upward trajectory in the last decade has been kind of unprecedented for any other comic villain. He's entertained the rarefied air reserved for the Lex Luthors and Jokers of the world, those villains who have become part of the pop culture lexicon. The MCU has shown general audiences what comic fans have known for a very long time- Thanos is one of the best villains ever created.
Thanos has been bedeviling the heroes of the Marvel Universe for decades now, with few heroes equaling his power. He's also one of the most intelligent and crafty villains out there, able to make great plans that always challenge the heroes. Thanos is an extinction-level event, but is he a perfect villain? Let's take a look.
10 Perfect Villain: It Takes A Universe To Hold Him Down
One of the things that make Thanos such a perfect villain is just the sheer amount of heroes it takes to put him down. That's not to say that the fact a villain takes entire teams to take them down makes them better than other villains, but it's hard to be a threat to an entire superhero universe if a villain is getting jobbed out to powerless vigilantes.
There are few beings in any superhero universe more powerful than Thanos, which sets the stakes very high whenever he shows up. Readers are always wondering how the heroes are going to deal with him and how many are going to make it out of the fight.
9 Not So Perfect: Predictable
One of the problems with reading a Thanos story is that they all start to follow a pattern. Blame Infinity Gauntlet. While it's still the best story he's ever been in, it's also become holy writ for the character, and like many such documents holds him back. Fans expect Thanos to show up, beat on everybody for a while, and then get taken down because of his own hubris.
That's not to say that no other types of stories are being told with the character but most of them are the formulaic story that readers have read before and it sort of cheapens one of Marvel's greatest villains.
8 Perfect Villain: Just A Glimpse Will Drive You Wild
Thanos's part in the success of the MCU can't be understated. While it is just one thing in a confluence of disparate factors, Thanos played a rather large role in the whole affair because his quest for the Infinity Stones was always there, in the background, tantalizing viewers who might have known nothing about the comics and what was going to happen next.
All of it led up to Avengers: Infinity War, one of the most highly anticipated movies of all time, and the Snap, the MCU's single biggest event. Thanos was so effective that for years fans just got glimpses of him and that was enough to get them talking.
7 Not So Perfect: The Movies Wasted Him In The Long Run
Movies and comics work differently; comics are serialized fiction and readers are groomed to treat it as such. Recurring characters are the name of the game, even villains who commit terrible atrocities. In comics, it's explained away as the heroes having a code against killing, a concept that makes the heroes seem more moral but also makes sure that even the worst villains are still on the table without a resurrection.
While the MCU is one of the largest modern attempts at a serialized movie universe, it still follows the rule of movies. The villains are generally weaker and are usually killed so the audience can go home knowing that evil is punished. So, while Thanos being killed was par for the course, it was also a terrible waste of a powerful and compelling villain.
6 Perfect Villain: Fear Incarnate
In the comics, Thanos is easily one of the most feared beings in the cosmos. His very name is treated as a curse and whispered, in case the mere utterance of it will bring him down on a world. In the movies, Thanos has armies and ships and lackeys; in the comics, he mostly just has himself, some handpicked lackeys and some technology and he's more known for doing his own killing than entrusting it to others.
This fear also extends to the heroes of the Earth; every time they've encountered him, they've been little more than cannon fodder in battles against him. So, while they've witnessed his defeats, they know that their parts in them have been infinitesimal at best and this motivates their fear of him.
5 Not So Perfect: A Perennial Failure
However, with all of that fear that his names hold, Thanos is kind of a screw-up. Take the time he had the Infinity Gauntlet in the comics- he was literally god and yet he still failed because the underestimated Nebula's desire for revenge. Even the Thanos of the movies, who MCU fans like to say is better than the comic version, didn't kill all of the heroes when he had the chance, dooming his entire plan to eventual failure.
Thanos is a villain who gets amazing power, the power that should make him pretty much untouchable to every opponent and always manages to screw things up. It's a wonder he's as feared as he is.
4 Perfect Villain: The Surety Of His Purpose
One thing that both movie and comics Thanos have in common is their belief in the righteousness of their cause. It's one of the things that makes Thanos so magnetic as a villain- he may desire the deaths of, well, everybody but he's not some mad dog. He has reasons and he believes in those reasons.
Thanos believes that the atrocities he commits aren't just justified, but necessary and he can give the reasoning behind his thinking. This was especially potent in the movies, with some movie fans being taken in by his short-sighted and completely wrong way of preserving resources.
3 Not So Perfect: Faulty Reasoning Is Still Faulty
While Thanos's surety of purpose makes him compelling, anyone who takes a closer look at his reasoning can shoot it full of holes rather quickly. Comic Thanos is a nihilist who believes in the utter meaningless of life; his love for Mistress Death is a metaphor for that nihilism. His reasoning? His people mistreated him because of the way he looked. Comic Thanos is basically an edgy teenage incel with bad acne.
Movie Thanos isn't much better; his belief that the best way to conserve resources is by killing half the universe almost stands to reason... except scientists on Earth say that even with half our population, we'd still ruin the planet and its resources in short order. Why not just create infinite resources? He reveals in Endgame his new plan is to recreate everything, so he can do that sort of thing.
2 Perfect Villain: Multi-Faceted
Thanos could easily be a one-note villain, one that just desires death and destruction, and he'd still be a pretty good villain. However, what puts him over the top is that he's more than that. Comic Thanos is a deeply flawed being, forged by years of ridicule and self-loathing. He usually ends up defeating himself in some way because of just how much he hates himself.
In the movies, he's a man forged by the tragedy of losing his home and will do anything to prevent others from feeling what he has- no matter who he has to kill. This makes both versions the kind of villains people like to read about or watch.
1 Not So Perfect: Overexposed
This is more for comics Thanos than movie Thanos (since he's dead), but Thanos has been everywhere in the last few years, even before the movies starring him came out. Marvel gave him his own book, he's been turning up in the company's event books, and generally just a big part of the Marvel Universe.
Overexposure is a huge problem for Thanos because it robs him of what makes him so special. Seeing him too much means readers see him getting beaten and it takes away from his villainous mystique. He's no longer an implacable force- he's just a run of the mill villain.