If you were to base your perception of Thanos off of his depiction in Infinity War alone, you'd probably feel that he's a flawed but ultimately sympathetic character. In the Marvel Comics Universe, however, the Mad Titan is one of the most deranged tyrants in existence! Whatever sick and disgusting deeds you can think of, The Overmaster has probably done them hundreds of times over.
Despite the difficulty of the task, we've attempted to rank ten of Thanos' most heinous crimes. As you can imagine, this article was harder to write than usual; Jim Starlin first created the Mad Titan in the 1970s, meaning we had to comb through decades of comic book history. Suffice it to say that you'll learn a few things about the Titanian you probably didn't know before.
10 Slaughtering An Army For No Reason
You know that you're dealing with a sadistic S.O.B. when the massacring an entire army is probably one of the least terrible acts he's committed. In the first story of Cosmic Powers #1, Thanos butchered a full regiment of Ovin Mercenaries, who are purportedly some of the deadliest fighters in the known universe.
To add insult to injury, Thanos only killed the Ovin mercs because he was bored. For the Ovin soldiers, their battle against the Mad Titan was one of the most grueling conflicts in their regiment's history. But, for the Titanian, it was just another Tuesday. Well, it probably wasn't that exact day, but the point is that an army got eradicated for kicks and giggles.
9 Ultimate Thanos' Experiments With The Cosmic Cube
Overall, the Ulitmate Marvel Universe is much darker and gritty than its Mainstream counterpart; Captain America was meaner, the Hulk had cannibalistic appetites, and characters that died typically stayed dead. Yet, even with all that in mind, Ultimate Thanos' experiments with the Cosmic Cube still come across as exceedingly cruel and unusual punishment.
After getting his super-sized mitts on the Tesseract, Ultimate Thanos used its power to experiment on an entire population; he'd kill large groups of people instantly while placing others in stasis, rendering them motionless yet fully conscious. At least Earth 616's version of the Mad Titan quickly puts people out of their misery. Well, most of the time he does.
8 His Reign As The "King Of Nothing"
From 2016 to 2018, Thanos embarked on a journey into the future, ultimately leading to an encounter with his future self. This version of the Mad Titan managed to successfully kill every other living thing in existence, save for the Silver Surfer, the Punisher, and the Hulk, who acted as a leashed lapdog to the Overmaster.
King Thanos was so deplorable that his modern counterpart immediately came to blows with him. Our version of the Mad Titan managed to win in the end, vowing to never let himself become "The King of Nothing." Ultimately, we'll have to see whether or not the Titanian can keep the promise.
7 Dissecting His Mother
We somewhat empathize with Thanos here; from the day he was born, his mother, Sui-San, hated his guts. Sui-San even attempted to kill Dione—that being the Mad Titan's original name—because of his deformities. Though others managed to thwart Sui-San's attempts at infanticide, she continued to insult and abuse her son for years to come.
All of that abuse and neglect eventually caused Thanos to snap and start down his dark path. When Dione first turned to murder, his mother was one of his first victims. But Dione didn't just kill Sui-San; he dissected her like a lab experiment, intent on discovering the source of his ailments. He never did.
6 Punching Out His Father
A'Lars, Thanos' father, wasn't much better than Sui-San in the parenting department either. While the mentor never attempted to kill his son, he still neglected and despised him the same way Sui-San did. When the Mad Titan snapped, he purposely spared his father, wishing to torture him by defiling Titan, the world he put so much effort into cultivating.
Thanos then left A'Lars behind to carve out a bloody niche for himself in the annals of time. Much, much later on in life, a near-dead Mad Titan revisited his father, desperate to save himself from impending doom. A'Lars refused to him his son, content that his reign of tyranny would end. How did the Overmaster respond? By socking a hole right through A'Lars' chest!
5 Conceiving Countless Children, Then Killing Them Later
Sadly, Thanos picked up the neglectful tendencies of his parents when he became older. During his years as a young adult, Dione joined up with a gang of space pirates. For years, he traveled across the cosmos, looting and pillaging to his heart's content. Eventually, Dione tried to start families of his own with multiple women. However, he never felt satisfied and would ultimately exit the lives of his lovers and children.
Yet, when Dione fully became Thanos, he decided to wipe his slate clean by killing all of his former lovers and the children they conceived together! Well, now you know why the Mad Titan is so bad at raising kids.
4 Everything He's Done To Gamora
How's the old song go? "You always hurt the ones you love?" Well, Thanos' relationship with Gamora certainly lends credence to that claim, though we're reluctant to say he loves Gamora. How could we when the Mad Titan repeatedly abused and experimented on Gamora from the time he "rescued" her as an infant?
We'd have to say that the worst thing Thanos did to Gamora was molding her into "the Deadliest Woman in the Galaxy." While that's a cool title and all, the process starved Gamora of anything resembling a normal life; she never got to dream about becoming anything other than an assassin, and she hated every moment of it.
3 As Well As Nebula
Even though Thanos has a strained relationship with Gamora, he still admires her lethality and valued her as an asset. The same can't be said for the Mad Titan's feelings toward Nebula. The Overmaster genuinely hated his adoptive daughter and didn't care whether she survived his twisted idea of child-rearing.
One of the worst things Thanos did to Gamora was turning her into a zombie; using the Infinity Gauntlet, the Mad Titan placed Nebula in a state of Limbo. She was neither alive nor dead but was in extreme agony all the same. Thankfully, Nebula managed to have the last laugh in the end.
2 Nuking Titan
In the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Titan succumbs to economic and ecological crisis, turning the once lush planet into a wasteland. MCU Thanos is the only Titanian to survive that apocalyptic event, spurring him to seek out the Stones. Sounds pretty heartbreaking, right? Well, none of that applies to the comic book version of the Mad Titan.
In the comics, Thanos is the being responsible for Titan's ruin; after killing his mother and a slew of other Titanians, the Overmaster was exiled. Later on in life, after amassing an army and a wealth of contraband, the Mad Titan bombarded his home planet with nukes!
1 The Snap
Our number one choice for Thanos' worst act had to be The Snap. Way back when, Abraham Lincoln purportedly once said that "to test a man's character, give him power." For all of his rhetoric and self-justifications, The Snap revealed who the Mad Titan really was: a selfish sadist who placed his obsession with Death above his "love" for Gamora or anything else.
The MCU version of Thanos performed The Snap for altruistic, yet ultimately deluded, means. He thought he was saving everyone by halving all sentient life. However, the comic version of the Mad Titan performed The Snap simply to get closer to Lady Death and fully viewing himself as a god of sorts.