Thanos may have gotten a lot of mainstream popularity in recent years but he's always been an icon in the comics. As one of the Marvel Universe's greatest villains, Thanos has bedeviled the heroes and villains with his genocidal schemes many times. He's become a symbol of ultimate evil to the people of the universe, a boogeyman whose name is whispered with hushed awe and fear.
Thanos's life has been an intriguing one and just writing him off as a terrible monster is extremely unfair to him. There are a lot of ways that Thanos is actually a being who deserves sympathy, even if his actions are monstrous.
10 The Way His Fellow Eternals Treated Him Was Horrible
Thanos was one of the first children born to the Eternals of Titan after their schism with the Olympian Eternals. His appearance was quite different from his fellows, closer to a Skrull or one of the Deviants the Eternals were created to fight. This caused his fellow Eternals to treat him very differently, mocking him and looking down upon him.
Thanos is undeniably a cruel being but the genesis of that comes from his treatment by the other Eternals of Titan. He learned his cruelty from others and the way he was treated guided him to his nihilistic viewpoint.
9 His Ultimate Victory Sees Him As A Lonely Despot Over A Destroyed Universe Who Desires Only Death
"Thanos Wins" is a fan favorite story that sees the Thanos of the present dragged to the future by the Cosmic Ghost Rider to meet King Thanos, his ultimate destiny. King Thanos won; he overcame all of the old defeats and killed nearly everything in the universe. He only desires one thing and that is death, both an end to his life and the entity he's spent eons worshiping.
Thanos's ultimate victory sees him just as unfulfilled as he always was. He doesn't find solace in the destruction of his foes; just more yawning emptiness. Thanos may win but there is no joy in it, just more suffering.
8 He Doesn't Believe He's Worthy Of Winning
There have been multiple times over the years that Thanos has had his foes dead to rights and yet he still loses. He's tasted godhood many times and yet can never keep it, ultimately failing at everything he's set out to accomplish. The reason for this was revealed to him by Adam Warlock in Infinity Gauntlet #5 and it's actually kind of tragic: Thanos doesn't believe himself worthy of victory.
Thanos may play the part of the Mad Titan, an unstoppable force of death and destruction but that's not his reality. Underneath it all, he's just a person with low self-esteem lashing out at the universe.
7 He Helped Save The Universe And Everyone Still Treated Him Like A Monster
After his loss of the Infinity Gauntlet, Thanos retired to a pastoral farm and worked the soil. He was soon drawn into the conflict against both the Magus and the Goddess, the two sides of Adam Warlock the hero expelled when he gained the Gauntlet. He was even the secret guardian of the Reality Gem and yet never used it.
He would also help protect the universe from Thor when he was in the throes of warrior madness and had gained the Power Gem. Thanos did a lot for the universe in a short time to atone for his crimes and yet everyone still treated him like a monster, something that was certainly a factor in his return to villainy.
6 He's Never Had A Healthy Relationship With Anyone
Thanos's early life was marred by the treatment of his fellows and this marked him for the rest of his life. The trauma of this treatment by those around him resulted in him never having an understanding of what actual love was. To him, it was just a means to an end and something that would forever be denied to him.
Thanos has never had a healthy relationship with anyone, not even his parents. The few people in the universe he actually loved he still treated terribly because he only saw them as an asset and love as a way to control them, like with Gamora.
5 His Entire Nihilistic Existence Prevents Him From Being Happy
The only time Thanos was ever genuinely happy and fulfilled was at the end of Infinity Gauntlet. Before this, he had smiled but it was always because he achieved a short-term goal that involved the destruction of others. Thanos's nihilism prevents him from actually feeling happy about anything but spreading death, which never ends because there is always more death to spread.
Thanos's belief in nothingness prevents him from ever finding happiness because he believes that everything is ultimately empty. As long as he stays on that path, he will never be happy.
4 His Constant Stabs At Godhood Reveal The Yawning Vacuum At The Center Of Thanos
Thanos can be a mysterious being but one thing he's upfront about are his goals. He wants to destroy as much of the universe's life as possible and to do so, he makes constant grabs for godlike power. A closer look at him, though, reveals that he's a deeply empty individual who believes that power is only way to achieve any goal.
His constant search for power reveals a being who will never be powerful enough. The emptiness inside of him is never filled no matter how much power he has and he seeks out more and more, even though he knows the whole thing is futile.
3 His Brother And Father Could Never Get Through To Him
Thanos's early life was an unfolding tragedy but before things went as far as they did, Mentor and Starfox, his father and brother respectively, tried their best to get through to him and would even keep trying in forthcoming years. It took ages and many atrocities before they truly found him to be irredeemable.
No matter how hard Mentor and Starfox tried, they just couldn't make Thanos see the emptiness of his nihilism or that their love was genuine. Thanos couldn't bring himself to see what his father and brother were trying to reach him and he went down his own lonely and hateful path.
2 His Mother Hated Him And Was Disgusted By Him
Thanos's mother was Sui-San, an Eternal who was banished by Zuras. Mentor would find her when his faction split from the Olympian Eternals and the two would eventually have two children, Eros and Thanos. Upon seeing baby Thanos, Sui-San was immediately disgusted by him and hated him. Her hatred would color the way Thanos saw the universe forever.
His mother was the first person who rejected him but she would be far from the last. Her lack of love for him set him down his dark path. The universe would have been a very different place if his mother loved him.
1 Death Used Him For Her Own Ends
Infinity Gauntlet is one of the greatest Marvel events ever. It was Thanos's big star turn after years of being gone and would make the argument for why he would be considered one of Marvel's great villains. If one looks closely at it, they see a tragedy for Thanos, though. He does exactly what Death wanted him to and yet she still spurned him.
Not only did she spurn him but she made excuses why she wouldn't be with him, through Mephisto because she refused to speak to Thanos, and then turned against him. Death put the idea in Thanos's head to kill half the universe and then after he did what she wanted him to refuse to reward him for it. She used him, plain and simple, taking his love for weakness and manipulating him.