More than any other character, Thanos has been perhaps the most prominent villain in the Marvel Universe for the past year, both on film and in comics. Given his time in the spotlight, Thanos has rocketed to the top of the list of Marvel's most dangerous villains, and the Mad Titan is far more popular than he's even been before.
However, all of that attention hasn't been welcome, and Thanos has met his untimely end multiple times in 2019 alone, both on the big screen and in comics. Now, CBR is taking a look back at all of the times Thanos has been killed (so far) this year.
Thor in Avengers: Endgame
One of the earliest twists in this year's Avengers: Endgame was the fate of the Thanos who snapped away half of the universe in the main MCU timeline. Picking up from the ending of Avengers: Infinity War, Thanos has since retired to a remote, faraway planet to become a farmer, where one of his arms has been permanently injured after using the fully powered Infinity Gauntlet one last time to atomize the Infinity Stones.
Tracking the villain down to his home, the surviving MCU heroes ambush Thanos and quickly subdue him. Upon revealing what he has down with the Infinity Stones to prevent the heroes from reversing his actions, an enraged Thor impulsively beheads the villain with a single stroke from his new battle ax Stormbreaker.
Iron Man in Avengers: Endgame
However, a beheading was not enough to keep Thanos from continuing to menace the MCU, since the Mad Titan from an alternate 2014 learned what the Avengers were up to from a time-traveling Nebula. Switching places with the time-displaced Nebula, the more villainous adopted daughter of Thanos allowed the Mad Titan and his army to arrive on Earth in the modern day and confront the heroes shortly after they restored half of all life in the universe with their own Infinity Gauntlet.
A furious climactic battle ensued, with the assembled might of the heroes fighting Thanos and his forces to a standstill an epic battle for the fate of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. In the end, to prevent 2014 Thanos from using the gauntlet to wipe the universe clean and start from the beginning, Iron Man formed a makeshift Infinity Gauntlet and used the Stones to kill Thanos and all his minions at the expense of his own life.
Gamora in Infinity Wars
The recent cosmic crossover event Infinity Wars began with Thanos forming a new army of Chitauri to conquer the universe and an ambitious plan to unite the Infinity Gems to power yet another Infinity Gauntlet. However, Thanos' plot is cut short after being stabbed from behind by a new figure referring to herself as Requiem before being summarily beheaded in Gerry Duggan and Mike Deodato's Infinity Wars Prime #1.
Eventually, Requiem revealed herself to be Thanos' adopted daughter Gamora, who killed her father before using the Infinity Gems to warp reality and the heroes of the Marvel Universe while Devondra, a cosmic entity within the Soul Realm, threatens to consume all of existence.
Guardians of the Galaxy in The Final Gauntlet
Thanos' death would be felt the most in " The Final Gauntlet," the first arc in Donny Cates and Geoff Shaw's relaunch of Guardians of the Galaxy. As many prominent cosmic figures assembled for the reading of the Mad Titan's last will and testament, Thanos taunted those assembled by revealing he had transferred his consciousness into an unknown figure while threatening to consume the various characters in a suddenly appearing singularity formed by his Black Order.
As the new Guardians barely escaped with their lives and began searching the cosmos for the reborn Thanos, they eventually discovered he had transferred his mind into his brother Starfox as one final, twisted revenge. The new team of Guardians apparently kills the Thanos-possessed Starfox, with the Titan plunging into a black hole in his final moments.