Thanos (Comics)

"Death follows him like a Shadow."

Thanos, known to the galactic community as The Mad Titan, is a cosmic warlord ruling over a distant region of space and commands an impressive army of various alien creatures. A powerfully gifted mutant member of the rare Eternal race, Thanos seeks ultimate and unchallenged power over all things, and will stop at nothing to ensure his success. His quest for unbridled power involves an ongoing search for the Infinity Stones, for their combined might is rumored to bring him to his desired ascendance to godhood. An alternate take on the Mad Titan closer to the comics. Who knew.

History[]

Early Life[]

Thanos was born on Saturn's moon Titan, and is the child of Eternals Mentor and Sui-San. Thanos carries the Deviant's gene, and as such shares the physical appearance of the Eternals' cousin race. At birth, his mother was shocked by his appearance and attempted to kill him. During his school years, Thanos was a pacifist and would only play with his brother Eros and pets.

The beauty of Death[]

By adolescence, Thanos became so engrosed in the concept of Death that he became a nihilist, ultimately vowing to make his life's purpose to embody the power of Death. He would go about to acquire plants, borrow pets, and even regularly attended as many funeral services as he could. Those around him believed he maintained his pacifist nature and had a love for life and all its forms; in reality, Thanos would horrify anyone who realized that he abused any plant or animal in his possession, depriving it of resources and killing it to fulfill his fascination with Death, learning more and more about it as he continued to grow. This fascination became an obsession, with Thanos essentially worshipping destruction and the resulting lack of life. It grew to the point that Thanos, in some sense of madness, actually fell in love with the concept of Death despite the concept not truly existing as a sentient being in his mind at the time.

Thanos eventually applied himself to learn martial skills and train in the use of his naturally gifted powers, which came to a surprise by some but was overlooked due to the notion that martial skill often comes with the quest for honing self-defense and achieving inner peace. In reality, Thanos learned these skills to fulfill his nihilism by acquiring the means for which he could destroy.

First steps towards Power[]

By the time Thanos became a young adult, he had matured to a point that his obsession and strange love for Death as a concept turned into more of a philosophical belief and way of viewing existence, attaining a more 'realistic' sight of the universe but still intrigued by destruction and murder. Learning there were various means to increase his own power and abilities, Thanos moved from his single-minded obsession of destruction to a search for all the ways he could instead make himself the single most powerful being in the universe.

Thanos would augment his physical and mental strength and powers artificially through implants and enhancing drugs, learn the mystical arts to further bolster his physical powers and mental abilities, and refined his martial skills with weapons and unarmed combat to become one of the deadliest warriors in his sector. Despite this, Thanos was able to achieve some form of attachment to life, and eventually put aside his cause for destruction and tried to create a new life by starting a family. For a time, he lived happily with them.

Meeting Death[]

This all changed when Thanos's old dream of finding meaning and fulfillment in Death was finally made real; Thanos was visited in his home by an undead underling, a minion of the actual embodiment of Death, a primordial entity of the universe. He immediately reawakened his single-minded belief in Death, offering his unwavering servitude to Death. He even murdered his own family to please Death, who was more intrigued by his younger personality and wished to see him fulfill his devotion to end as much life as possible.

Devastation of Titan[]

Seeking to impress Death, Thanos immediately used his power and position to acquire an army of villanous aliens, and began a campaign of destruction across Titan which culminated in a massive nuclear bombardment, killing millions of his own people. While this was a significant stepping stone, Death wanted to see more and charged him with continuing this campaign across all of space; thus, Thanos took the villains that survived and departed Titan, travelling across the far reaches of space to acquire more power and cause more destruction.

The Cosmic Cube[]

Thanos 02 — Thanos wielding the Cosmic Cube

Thanos and his subjects first sought means to cause massive swaths of destruction by seeking the Cosmic Cube, an artifact that was believed to hold enormous amounts of power. They traced the Cube's location to a populated world, who supposedly used the Cube as a source of energy across their entire planet. Waging war with the planet, Thanos's followers helped him carve a path to the Cube, though most of them were killed before they could get to it. Finally reaching the Cube, a trap was activated which killed Thanos's remaining followers and disabled the Titan. To their horror, Thanos got back up, disabled the trap, and defeated every one of the defenders that stood in his way of the Cube before finally getting his hands on it. Having attracted the attention of Death, Thanos leaned on the prospect of the immense amounts of destruction he could unleash, before focusing his concentration and causing the Cube to release all of its power at once. This destroyed the entire planet and wiped out all life, including Thanos, finally bringing him a fulfillment in Death.

Death's Court[]

Thanos's conciousness then sifted through the afterlife, ready to join Death in an eternity of loving existence. However, Death was not yet finished with him, and instead desired Thanos to return to the living and pull off a much greater feat of destruction. Thanos desired to be Death's equal; having been taken up on that offer, Thanos caught a glimpse through Death's Infinity Well, and witnessed the origin of the Infinity Gems, seeing the catastrophic suicide of an ancient cosmic being that resulted in the creation of the universe. Convincing Death that the Infinity Gems would help tremendously in his quest to become Death's equal, Thanos gains her permission to be resurrected back to the living in order to seek them out and wipe out half the life of the universe.

Quest for the Infinity Stones[]

Conquering the Chitauri[]

Thanos's first accomplishment after being resurrected was his domination of the Chitauri, a cybernetically-enhanced species of Hive-minded creatures. He took what remained of functioning starships and drifted through space until he found the Chitauri, and immediately engaged them in a vicious series of battles. Thanos ultimately reached the center of their Hive, threatened to destroy their intellectual collective, and when met with the retaliation of the entire species, immediately subjected the Hive mind to his will instead. Grovelling over the fact that Death was beautiful and had finality, and that the Chitauri instead chose to doom themselves to a life of slavery under his command that he could do to them as he pleased, even torture them relentlessly, Thanos acquired full and complete rulership over the Chitauri and their space and technology.

With the conquering of the Chitauri brought Thanos a personal aid, the enigmatic creature referring to itself as "The Other." Witnessing Thanos's singular ability to survive and conquer the Chitauri, The Other pledged himself to Thanos's servitude, offering his knowledge of the universe and its peoples, lore, and powers to him. Thanos allowed The Other to join him at his side, and subsequently used The Other as a liason between himself and those who would come to support Thanos in the future. The Other would become Thanos's voice, a secondary to speak the wishes and commands of the Mad Titan as Thanos's own speech was decreed too supreme to waste on his underlings.

The Black Order[]

Thanos's next group of allies came in the form of the Black Order. While scouring useful planets, Thanos came across four members of separate species, commanding an army of creatures called the Outriders. Personally training the four into more capable fighters and conquerers than they already were, Thanos decreed them his adopted children, The Black Order. Under Thanos's servitude, the Black Order used the Outriders to raid new worlds for Thanos; the Outriders were sent out to scout for useful planets, and when they reported back to the Black Order with a positive world, the Black Order would arrive and demand a tribute for Thanos. If they refused, the Outriders would then annihilate the planet.

The Mad Titan, Warlord[]

Thanos would use the Chitauri and the Outriders as his personal armies, forging an empire across space and conquering several worlds to freely eliminate its populace whenever he commanded. He would spare enough to keep his empire running and create more life, just so he could continue killing off the rest. Two races he had conquered included the Zehoberei and the Luphomoid, from whom he took two young infants as his newly adopted daughters, naming them Gamora and Nebula. Instead of raising them as a caring father, he had them trained to be his personal assassins, constantly pitting them against each other since childhood to test their skill. Gamora always won against Nebula in a duel, and when this happened Thanos had a part of Nebula's body removed and replaced by a mechanical supplement, eventually transforming her into a thoroughly altered cyborg.

Thanos would go on to forge several alliances with various other factions, militaries, organizations, races, groups, teams, and individuals in his ongoing quest to locate and acquire the Infinity stones. He would usually offer the aid of his resources, power, or his Chirauri army to fulfill the needs of those he made truces with, in exchange for any information which could be used to find a Stone, or any effort which would be made in order to retrieve it once it was found. Usually, these agendas resulted in failure, with leads going nowhere or to false sources, searches turning up dry, or the bargain being betrayed due to some circumstance. Anyone who attempted to defy Thanos, no matter the reason, would all be destroyed, unable to survive against his singular might or the power of his servants and loyal allies.

The Mind Stone[]

Personality[]

Thanos is nothing more than the ultimate personification of sadism, cruelty, megalomania, infinite destruction, death, power and madness. He is relentless, as seen by him finding children that he can raise them to be assassins while forcing them to watch as he murders their families. Thanos has little to no regard for his followers, showing absolutely no empathy when his allies, who swear allegiance to him, are killed right before him.

He inspires no love, as he is despised by his own "daughters", Gamora and Nebula. Raising them in a brutal way, Thanos would pit them against each other in the hope that Nebula would beat Gamora; however, when Nebula lost, he would remove parts of her in order to make her stronger, taking her apart piece by piece and replacing her with artificial limbs and organs so she would be able to defeat her sister. He is also manipulative and mistrustful, keeps a low profile, lurking in the shadows and making others do his work for him. However, should any of his plans backfire and result in the failure of his minions, he has no qualms for accomplishing a task himself should he deem it worth his attention.

Physical Description[]

Thanos is a mutant member of the race of superhumans known as the Titanian Eternals.

Race	Titanian
Gender	Male
Height	9'11"
Weight	985 lbs (447 kg)
Eyes	Blue Red (Enraged)
Skin	Purple
Features	Furrowed Chin

Abilities/Traits[]

Thanos possesses abilities common to the Eternals, but amplified to a higher degree through a combination of his mutant–Eternal heritage, bionic amplification, mysticism, and power bestowed by the abstract entity, Death. Demonstrating enormous superhuman strength, stamina, and durability, Thanos can absorb and project vast quantities of cosmic energy and is capable of telepathy, telekinesis, and matter manipulation. Thanos is an accomplished hand-to-hand combatant, having been trained in the art of war on Titan. Though usually calm and composed, Thanos is capable of entering a berserking rage, which makes him a much more fearsome and dangerous threat.

Thanos is a master strategist, and a supergenius in virtually all known fields of advanced science and has created technology far exceeding contemporary Earth science.

Equipment[]

Armor[]

Thanos's armor is made of alien metallic alloys that is very strong and resilient to most forms of damage. Besides acting as a physical layer of defense, the armor offers no other benefits to Thanos, who typically uses other equipment or his powers to augment his armor's defensive abilities.

Chair[]

Thanos employs a hovering chair capable of atmospheric and space flight at sublight and faster than light speed, force-field projection, teleportation, time travel, and movement through alternate universes.

Sanctuary II[]

Sanctuary II is a massive spaceship Thanos uses to travel the cosmos. It is equipped with dozens of layers of defenses and weapons, and is capable of grasping objects using gravity as well as travelling at superluminal speeds.