Thanos Novel:
Avengers: Infinity War was a story of Thanos and we have to admit that he is surely the best villain of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Thanos got the most amount of screen time in the film but you’d be surprised to know that there were 30 minutes of backstory which was cut from the film.
Those story elements would have been flashbacks from Thanos’ time on Titan, and they could have probably told us how Titan fell apart. While there was no time for that as the film was already 2 hours and 30 minutes long, Marvel’s adult novel, Thanos: Titan Consumed has revealed quite a lot about the past of Thanos.
The novel focuses on telling people about the backstory and downfall of Thanos, and how he came to be what he is today. Unfortunately, Thanos’ fall is directly linked to the collapse of Titan itself. Avengers: Infinity War showed us a barren wasteland for Titan, and Thanos only gave us a little glimpse of how the planet used to be. Though the film did not fully explain to us how the planet was destroyed? Was overpopulation the reason for it or was the planet’s core depleting? We don’t know yet.
Thankfully, the novel has come to our aid as it has revealed how Titan was doomed and only Thanos was the one to realize it. Thanos understood the fact that the planet was going to fall very soon, but his findings were instantaneously shot down by his father. The Stubborn Titan did not stop there as he knew he was right. So, he took the matter public and let everyone know what was really going to happen.
As people got to know about it, they were convinced with what Thanos had to say and that caused for mass panic amongst the people of the planet. Thanos came up with the solution of Genocide, as he suggested that the planet was only going to survive if half of the population was killed off. This began the abysmal ending of the planet as there was total chaos amongst the people. Full blown riots began and many people actually sacrificed themselves believing in the cause.
Thanos was then exiled for all the pain and panic that had been caused because of him. The reason for his exile was also revealed in the art book called Avengers: Infinity War — The Art of the Movie, but there was not such detail given to us.
After Thanos was exiled, the Titan leaders thought that all their problems were solved, but Thanos was right about the destruction of the planet and Titan still fell into despair with the people eventually dying off. Only Thanos and his followers survived.
It was from here that Thanos got his motivation to balance the Universe. While he has fulfilled his only goal now, we are yet to find out whether it did ultimately work or not. Only Avengers 4 can tell us that. There is a whole lot of story to tell about Thanos, and we will have to wait for that until May 3, 2019.
Still, Thanos is the best villain MCU could have ever had and the reason for that has been illustrated in the Art book. Avengers: Infinity War — The Art of the Movie explains that Thanos exactly knew how to use the Infinity Stones, and the importance of Infinity Stones is extremely high for Avengers 4 because the book also teases that they are the means to defeating Thanos:
“They’ve [Infinity Stones] been misused by people who didn’t understand their true power. And now that the real master of them, Thanos, has shown up we can see what they actually do,” Markus said. “The problem is, as you can imagine, as you gain control over these things, your story just goes haywire because why are there any stakes for the man who can control time, space, reality, your mind, your soul and power? He can reset as many times as it’ll take. So you have to build in a lot of bumps in the road or maybe keep one stone away from him for long enough in order for the thing to have any dramatic structure at all.”
