Fair warning: For those who have not yet seen Avengers: Infinity War, beware of spoilers ahead.
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So over the last week and half or so since Avengers: Infinity War hit the big screen, I’ve seen multiple people (usually males) making the same argument: MCU Thanos is stupider than comic Thanos in his motivation. I’ve participated in a couple of Facebook threads arguing that this is not the case, but it’s probably time to lay it all out in a single blog.
First, it may help to give brief overview of Thanos’ motivation for collecting the Infinity Stones in both mediums. In both the comic arc and the film, Thanos wants to collect the Infinity Stones and use the Infinity Gauntlet to wipe out about half of the universe’s population. The difference between the two versions really lies in his motivation for doing so. In the comic arc written by Jim Starlin in the early 1990s related to the Infinity Stones, Thanos’ motivation is to prove his love to Mistress Death. In the film, Thanos’ motivation is ultimately maintaining a balance of the universe in the use of the available resources in order to make life “better” for those left.
Here’s where we get into some spoiler territory in terms of MCU Thanos’ motivation. In the film, we see the destroyed planet of Titan, Thanos’ homeland. What we find out about the destruction of the planet is that it was a direct result of the mismanagement of finite resources. Thanos suggested that a portion of the population be executed using a lottery type system in order to preserve the resources and sustain life for those who are left. Obviously the idea of a random genocide was disregarded by those on his planet, and the idea was written off as madness. However, life on the planet was destroyed as Thanos predicted. This fulfilled prophecy is what motivates him to enact this plan on a universal scale as a means of maintaining life and balance in the universe.
In contrast, comic Thanos has found himself in love with Mistress Death. Mistress Death seeks a balance in the universe between life and death as such she tasks Thanos with killing half of the universe’s population because the number of the living exceeds the number who are dying in the lead up to the Infinity Gauntlet arc. However, this task is given to Thanos through an intermediary. In his quest to fulfill this task, Thanos discovers the Infinity Stones and goes about collecting them. Once he has done this, he return to Mistress Death but is still unable to directly converse with her as an equal and feels as though his affection is being rejected rather than understanding that he is now her superior. With the Infinity Gauntlet complete and angry at this rejection of his affection, he proceeds to leave love tokens for Mistress Death in the form of shrines, one of which he traps Nebula on the verge of death as beautiful piece of art. Still feeling rejected by Death, he continues to rage and cause destruction until Mephisto (a character not in the MCU) suggests that Death has not responded to his affections because he hasn’t completed his task. With a snap of his fingers, Thanos wipes out the half of the universe’s population.
Now this is where there are some comic fans who argue that MCU Thanos is stupid because his motivation is insufficient without the added plot point of pursuit of and rejection by Mistress Death. This is where I strongly disagree for a couple of reasons.
First off, they are writing off Thanos’ madness as stupidity. This just isn’t accurate. Just because you may or may not agree with someone’s rationale does not make it stupid in the same way that disagreeing with the facts does not make something fake news. Stupidity by definition is a lack of intelligence, understanding, reason, wit, and/or sense. Now, as flawed as the logic is in MCU’s Thanos’ plan, there is still reason to it therefore it cannot, by definition, be stupid. In contrast, the definition of madness indicates a frenzied or chaotic state or extreme foolish behavior. There is nothing in the definition of madness indicating that there is an absence of logic. In fact, in Hamlet, Polonius observes of Hamlet when he is acting crazy that “Though this be madness, yet there is a method in't.”
The argument for the stupidity of Thanos seems to hinge on the fact that he doesn’t use the Infinity Stones to solve the problem in another way. The question is consistently asked as to why Thanos doesn’t just make more resources to compensate for the universe’s population. There are a couple of reasons why this might not be the case.
One is that as a finite being, Thanos would have difficulty understanding the infinite power of the stones. The possession of all six Infinity Stones makes Thanos a cosmic entity of infinite power. The ability of the finite to understand the infinite is impossible. This is why humanity can never truly and fully understand the nature of God. Thanos has already decided on the best course of action to “save” the universe from itself, so the idea that he would suddenly know to use the power of the stones to create more resources to sustain the universe is not a given.
The second point expands on this point. With more resources to support the population of the universe already living, one does not necessarily solve the problem. Unless population growth is curbed, more and more resources would be necessary in order to sustain the growth. Ultimately, either limits on procreation would need to be enacted or culling of the herd so to speak would need to take place. However, as Thanos is a finite being, he likely sees the universe in finite terms. Even if he was able to produce more resources to sustain life using the Infinity Gauntlet, the growth of the universe would eventually be too much.
I know at this point that I probably sound like I am advocating for genocide. I do see the ethical implications of the act, but what I want to do is look at this purely from a utilitarian perspective. What course of action ultimately creates the greatest amount of good for the greatest number of people. In his experience, when Thanos enacted this plan of killing half the population on other worlds, those worlds flourished. He has no reason to believe that he should do otherwise for the entire universe.
The final argument that must be looked at in terms of MCU Thanos versus comic Thanos is the current state of the world. In the last few years, there have been a number of mass killings by straight, white, cisgender men laced with misogyny. Most of these have been perpetrated by men who have labeled them as incels or involuntary celibates. There is a prevalent belief among this group of men that they are somehow “owed” sex from women and that the lack of sex is somehow a violation of their rights as men. The plot point of Thanos killing off half of the universe because he is pursuing and was rejected by Mistress Death seems to come straight out of the manifestos of some of those who have orchestrated these mass shootings in response to their own rejection by women. While he is ultimately the villain of the story, Marvel Studios was able to shape the story in a way that makes sense without giving any sort of extra motivation to this line of thinking. While not speaking specifically in terms of Avengers: Infinity War, comedian Jim Jefferies gave a humorous but enlightening overview of this issue in a recent episode of The Jim Jefferies Show on Comedy Central:
So to wrap all of this up, I find that the motivation of Thanos in the MCU take on the Infinity Gauntlet saga to be far more compelling than the comic take. In the comics, I did tend to think that the motivation of Thanos in regards to being rejected in love as poor storytelling. Even then, I felt that there was a tinge of misogyny to the plot in essentially placing the blame for Thanos’ decision to murder innocent people on the fact that he didn’t get the girl.
