9 Times Thanos Was Defeated And 8 Times He Brutally Killed His Enemies
Thanos, the Mad Titan, has cut a swath of terror across the Marvel universe. He’s known for decimating heroes and even wiping out half of all life with a snap. Yet even this almost god-like villain has tasted defeat on multiple occasions, often at the hands of the very heroes he sought to dominate.
Conversely, Thanos has also racked up an… unsettling… body count, brutally dispatching enemies in pursuit of his twisted goals.
Even the mighty Thanos has been defeated, though Lord knows it’s never been easy. From cosmic avengers to clever underdogs, here are nine definitive times Thanos found himself on the receiving end:
1. Drax Kills Thanos (Annihilation #4, 2006)
In Marvel’s cosmic event Annihilation, Thanos reluctantly sided with the interdimensional warlord Annihilus. When Thanos showed a glimmer of conscience and attempted to undo Annihilus’s universe-ending plan, he was caught off guard by Drax the Destroyer. Fulfilling his very purpose for existence, Drax impaled Thanos from behind, ripping out the Titan’s heart.
This shocking moment in Annihilation #4 ended Thanos’s life (albeit temporarily) and allowed the cosmic heroes to turn the tide.
2. Gladiator’s One-Punch Knockout (Thanos Vol. 2 #3, 2017)
It turns out even Thanos can’t withstand a Superman-level smackdown. Can anyone? In Thanos vol. 2 #3 (2017), the Mad Titan was weakened while invading his father Mentor’s space station in Shi’ar territory. The Shi’ar Imperial Guard, led by the mighty Gladiator, swarmed Thanos in battle. Blinding and bombarding him in waves, they wore the Titan down. Gladiator then delivered a single, planet-shaking punch that knocked Thanos out cold, allowing the Guard to drag him off in chains to a Shi’ar prison.
This one-hit KO was a humbling defeat for Thanos – proving that under the right circumstances, even a near-god can be brought to his knees.
3. Thane Obliterates Thanos (Thanos Vol. 2 #6, 2017)
Thanos’s own son dealt him one of his most decisive defeats. In Jeff Lemire’s 2017 Thanos series, Thanos is mysteriously terminally ill and loses much of his power. Enter Thane – Thanos’s estranged half-Inhuman son – who makes a dark pact with Mistress Death. By channeling the cosmic Phoenix Force, Thane confronts his father after Thanos escapes Shi’ar custody. In their confrontation, Thanos realizes Death herself orchestrated his illness, but it’s too late. Thane unleashes the full Phoenix-fueled power and blasts Thanos, stripping away all his cosmic might and banishing him, powerless, to Titan.
The Mad Titan is reduced to a mere mortal scavenging on his home moon. This dramatic defeat left Thanos at his lowest point, and fans speculated whether Thane would become the new “Thanos” of the Marvel cosmos – a prophecy that didn’t quite pan out.
4. Adam Warlock Turns Thanos to Granite (Marvel Two-In-One Annual #2, 1977)
Long before Infinity Gauntlets and Endgame, Thanos tasted defeat at the hands of Adam Warlock in a classic comic from the ’70s. In Avengers Annual #7 and Marvel Two-In-One Annual #2, Thanos had gathered the Soul Gems and wiped out the Avengers in a bid to extinguish all stars. All seemed lost until Spider-Man and the Thing freed Warlock’s spirit from the Soul Gem. In a fiery resurrection, Adam Warlock’s soul emerged and confronted Thanos, turning the Mad Titan into solid stone with a single touch.
5. Lord Mar-Vell Sacrifices Thanos (The Thanos Imperative #6, 2010)
What happens when Thanos actually lets himself be defeated? In the finale of The Thanos Imperative, Thanos teams up with the Guardians of the Galaxy against an alternate-universe threat: the Cancerverse, a reality where nothing ever dies. The Cancerverse’s twisted savior, Lord Mar-Vell (an undead version of Captain Mar-Vell), believes sacrificing Thanos – avatar of Death – will banish Death from their universe entirely. Thanos, yearning for the release of Death’s embrace, surrenders to Mar-Vell, even allowing himself to be ritualistically stabbed in the chest as part of a Necropsy ceremony.
The result isn’t what Mar-Vell expects: Thanos’s “death” summons Mistress Death herself into the Cancerverse, where she promptly annihilates Lord Mar-Vell and his forces.
In a genius 4D chess move, Thanos orchestrated his own temporary defeat to give Death a foothold. This victory-by-loss ended the Cancerverse invasion. However, Death cruelly refused to claim Thanos afterward, leaving him enraged – and setting the stage for one more showdown:
6. Star-Lord and Nova Trap Thanos (The Thanos Imperative #6, 2010)
Thanos’s second defeat in Thanos Imperative came moments after Mar-Vell’s fall. Furious that Mistress Death spurned him yet again, Thanos went on a murderous rampage, vowing to destroy everyone and everything around him. Realizing the Mad Titan could annihilate the entire universe in his rage, Star-Lord and Nova made the ultimate sacrifice. In the collapsing Cancerverse, they used a Cosmic Cube and the full might of the Nova Force to contain Thanos and keep him stranded in that dying universe.
All three were engulfed as the Cancerverse imploded.
7. The Avengers’ Precognitive Strike (Civil War II #1, 2016)
Even without godlike powers, Earth’s heroes can win with strategy. In Civil War II #1, Captain Marvel leads a squad of Avengers to ambush Thanos during his incursion on Earth. Thanks to the Inhuman precog Ulysses, who foresaw Thanos’s target, the heroes lie in wait. When Thanos arrives seeking a Cosmic Cube, he walks right into an Avengers trap.
A massive battle erupts. The team – including War Machine, She-Hulk, Captain Marvel, and others – manage to beat Thanos back and force him to retreat. It’s a victory, but at a terrible cost: Thanos punches straight through War Machine’s armor, killing James Rhodes, and severely injures Jennifer Walters (She-Hulk) in the brawl.
Thanos is finally subdued by the combined might of the heroes (and later imprisoned), making this a pyrrhic win. The Mad Titan was defeated, but the fallout sparked a civil war among the heroes themselves.
8. Deadpool Blows Thanos to Bits (Deadpool vs. Thanos #4, 2015)
Yes, the Merc with a Mouth took down the Mad Titan – with a little help. In the miniseries Deadpool vs. Thanos, the pair bizarrely team up to rescue their mutual love Mistress Death from Eternity. By the end, Thanos, enraged by Death’s rejection, turns on Deadpool. But Wade Wilson has an insane trick up his red sleeve: he bonds with the Uni-Power and becomes Captain Universe, wielding essentially unlimited power. In the final clash, Deadpool uses this cosmic might to literally obliterate Thanos – blasting the Titan into a million tiny pieces.
The panel is as over-the-top as it sounds, with Deadpool remarking on turning Thanos into “Titan flakes.” Of course, Thanos being Thanos (and powered by abstract forces), he isn’t permanently gone – but Deadpool’s victory is decisive. It’s a wild, fourth-wall-breaking battle that fans enjoyed for its sheer absurdity.
9. Nebula Steals the Infinity Gauntlet (Infinity Gauntlet #5, 1991)
During the climax of the classic Infinity Gauntlet saga, Thanos achieves near-supremacy. Wielding the fully loaded Infinity Gauntlet, he defeats all the universe’s cosmic entities and even becomes abstract Eternity itself. The catch? In ascending to godhood, Thanos’s physical body is left unattended for a crucial moment. Enter Nebula – his abused granddaughter. Burned, zombified, and nearly mindless at Thanos’s side, Nebula sees her chance. She snatches the Infinity Gauntlet right off of Thanos’s hand while his astral self is distracted.
In an instant, the power transfers to her. Nebula immediately turns on her grandfather: with a thought, she banishes Thanos (and his ally Terraxia) into deep space, stranding them light-years away.
Thanos’s nickname “The Mad Titan” is apropos. He doesn’t just defeat opponents – he annihilates them. Here are eight canonical examples of Thanos at his most merciless, claiming the lives of heroes and villains alike in brutal fashion:
1. Thanos Kills War Machine (Civil War II #1, 2016)
One of Thanos’s most notorious kills came during the ambush mentioned earlier. As seen in Civil War II #1, when the Avengers sprung their trap, James “War Machine” Rhodes unloaded his weapons on Thanos – only to have the Titan turn on him with blinding speed. Thanos shoved his fist straight through War Machine’s chestplate, punching through Rhodey’s armor and body in one fatal blow.
The injury was instantly mortal (War Machine died on the spot), and even the hardened heroes were left in shock. To make matters worse, moments before, one of Rhodey’s stray missiles had inadvertently taken out She-Hulk, leaving her in a coma.
2. Forcing Corvus Glaive’s Suicide (Thanos Vol. 2 #1, 2016)
Thanos’s cruelty extends even to his own minions. Corvus Glaive, one of his Black Order generals, learned this the hard way. In the aftermath of Secret Wars (2015), Thanos was thought dead, and Corvus began conquering in his absence. But when Thanos returned, Corvus knew what fate awaited him. Rather than face Thanos’s wrath, Corvus Glaive took his own life by plunging his glaive through his chest – effectively a forced suicide out of terror.
3. Smashing His Own Father – Mentor (Thanos Vol. 2 #2, 2017)
Family means nothing to Thanos. In Thanos vol. 2 #2, Thanos seeks out A’lars – his father – hoping the genius Eternal can cure his sudden illness. When Mentor fails to find a cure, Thanos’s patience evaporates. In a fit of rage, he murders his own father on the spot.
The comic implies Thanos brutally beats A’lars to death (off-panel), and later issues confirm Mentor’s demise at his son’s hands.
4. “Science Experiment” – Sogarth and Loktus (Thanos Rising #2, 2013)
Thanos’s path of blood began early. In the origin miniseries Thanos Rising, a teenage Thanos embarks on a disturbing killing spree. Two of his first victims are Sogarth and Loktus, a pair of innocent alien lovers. Thanos abducts the couple and murders them, dissecting their bodies in a grisly experiment to find answers about himself.
This occurs in Thanos Rising #2, depicting young Thanos luring classmates and friends to their doom. After Sogarth and Loktus profess their love for each other, Thanos coldly vivisects them – a scene that sent shivers through readers. He’s essentially playing serial killer/med scientist, guided by a mysterious entity (Death in disguise).
5. Thanos Dissects His Own Mother (Thanos Rising #4, 2013)
Perhaps the most horrific act Thanos ever committed was against his mother. Sui-San, Thanos’s mother, had sensed evil in him at birth and was institutionalized after attempting to kill infant Thanos. Years later, in Thanos Rising #4, adult Thanos visits his now-sane mother under the pretense of reconciliation – only to vivisect her alive. In an attempt to understand “what he is,” Thanos straps Sui-San to a table and dissects her, piece by piece, while she’s conscious.
It’s an utterly chilling scene. Sui-San dies, and Thanos finds nothing in her biology to explain his nature, deepening his nihilism. Marvel explicitly describes that “Thanos dissects his mother (who was alive at the beginning of the process) in an attempt to discover an explanation for his abominable nature.”
6. Pummeling Deadpool Into Mush (Deadpool vs. Thanos #1, 2015)
Deadpool may have defeated Thanos later in their odd team-up, but initially the Merc got a taste of Thanos’s wrath. In Deadpool vs. Thanos #1, when Wade Wilson irritates the Mad Titan (as he tends to do), Thanos beats Deadpool to a bloody pulp. In fact, he literally crushes Deadpool into a puddle of gore on the floor of his ship.
Not even Deadpool’s regenerative abilities can immediately cope with the devastation; Thanos leaves him as a smear, effectively “killing” him for a good while. (Being cursed with immortality – by Thanos, no less – Deadpool’s soul can’t pass on, which becomes a plot point, but his body certainly dies horrifically.) The visual of Deadpool as a splattered mess is both gruesome and darkly comedic. Fans joked that Thanos finally did what countless others failed to do – shut Deadpool up. This brutal “kill” showcases Thanos’s raw strength; it’s played for laughs in a Deadpool comic, but make no mistake, the method – turning someone to jelly with your fists – is pure nightmare fuel.
7. Vaporizing Drax the Destroyer (The Thanos Imperative #4, 2010)
Thanos and Drax have killed each other over the years, but Thanos got the last laugh. In The Thanos Imperative, after Thanos is resurrected in the Cancerverse, Drax’s programmed instinct to kill Thanos kicks in once more. Drax actually succeeds in disintegrating Thanos early in the story (with a specialized weapon), only for Thanos to be immediately resurrected by Death’s design. When Drax tries a second time to attack, Thanos is ready – and utterly overpowers Drax. He grabs Drax and blasts him into oblivion, destroying Drax on the spot.
The narration confirms that Drax was also an avatar of Life, so once Thanos returned, he “ended up being destroyed by him instead.”
In other words, Thanos permanently (at least for some time) killed Drax, reducing the green powerhouse to ash!
8. Crushing Captain America Sam Wilson’s Skull (Thanos Vol. 2 #10, 2017)
One of Thanos’s most brutal kills in recent comics is also a bit symbolic. In Thanos vol. 2 #10, Thanos undergoes a trial in the cosmic God Quarry that presents him with a vision of an alternate life – one where he fights alongside the Avengers. In this illusion, Sam Wilson (Falcon, who at the time was the new Captain America) approaches Thanos as a friend… and Thanos reacts in the only way he knows how. Realizing the vision is trying to pacify him, Thanos grabs Sam Wilson and smashes the hero’s head between his palms, crushing Sam’s skull with a sickening “SPLORT” sound.
The imagery is shocking: Captain America’s head exploding in Thanos’s hands. Though this occurs in a vision, it was real to Thanos – and gruesomely illustrates his rejection of any path other than conquest. As Thanos declares while murdering Sam, “I am Thanos… And I have power.”
Love him or fear him, Thanos remains one of Marvel’s most compelling villains, precisely because whenever he falls, he inevitably rises again!
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