Nihilism of Thanos

Many supervillains seek to eliminate their foes, or to make a name for themselves in the superpowered community, but few are total agents of death like Thanos.  Thanos is a galactic supervillain that seeks to honor his mistress, Death.  Thanos worships this otherworldly entity and seeks to eliminate any life to thrill her.  She brought him back from the afterlife to be a harbinger of bloodshed and violence.  Seeing as he is a naturally powerful individual on his own, when augmented with the Infinity Gauntlet in the 1991 storyline, he becomes even more capable of annihilating life in the universe.  He can turn characters into toy blocks, skin into glass and  manipulate reality to kill any in his way.  Thanos is an agent of death, and a brilliant representation of Nihilism in the Comic Book form.  http://www.comicvine.com/infinity-gauntlet/39-42233/ http://www.iep.utm.edu/nihilism/

As previously mentioned, Thanos is brought back from the dead and augmented with the Infinity Gauntlet which is comprised of gems that manipulate power, alter reality, augment physical abilities, make wishes that break scientific laws, manipulate minds, and manipulate spirits that are living or dead.  Thanos is already a formidable enemy in his own right, but when enhanced with the Infinity Gauntlet, he nearly eliminates half of the life in the universe to please his mistress, Death.  To say that Thanos enjoys his work is an understatement, but he truly seeks to enter Death's good graces as he idolizes her powerful hold on the universe.  This is perfectly communicated by the space-faring soldier,Silver Surfer:

"Apparently Death has long thought the fact that there are more people alive today than have ever died was a type of cosmic imbalance.   This was an irregularity that she sought to right using the dark powers at her disposal.  And so she made the tragic mistake of retrieving Thanos, the mad titan, from the realm of the dead.  Through him, Death would mold the universe to her liking.  Along with renewed life, Death gave him greatly augmented power.  Death has ordered Thanos to slaughter half of the sentient population of the universe" (Starlin, Infinity Gauntlet #1, page 9-10)!

Thanos literally becomes an agent of death, seeking to please his handler and lover, Death.  In her vision, life cannot be too abundant in the universe, and she revives Thanos to return the universe to cosmic balance.  Thanos is all too willing to enact her decree and begins to eliminate life in broad strokes.  In the above description, Thanos is a living weapon, molded to serve his dark master to kill sentient life to appease her. Thanos is capable of eliminating scores of living beings throughout the universe on a whim.

This doesn't mean that their relationship is healthy or 'normal' by any stretch of the imagination, as Death uses  Thanos as a tool and nothing more.  She is a fickle mistress and is only appeased when millions of deaths are at his hands.  She is upset that Thanos killed the protectors of the gems, her celestial bretheren to gain ultimate power over reality. Thanos is upset at her disdain, and seeks to gain her favor again:

"Darling mistress, your scorn wounds me deeply. It was never my intention to wrong you nor, do I believe, I have. True, I did use the powers you granted me to seek out the infinity gems, to become the supreme being that now stands before you.  But I only sought such glory to be worthy of your love.  Your love is bondage. NO! You are WRONG! Death should be revered!  We shall decide the fate of a million solar systems and all that inhabit them" (Starlin, Gauntlet, 21-22)!

Thanos is the perfect combination of both danger and ignorance. Since he doesn't realize he is being used as an instrument for his Death's whims, he continues to  kill indiscriminately to appease her and gain her approval. In this exchange, it becomes clear that Thanos will do anything to gain her approval, even if it means killing entire solar systems or decimating billions of sentient beings.  Thanos' danger comes in his violent manipulation of the Infinity Gems, but his true danger comes in his disregard for all life in order to appease Death.  He is also incredibly frustrated with her spurning: "Did I not butcher the woman who gave me birth, who force fed me this Hell called life?! Death is with me every second of the day!! My every moment is spent in either dealing out Death or worshiping it!! Who under the stars is better suited than I to be Death's Consort (Starlin, Gauntlet, 26-27)?


Though Thanos is frustrated with his situation, he still takes it in stride to murder. In order to gain Death's affection, he begins to systematically eliminate the Marvel superheroes one by one in unique and horrific ways.  He begins by having two heroes skin dissolve incredibly quickly, encasing another in a box of glass where he suffocates and another's bones into rubber where they collapse and die.  He shows off for Death by manipulating reality: "Good God! Thanos has turned Thor into glass!! Back off, prune face! No one's bustin' up Thor while Nova's around! Not round. Square.  Square as in cubes.  Like a child's toy blocks (Starlin, Gauntlet #4, 31).  Thanos then proceeds to crush Nova (in block form) into dust, while shattering Thor into glass shards with a flick of his wrist.  He is playing with his prey, and relishing in the display of complete power, but to no avail.  While he is the most powerful being in the known universe, Death is still ambivalent.  Thanos then flaunts his full wrath, eliminating entire solar systems in his blind rage: "Entire Solar Systems in the immediate vicinity are ravaged by the effects of this celestial clash. Calculating the billions of lives lost as a result of this confrontation will have to wait (Starlin, Gauntlet #5, 9).

His wrath and spurned rage costs billions of sentient beings their lives as his gauntlet extinguishes lives with a flick of his wrist.  This boundless slaughter has the opposite effect of what he's seeking for Death. She is disgusted with his display and is finished with the titan.  Thanos is then humbled and shocked that he has done his job too well.  Thanos is defeated and eventually loses control of his gauntlet as the heroes rebuild reality. It took the complete eradication of reality and billions upon billions of lives for Thanos to realize that he was being manipulated by Death for her own ends. Thanos in all his nihilistic glory realizes the error of his ways, though galaxies were eliminated to find true cosmic balance.  She is turned off by the excessive killing Thanos displays and ultimately loses his grip on sanity.  This magnificent miniseries shows the destructive nature of lover's spurned and how an individual with ultimate power can carve a murderous rampage throughout worlds, galaxies, etc. to prove a point. Thanos truly loved Death and wanted to do anything to gain her favor. He is a tragic, nihilistic figure that kills scores of beings to achieve his goals.  Thanos is the ultimate nihilist in Comic Book fiction.