50 Greatest Super Villains In Comic Book History

8. Thanos

(Write-up by Matt Conner, Bam Smack Pow Staff Writer)

Many of the villains on this list killed some very important people. Several of the villains even wiped out cities, countries, even planets. Thanos looks at these accomplishments and chuckles.

Because he killed one out of every two living beings in the entire universe.

Instantly.

He was already a cosmic badass in the Marvel Universe before the Infinity Gauntlet miniseries, but in these books, he reached his peak. The way the story goes, he’s a powerful Eternal from the moon Titan who is in love with Death. This is not a Goth phase he’s going through as teenage hormones surge. This man is honestly in love with the concept of Death, condensed into an avatar of a sexy woman in a hooded robe with a skull for a head.

Thanos goes around the universe on this evil treasure hunt to unite the most powerful artifacts ever, the Infinity Gems, and stick them all on a Gauntlet. Putting that glove on turns him into God, and his first act is to kill half of anyone, anywhere, as a way to impress his beloved. Over the next few issues, he takes out all the remaining heroes of Earth and most of the ancient embodiments of cosmic concepts like Order and Chaos. In a sense, this was God punching God in the nose. Because he thought it might impress a girl.

Since then, he has stirred up all kinds of trouble, including taking Main Villain role in crossovers like The Thanos Imperative and Infinity — where he generally looks at armies, sneers, and takes everybody out. He’s so great that even the Marvel movies have been slowly introducing him one cameo at a time, and his role in Avengers: Infinity War is going to take two movies to tell.

But yes, I’m sure it really hurt Batman’s feelings that you killed his little buddy.

Next: No. 8: Hatred, personified