Thanos might be the biggest, most powerful, and most brutally effective bad guy to ever
hit the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but in the comics, it can be a different story.
He’s tough, but he’s been around since 1973, and villains don't stick around that
long without taking their share of defeats.
From the cosmic-powered heavy hitters to the most unexpected fighters of all, here are
the heroes and villains who have handed Thanos some of his most crushing defeats.
The Mighty Thor
Since he's arguably the single most powerful member of the Avengers, you'd probably expect
that Thor would have the best chance of surviving a one-on-one conflict with Thanos.
But in 2000's Thor #25, the God of Thunder doesn't just survive.
He beats Thanos with a hammer until the Mad Titan can't stand up.
In a story that involves a trio of all-powerful mystical artifacts, Thanos has Thor outnumbered,
outgunned, and completely at his mercy … for a few minutes at least.
That was just Round One, a distraction to give Thor's dad the time to invest a few more
magic items with the full force of the Odinpower, ramping up Thor's already considerable strength
to a truly world-shattering level.
What follows is one of the most savage beatings in Marvel history, and considering Thor once
hit an enemy so hard that he broke every bone in his own body, that's saying something.
Nebula
Most of the original Infinity Gauntlet story is devoted to Thanos completely wrecking Marvel's
greatest heroes, so it's easy to forget that in the story's last issue, he's not the character
everyone else is worried about.
He even teams up with the heroes to stop someone else who gets her hands on the Infinity Gauntlet
and becomes an even scarier threat than he was: Nebula.
Needless to say, this is entirely Thanos's own fault.
In an act of unparalleled cruelty, Thanos used the power of the Infinity Gauntlet to
trap Nebula in her own rotted corpse, keeping her balanced at the very edge of death, tortured
until she was “nearly mindless."
Unfortunately for him, the key word there is "nearly.”
When Thanos embraced his omnipotence and projected his consciousness out to control the universe,
the mind she had left was more than enough to realize a few important things.
Like, for instance, that while Thanos's mind had left his physical body, the shiny glove
that gave him all his power was sitting right there on his unattended left hand.
With that, Nebula grabbed the Infinity Gauntlet.
And while she did take her turn at fighting all the good guys, her first action was to
send Thanos into the depths of space to drift, endlessly ruminating on his failures.
Gamora
The original Infinity War comic was the story that dared to ask the question of what was
scarier than Thanos.
The answer: two Thanoses.
While a duplicate served as a henchman for the villain known as the Magus, the genuine
article found himself having to team up with his former enemies in order to stop someone
else from doing exactly what he'd tried to do a year earlier.
In Warlock and the Infinity Watch #8, a quiet moment during the big crossover led Thanos
and Gamora to decide to blow off some steam with a sparring match that quickly turned
into an all-out brawl.
While Thanos was more powerful, Gamora was faster, and put a brutal end to the fight
with a bone-shattering nerve strike that would’ve killed a lesser opponent.
The fight ended with the two characters gaining a little more respect for each other, and
Thanos knowing full well that Gamora was more than his equal in combat.
Gladiator
In pro wrestling terms, the Shi'ar Imperial Guard are what you'd call "enhancement talent."
For the most part, they exist to be just enough of a threat so that we're all impressed when
they're beaten.
There are, however, rare occasions when they do get a win, and none of them have been as
brutally decisive as this one.
To be fair, the fight happened during a time when Thanos was dying, severely weakened by
an incurable disease.
When he heads to a world within the Shi'ar Empire, the Imperial Guard decides it's time
to take advantage and bring him down once and for all.
For a while, the lesser members of the Guard are able to hold their own, but when Thanos
starts fighting back, they call in the big gun: Gladiator.
If you're not familiar with him, Gladiator has the power to do anything he believes that
he can do, and in 2016's Thanos #2, he clearly believes that he can take the Mad Titan down
with one single, world-shattering punch.
Star-Lord
Imagine you're in love with the very concept of Death, to the point where you're willing
to kill half the universe just so you can ask her on a date.
Now imagine that when you die and are finally united with her, a group of outer-space cultists
bring you back to life, pulling you away from the skeletal arms of your weird, goth girlfriend.
Keep that in mind, and you’ll have a good idea of how pissed off Thanos was when that
happened to him back in 2010.
Fortunately for the good guys, Star-Lord was packing a secret weapon: a reality-altering
Cosmic Cube that, while broken, still had enough power left for one last shot.
Now here's the weird part… okay, the weirder part.
Since he was resurrected from the dead and immediately went on a rampage, Thanos spent
this entire fight completely naked.
When Thanos finally gets blasted, it looks an awful lot like Star-Lord is unleashing
the full force of the Cosmic Cube directly at his powerfully purple junk.
Some random kid from the '70s
Spidey Super Stories was a collaboration between Marvel and The Electric Company, a pre-Sesame
Street educational show for kids that occasionally featured the web-slinger.
With easy-to-read, goofy stories like “Star Jaws,” where Dr. Doom built an evil space
station big enough to eat the entire Earth, it got pretty bizarre.
The issue featuring Thanos might be the weirdest of the bunch.
For most of the story, Spider-Man and the Cat are trying to keep Thanos from getting
his hands on a Cosmic Cube.
They fail pretty miserably, mostly because Thanos has a helicopter with his own name
on the side, and the ability to summon a slightly larger than average dog.
So when Thanos accidentally drops the Cube, it's picked up not by Spidey or the Cat, but
by a tween skateboarding enthusiast named Speedy who commands the grass to tie Thanos
up while they wait for the cops.
With that, the Mad Titan, the Ultimate Nihilist, the man who only worships Death itself, is
handcuffed and taken to jail.
Thanos has had some brutal losses in the past, but getting perp-walked because of a 7-year-old
is the kind of brutal own that you just don't come back from.
Thanks for watching!
Click the Grunge icon to subscribe to our YouTube channel.
Plus check out all this cool stuff we know you'll love, too!