Darkseid versus Thanos.
The Lord of Apokolips versus The Mad Titan.
The God of Evil versus an Eternal initially named Dione.
Yes, that’s Thanos’ real name.
Wonder why he ditched it.
Hey everyone!
Welcome to Versus, a video series we do on top 10 nerd where we take your favourite comic
book characters and see how they’d do in a hypothetical battle with one another.
Today we’re looking at two of the comic industry’s deadliest villains and throwing
into the ring together, to duke it out to see who comes out on top.
Let us know your picks with either hashtag Darkseid or hashtag Thanos in those comments
below.
For the sake of this video, we’ll be looking at these two without any objects that enhance
their abilities – specifically the infinity gems or gauntlet – although we will be discussing
the ‘what ifs’ briefly if Thanos did use it in their fight.
With all that said, let’s dive in.
Before we start sizing these two up, let’s take a brief look at their individual origins.
Darkseid first appeared in 1970’s Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen number 134 with a cameo, but
later made his official debut the next year in Foever People issue 1.
A bit of an odd start, but that’s because that Jimmy Olsen issue was his creator Jack
Kirby’s first debut issue at DC comics, and naturally Kirby had started crafting new
characters to add into the DC universe.
He’s one of Kirby’s New Gods – a species that appeared in their own solo title the
same year.
They are natives of the planets New Genesis and Apokolips, with the latter being the planet
Darkseid rules.
Initially, Kirby wanted this to be a limited series, but because of sales, DC demanded
that it continue to run, to which critics have noted that in later years, it’s easy
to spot plot holes.
Anyway, Darkseid eventually became a villain of Superman and Batman’s, among other DC
heroes, after the New Gods, Forever People and Mister Miracle titles were cancelled.
His origins tells of how he was second in line to the throne of Apokolips and killed
his brother to claim it.
The power he gained turned him into a stone like creature, and after killing off the majority
of his family so he would be the supreme monarch, he began growing restless about other deities,
and starting to attempt to invade and conquer other places where deities roamed.
With the goal of eliminating all free will from the universe in order to shape it into
his own image, Darkseid sought out the Anti-Life Equation, and targeted Earth, believing that
he could piece the equation together through the minds of humans, where he believed most
of it could be found.
The New 52 continuity changed up his origin quite a bit, having him be a farmer who tricked
the deities of his world and killed them all, then created Apokolips himself.
Darkseid has killed gods before, like Zeus, and has been killed (despite being resurrected)
by Anti-Monitor.
Now, what about Thanos?
Thanos had an interesting upbringing.
He was born with Deviant Syndrome, which physically made him appear like the Eternals cousin race
and enemies, the Deviants.
His mother practically disowned him because of this, and the syndrome highly effected
his more youth years.
At an early age he became obsessed with death and nihilism, which eventually led to him
falling in love with Lady Death, and trying to prove his worthiness to her by not only
killing his family and other Eternals, but also by seeking out universal power in the
form of the Cosmic Cube.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thanos In addition to that, we can’t forget to
mention that Thanos is a bit of a Darkseid/New Gods rip off – Jim Starlin has stated that
Thanos was very much inspired by Kirby’s New Gods, and editor Roy Thomas pushed for
him to appear more like Darkseid as opposed to the initial inspiration, Metron.
Side note, we’ve also seen both Darkseid and Thanos in their baby forms over the years,
and it’s just as amazing as you’d imagine it to be.
That being said, Baby Darkseid was pretty homicidal, so there’s that.
Being an Eternal, Thanos has always had an advantage, especially since he in particular
has a mutant-Eternal heritage which allows for him to be capable of bionic amplification,
mysticism, and power bestowed to him by the entity Death.
He also has the run of the mill superhuman strength, speed, durability, and longevity.
Plus he’s capable of energy manipulation on an atomic level, telepathy, telekinesis,
can absorb and project vast quantities of cosmic energy and manipulate matter, and has
mastered teleportation, time travel, and travel through alternate universes.
His intellect is immense, and he’s versed in many different fields of advanced science,
with inventions like the Infinity Gauntlet.
Which, when wielded, allowed for him to defeat the likes of cosmic entities such as Love,
Hate, Chaos, Order, the Stranger and Galactus.
Gauntlet and gems aside, he’s also banned from Death’s realm, so literally cannot
die.
Ever.
What about Darkseid?
Being one of the New Gods, he’s immensely powerful.
His primary ability is use of the Omega Beams that stem from something called the Omega
Effect.
These beams have a lot of uses – they can completely obliterate a target, or severely
weaken, like in the case of Superman.
They can also resurrect anyone who has been killed by them, or grant power, as was the
case with Mary Marvel.
At times, he’s been able to take on the whole Justice League at once, crush a lantern
ring with his own hands, has caught Superman off guard and reacted within nanoseconds,
can increase his own size and has been able to hold his own against the likes of Zeus.
Plus, he can regenerate if he’s been disintegrated, which makes him pretty much impossible to
kill.
He’s omnipotent, can manipulate mass and energy, can fly and teleport, has that run
of the mill superhuman strength, speed, durability and longevity.
Onto the fight!
An initial brawl would see Darkseid using his omega beams on Thanos, potentially weakening
him quite a bit.
But Thanos’ retaliation – and healing – would be swift.
Both are immortal, and both pack a punch in hand to hand combat and matter manipulation.
At the end of the day though, Darkseid is innately omnipotent, whereas Thanos needs
to do some ground work in order to achieve that – his efforts with the Infinity Gauntlet
and the Cosmic Cube attest to that.
But without having acquired these objects, or having the time to carry out a well thought
out scheme, Thanos just doesn’t hold up to the power that Darkseid already wields.
Darkseid is a god, and while Thanos as an Eternal is practically straddling the line
between god and all powerful immortal, he just isn’t quite up to par with the DC villain.
Perhaps it would be a more equal fight if Thanos had the powers of the infinity gems
in place – the soul gem and reality gem would surely hurt Darkseid, altering reality
and reverting him to a state prior to his creation of Apokolips (if we stick to his
new 52 origin story), and with the endless possibilities that the gems and gauntlet provide
Thanos, he’s at least on par with the God of Evil, and arguably, with his wit and intellect,
capable of outsmarting Darkseid and defeating him once and for all.
But we’re looking at these two characters at their base level.
So the winner?
Darkseid.
Even if the two continued to duke it out and Thanos managed to consistently hold his own,
the Mad titan has a history of being self-conscious to a fault – something that we see after
he loses the Gauntlet, and all of his efforts are undone.
He’s got a bit of an inadequacy complex that can have negative effects on his goals
to, you know, conquer the universe.
So there we have it!
Do you agree with our choice?
Let us know who your pick would be with either hashtag Darkseid or hashtag Thanos.
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In the meantime, thanks for watching!
I’ve been Kelly Paoli and this has been top 10 nerd.
Catch you all in the next one!