Should Marvel put Thanos on a long hiatus?

[CaptainMar-Vell92 of the Kree]

I believe that the Thanos subplot of Infinity was a Marvel mandate as it does absolutely nothing for Hickman's storyline. The part about the war with the builders makes sense as part of his overall narrative, but I don't think that was supposed to be an event. I may be wrong (and I probably am) but as a reader looking in, it almost feels Marvel went to him, said "We need an event to bring the Inhumans to the forefront as a middle finger to Fox and include Thanos!" Thus, he needed a kid to 'search for' which was setup with the awful Rising. But after the Terrigen bomb exploded, you'll notice the Inhumans aren't really used in Hickman's story again except for Blackbolt and Thanos might be present, but there's nothing exactly Thanos about him, he could have easily been replaced by any other powerful space bad guy like Blastaar or Tyrant. Even in Secret Wars, Thanos wasn't there for any reason other than to get killed off by Doom to show how powerful Doom was... like we didn't get that already from everything else?

Hopefully the Infinity Ending, or whatever it's called, the third chapter of Starlin and Davis' new OGN trilogy, gives his Thanos a nice and definitive ending, because we're not going to get it with Marvel turning him into a goth tinged purple rage monster and a mustache twirling idiot. The only thing that matters to them is he was the villain in Infinity Gauntlet, and that's it. I'm really curious how Thanos is going to be handled in the comics now. Since Avengers post credits scene, he's been in at least a comic book of some sort each month, whether he was the antagonist in the story, or his own title, or a bunch of cameos or both. Now that Thanos' story is done, I wonder if after some current arcs we'll see him finally fade away somewhat. Once upon a time, Thanos was a well respected villain/antihero among niche circles of fans who fell under the spell of Starlin stories, and he was used sparingly, when Thanos showed up, you knew **** was going to hit the fan (well, except Ka-Zar, Thor and Celestial Quest). He wasn't brought out that often, but when he was, whooboy! But now, ****, he's been in so many books and is constantly punched and beaten, at this point J. Jonah Jameson could probably beat him just by sneezing on him. It's a huge disservice to who the character was. Here's to hoping they don't do the same thing to whoever the next big bad in the MCU is.

Starlin remains somewhat short-tempered when interviewers ask him about Thanos and Marvel editorial, but if he truly means to give a proper ending to Thanos, I'm all for it. Keith Giffen and Ron Marz aside, I haven't found that Marvel has any authors willing to grant Thanos the wit, intellect, pragmatism and psychedelic sense of wonder that Starlin imbues his creation with. Thanos is best left in Starlin's hands, as other creators tend to simply retread either his cosmic cube phase from the seventies or The Infinity Gauntlet (and only the first 4 issues of the series at that while glossing over the character development).

[your_name_here]

The hype will probably calm down for a while. At the minute though, he is seen as the ultimate “bad”, mainly because Doom and Magneto can be seen as more “grey” characters now.

[your_name_here]

And I agree with Thanos in Secret Wars. Thought he should have died bringing down the wall/shield.

[CaptainMar-Vell92 of the Kree]

The hype will probably calm down for a while. At the minute though, he is seen as the ultimate “bad”, mainly because Doom and Magneto can be seen as more “grey” characters now.

Thanos was originally supposed to become a grey character after Gauntlet as mentioned other times.

Personally, i only wish writers would stop ignoring he's supposed to be a great scientist and trickster, and not a rampaging brute like Juggernaut and Mangog. The part of Lemire's run when he Couldn't come up with something more advanced than a spear after being depowered, despite previous stories showing that Thanos has in ship plenty of gizmos on par with Reed Richards and Doctor Doom, was cringe worthy for me.

[XPac]

Thanos was originally supposed to become a grey character after Gauntlet as mentioned other times.

Personally, i only wish writers would stop ignoring he's supposed to be a great scientist and trickster, and not a rampaging brute like Juggernaut and Mangog. The part of Lemire's run when he Couldn't come up with something more advanced than a spear after being depowered, despite previous stories showing that Thanos has in ship plenty of gizmos on par with Reed Richards and Doctor Doom, was cringe worthy for me.

I think the problem with him being a grey character (and this can apply at times to Doom and Magneto) is that it takes away one of their best villains. Arguably THE best villains. And that's hard to replace.

[CaptainMar-Vell92 of the Kree]

I think the problem with him being a grey character (and this can apply at times to Doom and Magneto) is that it takes away one of their best villains. Arguably THE best villains. And that's hard to replace.

If they want to use Thanos as an antagonist, don't write him as a thuggish moron. Or better yet, put him on a 5-10 year hiatus and use other powerful villains

[Shreene]

If they want to use Thanos as an antagonist, don't write him as a thuggish moron. Or better yet, put him on a 5-10 year hiatus and use other powerful villains

Thanos is in no way a thuggish moron...

[Noodle]

The part about the war with the builders makes sense as part of his overall narrative, but I don't think that was supposed to be an event.

That's pretty much what Marvel does now in order to have a constant cycle of "event" comics. War of the Realms was a Thor story that they forced into a line-wide event. The same with Secret Empire and Captain America. And AXIS with the Uncanny Avengers.

[CaptainMar-Vell92 of the Kree]

That's pretty much what Marvel does now in order to have a constant cycle of "event" comics. War of the Realms was a Thor story that they forced into a line-wide event. The same with Secret Empire and Captain America. And AXIS with the Uncanny Avengers.

Kind of like when Infinity Gauntlet was originally supposed to be contained in the Silver Surfer series before becoming a Crisis Crossover.