Real Name: Thanos
Occupation: Conqueror, worshipper of Death
Identity: His existence is unknown to the general populace of Earth, but known to the peoples of many other civilizations throughout the galaxy.
Legal Status: Citizen of Titan
Place of Birth: Titan, a moon of Saturn
Other Aliases: Sanctuary II, Thanos' starship
Marital Status: Unrevealed
Known Relatives: Alars (alias Mentor, father), Eros (alias Starfox, brother), Zuras (uncle, deceased), Sui-San (mother, deceased), Cybele (sister-in-law), Thena (niece), Nebula (alleged granddaughter)
Group Affiliation: Leader of an army of renegade aliens
Base of Operations: Titan, later Sanctuary II
First Appearance: IRON MAN #55
Final Appearance: MARVELTWO-IN-ONE ANNUAL #2

History: Thanos was one of the last sons of Alars, progenitor of the second colony of Eternals of Titan, and Sui-San, the last survivor of the original settlement of Eternals on Titan. Born with grey, hide-like skin and a massive body, Thanos was a morose child who became obsessed with the concept of death. Through bionic implementation and long hours of meditation, Thanos augmented his Eternal strength and powers to that his powers surpassed those of all other Titanian Eternals. As he grew in power, Thanos also grew in ambition and desire for conquest. Thanos stole one of his people's starships and traveled to other star systems to recruit soldiers, mercenaries, and malcontents for a private army. With a small fleet he dropped nuclear devices on his home world Titan, killing thousands of his people, including his mother Sui-San. Declaring himself ruler of Titan, he then set his sights on Earth.

At some point in his adult life, Thanos met the embodiment of Death itself who, in female form, became Thanos's companion. It is probable that Death was attracted to Thanos by both his philosophical dedication to nihilism as well as his willingness to commit genocide on even his own people. Thanos began, for the first time in his life, to experience love for another being, although the being was just a manifestation of Death. To make himself worthy of so awesome an entity, Thanos decided to acquire more power. At first he planned simply to seize political power through the conquest of worlds. To this end, he amassed a huge armada of battleships. Then he found a way to amplify immeasurably his personal power. Having kept the planet Earth under surveillance since it first exploded a nuclear weapon, Thanos learned of a power-object called the Cosmic Cube brought into existence by the subversive organization, Advanced Idea Mechanics. Thanos seized control of the reality-altering device and commanded it to give him control over the universe.

Transformed into a godlike wraith by the Cosmic Cube, Thanos battled the Avengers and the Kree Captain Mar-Veil, the former of whom had already vanquished his armada. When Thanes carelessly discarded the Cube, believing falsely that he had drained it of all power, Mar-Veil struck the cube, willing it to restore the universe to what it had been. Robbed of power, Thanos reverted to mortal form in the center of the universe where his flagship Sanctuary II retrieved him under preprogrammed instructions. Revived, Thanos was dejected to discover that Death had abandoned him because of his failure. He soon formulated a plan to regain "her" affection: he would give to "her" more than any single living being had given "her," the annihilation of everything that lives. Through the minds and records of countless civilizations he searched, hoping to find the key to the power he sought. Eventually he learned of the soul-gems, six power objects of unknown origin and vast power, and set about to acquire them. He had obtained all of the soul-gems except one, the jade jewel on the head of Adam Warlock.

Thanos feared to acquire Warlock's gem directly because it possessed the power to steal souls, and he feared to risk forfeiting his own. Observing him, Thanos learned that Warlock had diverged a temporal counterpart named the Magus, who was the head of a galaxy wide religious empire and would certainly oppose Thanos's schemes of stellar destruction were he to learn of them. Thanos thus planned to eliminate the Magus. Possessing the capacity for time travel, Thanos decided to set up certain factors in the time stream which, combined, might prove the Magus's undoing. (He could have tried to thwart Warlock's life well before the critical time he would/would not become the Magus, but he needed Warlock to remain the soul-gem's possessor for simplicity's sake.) One of these factors was the rescuing of the infant Gamora, a female of the pacifistic Zen-Whoberis race that was slaughtered by the Magus' missionary troops. She would serve as Thanos's personal assassin. The second major factor would be Thanos's own direct alliance with Warlock against the Magus. Neither of these factors existed in the original time-line that led to the Magus's creation; thus, Thanos hoped to diverge a reality wherein Warlock never became the Magus. Thanos succeeded, and while in close proximity to Warlock, siphoned from his soul-gem the energies he needed without Warlock's knowledge.

Thanos then constructed a single huge synthetic soul-gem to hold the energies of the other six. With it, he planned to extinguish the stars one by one. Gamora learned of his plan of destruction and tried to assassinate him, but Thanos slew her. Thanos also slew Warlock's comrade Pip the Troll. Warlock had by this time learned of Thanos's threat and traveled to Earth to enlist the aid of the Avengers and Captain Mar-Veil. In battle aboard Thanos's starship Sanctuary II, Captain Mar-Veil damaged Thanos's projector through which he transmitted the synthetic soul gem's energies into suns to cause them to go nova. Warlock faced Thanos in personal combat and was slain. The Avengers were taken captive by Thanos, but rescued by Spider-Man and the Thing. Spider-Man, influenced by the abstract entities Lord Order and Master Chaos, released Warlock's spirit from the soul-gem Warlock had worn, and seething with cosmic power released through his physical death, Warlock grappled with Thanos and turned the mad Titan to immobile stone. Incapacitated for eternity, Thanos retained a fragment of his consciousness and is thus tortured by the fact that he who worshipped death will forever be denied it.

However a little time later, Thanos was brought to life by Death itself, who believed the universe to be unbalanced, and therefore half its population should be wiped out. Death even augmented Thanos' powers to even more incredible levels. Almost immediately, Thanos sought out the alien Silver Surfer, who he thought would be the only real opposition to his agenda. Refusing to aid Thanos in his crusade, the Silver Surfer was unable to apprehend Thanos, who would later fake his own death to avoid the Surfer's involvement.

Thanos reclaimed control of his Starship and Armada, which had been appropriated by his supposed grand-niece, Nebula. He then embarked on a plan to re-assemble the soul-gems (now called Infinity Gems) and harness their combined power on what he called the Infinity Gauntlet. Ultimately successful, Thanos killed half the life in the universe and was opposed by a large assemblage of heroes from Earth and across the galaxy, as well as numerous abstract entities which indicated that Thanos' might rivaled their own. Death itself did not seem pleased with Thanos' fulfillment, and in his despair, Thanos allowed his powers to be usurped by his supposed grand-niece, Nebula. Thanos, a revived Warlock, Gamora, and Pip, alongside other heroes, were successful in stopping Nebula. Warlock ended up with the Infinity Gauntlet, reverting the universe to normal, exiling Thanos to an uninhabited planet, and separating the Gems to individual owners in a new team called the Infinity Watch. To escape notice of his enemies, Thanos apparently abandoned his previous identity, assuming the role of a quiet farmer.

Eventually, however, Thanos detected a threat to the universe, as the embodiment of Eternity itself was rendered catatonic. Tracking the source to a revived Magus, Thanos sought help of Warlock and his Infinity Watch. Thanos and the Watch traveled to the realm of Death to learn the truth about Magus, and found that he was attempting to replace reality's heroes (and indeed, all reality itself) with his own, evil versions. Returning to reality, Thanos and the Watch were attacked by an assemblage of heroes before the true threat could be revealed. Taking the fight to Magus, Warlock reassembled the Infinity Gauntlet to match Magus' power of the combined might of 5 cosmic cubes, although ultimately Magus would gain the Gauntlet for himself. Thanos was pitted against his doppelganger, who was Magus' most favored lackey, and in defeating it, gained insight into Magus' schemes. Confronting him, Thanos pointed out that Magus did not, in fact, have the full power of the Gauntlet, as the Reality Gem component was actually an elaborate fake. Rattled, Magus was then thwarted by the embodiments of Eternity and Infinity, and the Infinity Gems were restored to their owners. Unknown to all, the Reality Gem was in fact held by Thanos himself, and had been since Warlock first distributed the Gems. Thanos returned to wandering the cosmos.

Some time later, Thanos and Warlock were trapped in the folds of a shifting reality, due to the appearance of the Goddess, Warlock's manifestation of his "good side" that had appropriated the 5 Cosmic Cubes previously used by Magus. Warlock eventually freed himself and Thanos, and Thanos embarked on mission to learn about the Goddess and the threat she posed to reality. The two were soon contacted by the demon Mephisto, and Thanos agreed to let Mephisto aid them in exchange for a Cosmic Cube of his own. Warlock had a plan of his own, and before bodily entering the Soul Gem, he gave it to Thanos. Thanos, in turn, assembled a contingency of reality's heroes in order to distract the Goddess from Warlock's plan. However, Thanos seemingly failed, and the Goddess began to destroy the universe one star at a time. In reality, however, the destruction was an illusion generated by Warlock, who had used the Cosmic Cubes to create a universe-wide mass-hallucination. Distracted, the Goddess was defeated by Thanos and others of Earth's heroes. Thanos destroyed the "Cosmic Egg" that held the cubes, for which act Warlock tried to paint the Titan a hero. Thanos even honored his bargain with Mephisto, giving him a Cosmic Cube, albeit one without power.

Later, when the thunder god Thor went apparently insane, Thanos was contacted by the Silver Surfer to stop the god's rampage. Thanos succeeded where the Surfer, the Infinity Watch, Doctor Strange, and other Asgardian gods could not. This led the assembled group to Asgard, where they came into conflict with Odin. Thanos battled Odin until the god learned the truth, revived Thor, and allowed Thanos and the heroes to leave Asgard with his and Thor's gratitude.

Soon after these events, a bored Thanos decided to search for a vast storehouse of knowledge called the Oracle. To assist him, Thanos recruited several unwilling allies, which included the second Super-Skrull, Nitro, the Rhino, and the Titanium Man, and he later stranded them when they accomplished his goals for him.

After slaughtering the entire Ovin Mercenary Army just for something to do, Thanos used the Oracle to search for a worthy adversary. He believed he found one in Tyrant, first spawn of the world-devouring Galactus, and, with the former Herald Terrax, kidnapped Tyrant's archenemy and recent opponent, Ganymede. The hero Jack of Hearts, Ganymede's lover, recruited Legacy (now, the current Captain Marvel) to help free her. Ganymede, in the meantime, had joined Thanos and Terrax, as she wanted revenge on Tyrant as his sworn enemy. The trio battled Morg, Galactus' most deadly Herald and forced lackey of Tyrant, who eventually escaped. Jack of Hearts, Legacy, Ganymede and Terrax could not defeat the Tyrant, and Thanos, who briefly fled the scene to learn the truth of Tyrant's origins, returned to battle Tyrant himself, which laid waste to Tyrant's planetoid. Thanos emerged from the battle declaring that, since he had withstood the powerful Tyrant, further struggle was pointless.

The Silver Surfer, later, sought Thanos to discern Death's motives for plaguing him with images of death with the obvious intent on making him her new consort. Enraged, Thanos beat Surfer to death and delivered his body to Death's realm himself. Believing Death to be unappreciative, Thanos revived the Surfer and sought to leave, further insulting Death who cursed the Titan with immortality, forever barring him from her embrace.

Others would continually come in and out of Thanos' life. Gamora would return to Thanos' side, forsaking her relationship with Warlock and the Infinity Watch. The computer intelligence Quasimodo would take over Sanctuary II and use it to capture and torment the Silver Surfer and Spider-Man before being ousted by Thanos, who declared the two heroes owed him a debt. Thanos would become trapped in a pocket-dimension he was investigating, separated from his source of cosmic energy and only able to contact normal reality through mental contact with a genetically engineered creature called Consumption.

Consumption then contacted Plunderer, brother of the hero Ka-Zar to serve Thanos, and converted his own body as a gateway into Thanos' pocket-dimension, killing himself in the process. Plunder entered and contacted Thanos directly, who promised Plunder to rule over a lifeless Earth. Plunder ultimately used terraforming devices of the Antarctic paradise known as the Savage Land to begin to re-shape the Earth, a process, which began to re-power Thanos.

Plunder was ultimately confronted by Ka-Zar, but not before Thanos managed to absorb the energies of the pocket-dimension and the terraforming devices. Filled with power, Thanos began to affect the entire galaxy with his newfound primeval energies and opening various portals throughout the universe. Thanos and Plunder were forced to pursue Ka-Zar through rapidly shifting areas of the cosmos, as Ka-Zar had stolen the key for the terraforming machines' power. Ultimately, Thanos, tired of Parnival, abandoned him on an unknown world. Ultimately, however, Thanos' strength had depleted to a vast degree, and Ka-Zar managed to turn the tables on Thanos by knocking him into an active volcano when the two emerged in the Savage Land. Destroying the key to the terraforming machines, Thanos lept into the device, hoping to recover his source of power even as the device was destroyed by agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Thanos was apparently trapped once more in the pocket-dimension.

Soon, however, Thanos who had discovered a possible exit from his dimension along the mystical Ley-line nexus points mentally contacted the monstrous Hulk, who was anguished over the recent death of his wife Betty. Thanos attempted to trick the Hulk into becoming a vessel for Thanos' mind, and was overheard at another Ley-line nexus by the hero Nathan Grey, also known as the X-Man. X-Man attempted to convince the Hulk to refuse, and ended up transporting to Hulk's location and battling him. Thanos instead managed to use Nate as the physical vessel instead, and the Hulk attacked anew. In the course of battle, mystical barriers that separated the dimensions were shattered, freeing Thanos, although the two psuedo-heroes managed to return Thanos to the dimension yet again.

Somehow free of the pocket-dimension, Thanos appeared in Asgard at a time when the mystic land was in ruins and many of its warriors were defeated due to the powerful Mangog. Thanos took advantage of the distraction by finding an ally in Odin's aide, Tarakis, who helped him in obtaining the apocalyptic "Map of the All-Ending" from Odin. Already possessing the Chalice of Ruins, Thanos believed the two objects would help him to find a being known as "The Designate". Thanos and Tarakis collected their other ally, Mangog, who had just defeated the thunder god Thor, and traveled to the planet Rigel, home of a peace-loving race of thinkers and dreamers. Once there, Thanos teleported Mangog to the surface, and the hulking behemoth began to destroy everything in sight. Thanos demanded the Fire Gem, the next ingredient to find "the Designate," in order to stop Mangog's rampage, and was ultimately successful, although Rigel was nearly laid to waste in the process.

Thor promptly traced Thanos route, and gained allies in the Rigellian recorder android and Firelord, former Herald of Galactus, but was ultimately unsuccessful as Thanos and Mangog collected more ingredients and finally captured the Designate, a woman named Tarene. As Thor and his allies battled Thanos and his allies, Tarene began to weep for her champion, Thor, an action that would give Thanos the power of Ragnarok "the end of the world" as evidenced by Thanos' destruction of an unknown but inhabited planet. Before Thanos could truly begin Ragnarok, Thor killed Mangog and was given apparel to supply him with the Odin-Force, and he and his allies battled Thanos once again. As Thanos fell, Tarene weeped again for the lives of all those slain by Thanos. And, as written, she flung her tears upon the fallen Titan, who burst into an all-consuming hellfire, seeming vanquished forever.

In reality, Thanos was not incapacitated. He soon confronted Marlo Jones, the wife of Rick Jones, associate of the latest Captain Marvel. Thanos revealed that Marlo had been the physical refuge of the embodiment of Death and as such, was the target of a death god known as the Walker. Convincing Thor to help them, Thanos, alonside Thor and Captain Marvel, was able to keep Walker from killing Marlo. Ultimately, Death itself defeated Walker and, after trying unsuccessfully to help Rick Jones from the debilitating condition Walker left him in, left his erstwhile allies for space.

Height: 6 ft. 7 in.
Weight: 985 lbs.
Eyes: Red
Hair: None
Skin: Grey-purple

Strength Level: The exact extent of Thanos's physical strength is not known, but he was able to engage both the Thing and Thor in hand-to-hand combat simultaneously for an extended period of time and held his own. Presumably, then, Thanos possessed at least Class 100 strength, enabling him to lift (press) over 100 tons.

Known Superhuman Powers: Thanos possessed incalculable superhuman power. By far the most powerful of the Titanian Eternals, Thanos was a mutant whose massive, heavy-bided body was born with the capacity to synthesize cosmic energy for certain personal uses. (This is a trait that Thanos shared with his father Alars and all Earthborn Eternals but not with Titan-born Eternals. Through still unknown bionic amplification, Thanos increased his physical strength and resilience to levels surpassing even the strongest of the Earth Eternals. Through meditation and certain mystical techniques, Thanos augmented his power in still other ways, enabling him to tap, transform, and direct vast quantities of cosmic energy for destructive force. His skin in nearly invulnerable, particularly against heat, cold, electricity, radiation, toxins, aging, and disease, and he can survive indefinitely without food or water even before his "curse" from Death left him immortal, unable to die. His mind is also invulnerable to most forms of psychic attack, and can project a psionic blast of energy as well as blasts of plasma/cosmic energy from his eyes and hands. He usually employs a hovering chair with additional offensive weapons and the ability to teleport fantastic distances. Deadliest of all Thanos's attributes, perhaps, was his mind, whose superhuman level of intellect was totally dedicated to the annihilation of life.