Thanos Childhood and Teenage Years
Commonly known as the Mad Titan, Thanos was one of the most destructive and powerful villains in all of Marvel, as he’s killed trillions of innocent beings and was capable of overpowering nearly anyone that would dare challenge him once he acquired the Infinity Gauntlet and all of its gems. But before he become a god like being and murdered everyone in his path, what was Thanos like as a child and later as a teenager?
Thanos was born on the Saturn moon Titan, as apart of a group known as Titanians, who were eternal beings ruled by the exiled Eternals A'Lars and Sui-San. Most of those who they created shared their same physical traits and characteristics, but Thanos was not among them. Upon his arrival to the world, Thanos’ birth came with shock from the doctors as they witnessed what looked to be a spawn of a demon. Initially they wished to have the new born undergo tests to better understand why he looked so deformed, but A’Lars dismissed their concerns and instead came to love his son, viewing him as a strong willed being who refused to succumb to death.
After praising Thanos’ natural strength, A’Lars handed him over to his mother. Upon looking at their newborn, Sui-San instinctively reached for a nearby scalpel and attempted to murder her child in cold blood, shouting the he was a monster that had to be killed before he got a chance to grow larger. Surprised at her reaction, A’Lars had the frantic woman sedated before he took Thanos away to safety. She later was sent to a mental hospital and restrained as she remained insane ever since. Years later, and a 12 year old Thanos stoodout among all his peers due to his physical appearance, something he was reminded of everyday. In his early childhood Thanos spent much of his time reading and learning about the world around him, quickly becoming known as the smartest kid at school. He spent much of his time alone, drawing images of nature and its creatures in his notebook.
One day however, a group of school kids approached Thanos and asked if he wanted to play with them. Surprised at finally being asked to be among them for the first time, Thanos excitedly accepted their offer and went off to play ball with them. While at home, Thanos frequently attempted to figure out the cause for his unique genetic makeup so that he could better explain it to his fellow classmates back at school.
He would ask his father if he knew anything that could answer his questions, but he would always either get straight up ignored or reminded that he was overly busy with his work and that he didn’t have time for him or his questions.
Thanos relationship with his mother was no better, as at this point she was still confined to the mental institution and seemed to refuse to speak. Thanos visited her on a regular basis, telling her all about his day at school and the odd dreams he’d experience every now and then.
One dream in particular he would bring up was about him being a newborn baby and that someone was trying to stab him with a knife, and that in other times he would see himself as a grown up and taking that same knife and stabbing his attacker in return. He had these same dreams nearly every night for the past 4 years, and it got so bad for him that he refused to sleep in order to not experience them anymore.
As Thanos became more popular at school, he gained a keen interest from a mysterious girl who became fascinated with him overtime. Later during a school lab that required the dissection of a creature, Thanos ended up storming out of the classroom once he saw the creature’s insides, vomiting outside as a result. While outside cleaning up his mess, he was approached by this mysterious girl who attempted to comfort him, explaining that dissecting dead creatures will get easier as he continues to do it more often.
Thanos didn’t like what he heard, claiming he never wanted to dissect a living thing ever again, even if it meant giving up on his dream of becoming a great scientist one day like his father. She told him that he just needed time to clear his head and to think about what he just had experienced, and that a great way to do that would be to explore a forbidden cave, she herself frequently visited.
Thanos did just that, taking a few of his friends with him. While they walked deeper and deeper into the cave, the entire place began to rumble as rocks started to crash upon them. Once the cave-in stopped, Thanos found himself trapped and separated from his friends. He spent the next 3 days digging his way out, finally reaching the outer edges of the cave only to discover the terrible fate of his friends.
They all had perished as they were eaten alive by giant lizards, which apparently found him to be unappealing due to his mutation. When Thanos finally got back to civilization, rumors began to spread of what exactly had happened back at the cave that caused the death of several children. It was believed that Thanos had killed and eaten those children as a monster within him had suddenly awakened.
Nearly everyone began to shun him, even his other friends began treating him as an outcast. The only person to still talk to him was the girl who told him to go to the cave in the first place. She convinced him that if he truly cared for his friends that died, that he’d give into his hatred for the creatures that killed themand destroy them as a way to revenge his friends.
So armed with a knife, Thanos made his wayback to the cave and unleashed his rage as he went on to slaughter every creature inside, all the while the girl watched from a distance with glee.
Years later, a teenage Thanos had fully overcome his fear of killing and dissecting creatures. He quickly passed all his lab tests, fully dissecting creatures and studying them so effectively that he was able to describe their entire life story from just examining their organs alone. He got bored with school as it didn’t have enough to teach him, so he went on to create his own secret laboratory where he experimented on his own accords. He experimented on live creatures, painfully removing their body parts one at a time just so he could study them for knowledge.
He viewed himself at this time as a valued scientist, bent on discovering the answer to who he really was and why he was so different from everyone else. Despite his dedication to science, he made little gains on answering his biggest questions. His only friend now, the girl who’s been at his side ever since his first killings, went on to convince him that he had to take his experiments to the next level if he wished on discovering who he truly was.
Desperate in obtaining those answers, Thanos ended up kidnapping a young couple and brought them to his secret laboratory. He went on to dissect them just like he had done to all the animals before.
Days later, people began to wonder where that couple had gone. Overtime it was believed they were murdered, which would have been the first time anyone had been murdered on Titan since the moon housed life. More and more children began to disappear, which began to cause alarm among the people. Thanos farther dismissed these concerns, believing that murder on his moon was impossible. But the same could not be said about Thanos's mother, who knew right away that it was her son who had been committing these heinous acts.
She finally spoke to him, perhaps the first time since she returned home from her confinement, that she knew the monster he truly was. Thanos dismissed her statement, but then began to doubt himself. The next day Thanos went out to the place he buried his victims and claimed he would burn their bodies and cease his experimentation son the people of Titan.
The female friend asked if he had enjoyed what he had done, a question that offended Thanos, who claimed that he was a scientist, not a butcher that enjoyed senseless murder. After burning the last bodies, Thanos vowed to never kill again.
2 weeks later and Thanos was back there again, burying his latest victim. He admitted that she was right, that he did enjoy killing. She reassured him that he shouldn’t be ashamed of his actions, that he was just doing what was in his nature.
Finally, after all these years, Thanos revealed his true feelings toward her. She was the only person in his life that understood him, who even tried to do so. He wanted to run away with her to someplace they could be together alone forever. He then tried to give her a hug, only to be slapped by her in return. She now knew she had full control over himas he admitted his love toward her. She then called him out for being weak and a coward, and for taking so long to finally accept who he was.
That those who feared themselves were unworthy of love, but that he had potential to change all of that by fully embracing his twisted nature. And so Thanos did, he fully embraced the evil within him. He then did the unthinkable, he kidnapped his own mother and brought her to his laboratory. When she awoke, he gloated to her of all theill doings he’d done over the years.
All the instruments of torture he created and all the murders he committed. How all that time he convinced himself he was doing it all to find answers, while in reality he just loved killing. It was that simple, and she was right about him from the very beginning.
He then grabbed a knife and murdered her, cutting her up like all his previous victims. Once she was dead, Thanos recalled the day he was born and how she tried to kill him. He apologized to her, not for the murder, but that she failed to kill him when she had the chance. And after that Thanos began to walk his conflicted path to attaining ultimate power just so he could win the love of the girl who’s always been at his side. Unknown to Thanos however, she was in fact the manifestation of Death, who had been casually manipulating him from the very beginning for her own sadistic agenda.
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