For a movie packing more famed superheroes than any other release in cinema history, it’s a little ironic that Avengers: Infinity War chooses one of its villains as its main character. While the ensemble epic keeps the story moving between a range of familiar faces and locations, Thanos is consistently at the center of events, to the point that an early draft of the script even had the Mad Titan serving as the narrator.
But even without the despot speaking his thoughts directly to the audience, there’s something strangely sympathetic about this monstrous figure. His continuing love for his adopted daughter Gamora and his ambitiously ideology-driven mission make him one of the more intriguing antagonists in a cinematic universe often criticized for its underwhelming bad guys.
The character’s bleak story has even earned Thanos a surprising comparison to the troubled hero of Logan, with a new fan-made video that’s edited to resemble the trailer for Wolverine’s most acclaimed solo film. With the mournful sound of Johnny Cash’s “Hurt” providing the soundtrack, it’s a nicely edited little piece that emphasizes the underlying sadness of the purple tyrant. The video even contains echoes of Logan’s relationship with the young Laura, with the mock-trailer concluding with the Mad Titan’s final exchange with Gamora at the moment of the film’s climactic finger-snap.
While we’d like to think that most viewers wouldn’t be rooting for Thanos the way they’d root for Wolverine, his unusual bond with the Guardians of the Galaxy lead certainly goes some way to humanizing the character. On the commentary track for the new Infinity War home video release, co-director Anthony Russo discusses this more sensitive side to the villain, and how his actions towards Gamora suggest that this ruthless world-conqueror has “an inner life, an emotional life that’s important to him.”
But like it says in the video, Thanos’ quest to cull the universe’s population ultimately costs him “everything.” And to revisit the entire grim journey of one of the MCU’s most compelling villains to date, you can check out Avengers: Infinity War on Digital HD now, and 4K Ultra HD, Blu-Ray and DVD on August 14th.
