It’s no secret that Thanos, the big bad teased at the end of Marvel’s The Avengers, is strongly connected to this summer’s Guardians of the Galaxy. After all, chief baddies Ronan the Accuser (Lee Pace) and Nebula (Karen Gillan) are in his employ, and protagonist Gamora (Zoe Saldana) has familial ties to him. Still, we didn’t know quite how much of The Mad Titan (recently confirmed to be played by Josh Brolin) we’d be seeing in the film until now.
Mild spoilers for Guardians of the Galaxy will follow.
Turns out, Thanos appears early on via hologram, giving orders to Ronan and Nebula. They largely communicate with him in that manner until late in the film, when the purple alien finally appears in the flesh. The report, from Vulture, notes that Thanos isn’t a huge player in Guardians of the Galaxy, but his influence is keenly felt. Furthermore, Brolin’s voice will be the only part of the actor appearing in the film.
Though Thanos will “recede back into the shadows” following the events of Guardians, letting the Avengers do battle with the evil robot Ultron in Avengers: Age of Ultron, he’ll apparently reappear later down the line and will likely serve as the main antagonist for The Avengers 3.
The Infinity Gauntlet storyline appears to be where Marvel is going with its Cinematic Universe. After all, we’ve already seen three of the six stones that make up that gauntlet of supreme power, which Thanos wants to assemble in order to gain indomitable might. One was the Tesseract in The Avengers, another was the Aether in Thor: The Dark World, and Loki’s scepter likely contains another. Guardians of the Galaxy will feature a fourth one heavily, too, as the titular characters come into possession of an Infinity Stone and attempt to keep it from Thanos. The Collector (Benicio del Toro) also appears to want the Infinity Stones – at the end of Thor: The Dark World, he was heard saying, “One down, five to go.”
Though his role in Marvel’s next outing may be limited, it’s exciting to hear about Thanos appearing in any capacity and you can bet that I’ll be looking forward to seeing him in Guardians of the Galaxy when the film opens on August 1st.
