Thanos reclaims his crown as Marvel’s cruelest villain as his pettiest moment is rediscovered

Thanos, more than a decade past his first MCU introduction, remains the cinematic franchise’s greatest villain.

While there are contenders to take his crown — in the form of Secret Invasion‘s brutal Gravik and the hopefully leveled-up Kang — no villain has what it takes to unseat the might of Thanos. He eliminated half of all life in the universe, after all, and permanently killed off several iconic, beloved heroes.

As it turns out, his cruelty goes far deeper than many of us ever realized, as revealed by 2016’s Thanos #1 annual. The comic tells a tale of truly unmatched pettiness, as Thanos embarks on a quest to make an innocent man’s entire life — from infancy to adulthood — as miserable as possible.

And, boy, does he succeed. The hilariously malicious storyline, which was recently revisited by TikTok user @kingswatch, sees as Thanos decides — for no reason at all — to torment a poor man named David for life. On his first birthday, Thanos shows up to steal David’s blanket — and swear vengeance on the literal picture of innocence. Every year after, he returns on David’s birthday to deliver various day (or week, or life) ruining events, from alienating his girlfriend and burning down his grad school to poisoning his friends and murdering his father.

Throughout David’s life, Thanos meticulously targets everything that makes the growing man happy. He gets him fired, kills his cat, and generally causes chaos in the poor, undeserving David’s life.

It’s not until the Avengers defeat Thanos that David finally gets a reprieve. Freshly in his 30s, the hapless David is free for a full year — until Thanos returns, far too soon. He goes on to torment his victim for another decade and a half, even flooding his apartment when a broken David builds up the will to ask why he was targeted in the first place.

The whole story showcases Thanos’ award-winning spite and serves as a strangely funny — but unbelievably tragic — example of just how awful the Mad Titan truly is. His treatment of the Avengers was almost tame in comparison — sure, he killed off his own daughter (and Loki, and Heimdall, and Vision), but at least they didn’t suffer for 45 years. Their deaths were quick, and they lived happy lives until Thanos came in to ruin things.

It really puts things into perspective.