Avengers: Infinity War Directors Discuss The Parallels Between Gamora And Mistress Death

Avengers: Infinity War changed Thanos quite a bit from his depiction in the comics. Though the portrayal of the Mad Titan as an anti-villain who believes he’s doing right for the universe was largely praised, some missed the weird motivation the character has in the source material: he uses the Infinity Gauntlet to give him unlimited power because he’s trying to impress a lady. Namely, Mistress Death, the female grim reaper.

Though this romantic connection was expunged from Thanos’ character in the movie, his love for another person does factor into his story in an important way. In Infinity War, it’s revealed that the villain truly loves his adoptive daughter Gamora – it clearly breaks his heart when he “has to” sacrifice her in order to get the Soul Stone. So, could you compare the Guardian and Mistress Death’s roles in Thanos’ life, then?

That was what directors Joe and Anthony Russo were asked by ComicBook.com. In reply, Anthony spoke about how there’s a certain connection there, but that you couldn’t directly “correlate” them. He explained that at least part of the reason Lady Death was sidestepped was because they wanted to focus on the relationships between the central characters of the movie. In this case, the “perverse, abusive” familial relationship between Thanos and Gamora.

“I don’t think we would correlate [Gamora] and young Gamora directly to Lady Death, except for the fact that it is what Thanos cares about. We always want to run at the relationships that are growing and developing in the MCU and the fact that Gamora and Nebula were children of Thanos and the fact that they had this very oppressive relationship with him was just so exciting to us. It was such a rich area to mine. Sort of a perverse, abusive father-daughter relationship. It was… we had to run at that as storytellers. It’s just a much more powerful motivation for Thanos and a more powerful relationship for Thanos.”

Joe Russo went on to reiterate something he and his brother have discussed before – that they much prefer to tell original stories that pay homage to the comics rather than slavishly replicate something that’s already been told in a different medium. He emphasized that the MCU follows its own continuity and doesn’t have to go by what’s been laid out on the page.

“Look, our job as we said a million times is to tell the story of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, not to do direct adaptations of the comics because we’re comic book fans. I have no interest as a director in telling a story that’s already been told or in seeing one that’s already been told. If I know all the events story as they’re going to happen then what’s the point of going to the film? We want to keep surprising audiences and continue the story that started with Iron Man One a decade ago.”

Though Lady Death didn’t appear in Avengers Infinity War, some fans believe that a version of her could appear in Avengers 4 instead. It’s long been theorized that Hela, the Asgardian Goddess of Death, could step into that character’s role. Whether that happens or not remains to be seen, of course, but feel free to share your own thoughts on the matter in the comments section down below.