Having successfully purged half the population from the universe, Thanos finally rested and watched the sun rise on a not-particularly-grateful universe, ending his Avengers: Infinity War journey with a look of strange serenity.
After two-and-a-half hours of seeing the Mad Titan’s plan go into motion, words probably aren’t all that necessary for working out what the tyrant is thinking in this final shot, but in the new artbook Marvel’s Avengers: Infinity War – The Art of the Movie, Josh Brolin offers a little clarification regardless, explaining how “hut Thanos” is in a pretty good place by the film’s conclusion:
“He’s trying to fix the universe. He’s trying to balance the cosmos, and by doing that he’s having to destroy a lot of things. So there’s the warrior Thanos, and then there’s the Thanos that you see in the hut. I personally like the hut Thanos because it’s much more real. He’s perfectly and totally satisfied having accomplished what he set out to do.”
Of course, since several of his victims still have to come back for sequels, it’s clear that Thanos’ fortunes will change in next year’s Avengers 4, and for much of 2018, the fans have been offering a variety of ideas for how this villain might be taken down.
Time travel remains a recurring theme in such speculation, with parts of the internet suggesting that Earth’s Mightiest Heroes will journey into the past to acquire the Infinity Stones before the Mad Titan can get his hands on them. We’ve also heard a fair few predictions of a new villain entering the fray who could take Brolin’s place at the top of the superhero heap, though that’s a theory for which the evidence remains thin.
Meanwhile, the matter of who’ll be the character to actually deliver the final, killing blow to Thanos has been the subject of debate in itself, with Thor being one popular suggestion due in part to his failure to get the job done in Avengers: Infinity War. In any case, while the space conqueror might be perfectly content for the time being, don’t expect that smile to last once Avengers 4 hits theaters on May 3rd, 2019.
