What Everyone Forgot About Thanos And Tony Stark's Relationship
Let’s talk about Tony and Thanos. The two of them shared a really interesting scene together at the climax of Infinity War. It raised certain questions about whether or not the characters had met prior to the encounter. Recently, those questions have received answers.
Tony and Thanos: Infinity War
During the Battle of Titan, Thanos and Tony Stark have a stare down once the rest of Tony's friends have been otherwise momentarily incapacitated, and just as Tony begins their banter, Thanos catches him off guard by calling him by his last name. Most of us fans were just as confused as Tony was when it happened. When Tony asked the question on everybody’s mind: “You know me?” Thanos told him that he did, and then gave a vague reason as to why: “You’re not the only one cursed with knowledge.”
This conversation was as epic as it was confusing--at the time. How the hell did Thanos know who Tony was? As far as we the audience had seen, the two of them had never met face to face onscreen until this very moment of the Titan battle (or, if we're being literal, the moment Thanos ripped Tony’s helmet off).
The intrigue around the conversation spawned numerous fan theories about how Tony and Thanos met. The most popular one was an idea that the pair had met before due to the use of time travel. Considering the ending of Infinity War, some fans believed that time travel was the answer to solving the “Thanos snap” issue. Basically, we would learn the reason behind Thanos’ knowledge of Iron Man’s identity in Avengers 4 when Tony traveled back in time to try and stop Thanos from acquiring all six Infinity Stones. Of course, the clear problem with this theory is that it means that things end up looping right back to this particular scene in Infinity War, and we all know how that ends, so this theory can't really be the reason.
Luckily, the Avengers: Infinity War digital release contained a commentary track on it. It featured the Russo brothers, and one the topics they covered was this exact scenario involving Thanos and Tony. Joe Russo stated that Thanos learned who Tony was in the first Avengers film. Apparently the moment Tony flew into space with a nuke and detonated the Chitauri, Thanos caught a glimpse of him, and, of course, when the two met on Titan, Thanos recognized Tony as the one who foiled his plans to seize the Earth. You’re probably thinking that Thanos catching a glimpse of Tony wouldn’t exactly tell the Mad Titan the Armored Avenger’s name, and you would be right. The commentary goes on to explain the “You’re not the only one cursed with knowledge,” reasoning that Thanos threw at Tony right after ID’ing him.
You see, Thanos and Tony are two very similar characters, despite their obvious differences. As Christopher Marcus--a co-writer for the film--pointed out on the commentary track: both Tony and Thanos are futurists. They both have visions of the future that they’ll do basically anything to achieve, and the biggest roadblocks that they’ve come across in their attempts to do so have been each other. As a result, Thanos is wary of being thwarted by a mere human again, and Tony is struggling with the idea of a guy like Thanos existing in the first place. In essence, Thanos is “aware” of Tony as a threat in the same way Tony was “aware” of Thanos before the two of them met. It’s why Tony spits back, “my only curse is you,” after Thanos says his knowledge line.
The reasons behind why Thanos knew who exactly Tony was under his armor are a little weird, but they're still plausible. Thanos is a genius, one capable of commanding two different galaxy-wide armies by himself, it would make sense he study up on someone who was capable of stopping him from achieving what he wants, and it’s not too farfetched to think that he couldn’t just use his vast resources to figure out who Iron Man really is.
Iron Man and Thanos: Comics
In the movies, it’s clear Thanos sees Tony as his greatest enemy. He’s the only Avenger Thanos outright shows his respect to despite knowing that he’s more than capable of killing him in an honest brawl. This level of respect and the parallels that are drawn between the two characters are interesting because it seems like Thanos relates himself more to Tony--a basic human--instead of beings like Thor and Hulk. The fact that their relationship is as personal as it is in the movies draws attention to certain aspects of it in the comics.
For instance, Tony is actually the first Avenger to come face to face with Thanos, but not in the way you’re probably thinking. Their meeting isn’t anything like it is in the Infinity War movie or in the MCU overall. In fact, Tony doesn’t even meet with the current incarnation of Thanos that most of us are familiar with--the big bulky one made of flesh and blood.
You see, when Thanos first made his appearance in the Marvel universe, he was drawn in such a way that would allow viewers to "relate" to him more. That meant that instead of having the big, hulking and imposing physique that we're all familiar with now, he had a much slimmer, cut build. This was back in the early 1970s when the mentality was (at least as far as Marvel comics was concerned) that introducing characters like current gen. Thanos would have been considered too “wild.” Drawing characters in this fashion was one way for Marvel to gauge the interest of their fans.
This is the Thanos that Iron Man came into contact with. As the story goes, Thanos turned on his world of Titan and murdered everyone except for some characters named Starfox and Mentor. In response to this, Mentor sought help from someone named Kronos and Kronos created Drax the Destroyer for the sole purpose of hunting Thanos down (Drax was another character who was vastly different back in the day, so keep that in mind). Drax manages to find Thanos as expected, but he’s overwhelmed by the Mad Titan’s power and is taken prisoner. So Drax, for whatever reason, telepathically contacts Tony Stark on Earth for help, but Thanos is monitoring him the whole time and devises a plan that results in Tony being captured and brought aboard his ship. Eventually Tony and Drax manage to get the better of Thanos, but when they defeat him, they learn that this slim version is just a robot. This was a common bait and switch Marvel performed whenever they, again, wanted to gauge the feelings fans had for new characters. If they didn’t like Thanos, then he was gone now, just some random robot that caused Iron Man some problems that one time. But, if fans did like him, he would return. Obviously, the latter happened, and Thanos returned, except this time in his current depiction.
Because Thanos first appeared in an Iron Man comic, it’s fun to see how much the MCU has gone out of its way to emphasize his relationship with Tony, especially since it doesn’t seem like the Russo brothers created this emphasis over it, but rather out of natural developments.
