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  • Common Knowledge: Thanos' motive in killing off half the universe is not to impress Death, despite that being the popular conception, but you'd be forgiven for thinking that since the true nature of their relationship is only clarified in comics outside of the main Infinity Gauntlet issues (Thanos Quest and preceding issues of Silver Surfer). He did it because she specifically ordered him to, because she felt the universe was overpopulated and headed for mass extinction. Further, she doesn't give him the cold shoulder because she's uninterested, but because he betrayed her trust in going after the gems rather than using the gifts she gave him to accomplish his task. Granted the conception that his motivation was to impress Death is still technically true.
  • Franchise Original Sin: While still a beloved story, it did feature elements that would be criticized in Jim Starlin's later works;
    • As noted under Misaimed Fandom, this event, while a crossover featuring a number of major characters and being fought over the fate of the universe, is really focused on Thanos and Adam Warlock. Thanos acted as an antagonist so his role was tolerated, and while Adam Warlock is the main hero, the other characters do still get a few moments to shine. The Infinity War would also focus on Thanos and Adam in a massive crossover, and they would largely save the day themselves with the other characters playing little role.
    • The story of Thanos getting ultimate power and then defeating himself, after which we learn of his subconscious desire to be defeated causing his defeats. Within this storyline, the power Thanos displayed thanks to the Infinity Gauntlet gave us some iconic moments, him easily defeating the heroes who came to face him was the logical turn of events, and Thanos' desire to lose proved a shocking reveal that led to him helping against the final villain of the event. But Jim Starlin would later become infamous for making Thanos an Invincible Villain who never loses to the point where he would attempt retcon any of his defeats, while also writing new storylines where Thanos gained ultimate power before defeating himself that attempted to one up the power he gained previously.
      • Starlin's tendency to make Thanos overpowered showcases itself during the Thanos Quest story where the Mad Titan initially acquires the gems. While intended to showcase Thanos' cleverness, resourcefulness and ability to overcome the odds, most of his victories require his opponents to be firmly holding the Idiot Ball or to fall victim to rectons. The Champion, for instance, was previously shown to be a skilled fighter capable of tactics, teleportation and who actually refused to rely solely on brute strength to win, while his Thanos Quest paints him as basically an unthinking berserker with no head for tactics that Thanos easily outclasses. Likewise, Thanos defeats the Runner by using the Time Gem to age him several million years, when the Runner is already several billion years old and aging him another million years wouldn't really have done anything to him. The result is less Thanos coming off as capable and more that he's lucky to be a Creator's Pet whose writer is re-writing things around him to make his victories possible.
  • Harsher in Hindsight: It's really hard not to wince at seeing Cyclops fighting alongside the Scarlet Witch and Captain America coming to his side when he's seemingly killed after things like House of M and Avengers Vs. X-Men.
  • Misaimed Fandom: Infinity Gauntlet is often seen as an epic Avengers crossover where they take down a super powered baddie. Gauntlet is actually more like a Thanos and Adam Warlock story where the actual Avengers are little more than a Red Shirt Army who gets easily dispatched in creative manners by Thanos with the powers of the Infinity Gems, and the story boils down to Thanos realizing that his attempts at getting Mistress Death to love him were All for Nothing and that his previous defeats were caused by his subconscious feeling that he doesn't deserve all that power. With that said, the Avengers still get a few awesome moments like Captain America confronting Thanos as the last man standing.
  • Narm: Odin's reaction to Thanos killing 50% of the Asgardians:
    Odin: The Ceremonial Eyepatch of Sorrow did I immediately don.
  • Nightmare Fuel: The manner in which Thanos deals with some of his attackers. Wolverine's bones are turned to rubber forcing him to contort painfully, Cyclops has a seal formed around his head which slowly suffocates him, Iron Man gets decapitated by Terraxia, Thor is turned to glass and then shattered, and Nova is turned into a pile of toy blocks and also shattered when trying to save Thor.
  • Shocking Moments: It is not the Badass Fingersnap Thanos does that wipes out half of all life on the universe that counts as this. That's just peanuts compared to the rest of the stuff the Infinity Gauntlet can do. It is his imprisonment of all the cosmic entities that were sent to fight him, including Eternity, who is the abstract personification of the entire universe.
  • Signature Scene: Thanos snapping his fingers to make 50% of the universe's population disappear. As a shocking moment that sets the crisis in motion and puts Thanos' disregard for life on full display, the panel is one of the most famous scenes in all of Marvel Comics and has become intimately associated with Thanos' character, especially after being replicated in the blockbuster hit Avengers: Infinity War.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: You might be surprised to know that, despite an easy-to-use concept (female version of Thanos created by him out of nothing to be his consort) Terraxia the Terrible has never, ever been revived in the Marvel universe after her somewhat anticlimactic death (suffocating in the depths of space because Thanos forgot to create her with the ability to survive there), despite Thanos even observing that he'd miss her. Her only other appearance in a comic was in the What If? story where the Silver Surfer obtained the Gauntlet.
  • Tough Act to Follow: Jim Starlin has every cosmic book given to him compared to Infinity Gauntlet. His later work is rarely compared to the original series in a favorable light.
  • Woolseyism: The Brazilian title opted to use the other meaning of "gauntlet", and "Infinite Challenge" (Desafio Infinito) is possibly more intriguing than if the translators simply went for the name of the glove that is the central MacGuffin.

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