The long-awaited second trailer for Avengers: Infinity War finally arrived earlier today and it offered us our best look at the movie yet. In particular, it revealed what Thanos’ ultimate goal is in hunting down the Infinity Stones: as his adoptive daughter Gamora tells Tony Stark, he wants to wipe out half of the universe.
His motivations are still cloudy, but a monologue from the Mad Titan elsewhere in the trailer tells us he believes halving the population of the entire universe will make it “perfectly balanced.” He even points out that half of humanity will survive, suggesting that he’s not just maniacally hoping to destroy the world for the sake of it.
This is an interesting twist on what happens in the comics. In The Infinity Gauntlet storyline, Thanos does indeed delete the lives of half of the universe with just a snap of his fingers. However, rather than his endgame, it’s more like an opening gambit to display just how powerful he is. In fact, he’s doing it all for one special lady. The personification of Death, to be precise, who Thanos has a big ol’ crush on and wants to impress.
Perhaps fearing that this would be an odd comic book-y motivation for moviegoers to get their heads around, the Russo brothers have completely revamped Thanos’ reasons for doing what he does. They’ve teased before that he could be said to be the hero of the movie, as the Mad Titans believes he’s ultimately saving the universe. It seems, then, that his aim to half it is an extreme method of dealing with overpopulation.
Gamora points out that for as long as she’s known him this has been his goal. So, it’s likely that something in Thanos’ youth shaped his burning desire to perhaps save the universe from itself. You can bet that it has to do with his homeworld, Titan, which we’ve seen in the trailers is a desolate and junk-filled planet. If Thanos is the last of his kind, it’s possible his grief has fueled his quest to get ultimate power.
Either way, the Mad Titan’s story will be revealed in full when Avengers: Infinity War hits theaters on April 27th.