In the previous decade, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has given us a series of amazing narratives that have all culminated in Thanos’ eventual fury. Thanos was portrayed in the movies as a more stubborn prophet than in the comic books, where he was obsessed with murdering to impress Mistress Death.
In the comics, Thanos had two adoptive daughters: Nebula and Gamora, but he also had a son. ‘Thane’ is his biological son. Thane was born to Thanos and an Inhuman lady during Thanos’ and his army’s anger towards the Inhuman tribe for disobeying him.
The character was originally established in the “New Avenger” comics volume 3 issue 10 in September 2013, by Jonathan Hickman and Mike Deodato Jr. Thane’s appearance in the issue gives us some insight into his background and existence. Thane’s behavior contradicted one’s initial assumption that he was like his father.
He was in the midst of his good-guy phase and posing a serious threat to the Marvel superheroes. Thane was gullible and had been duped by various forces, most notably Ebony Maw. But he possessed an extraordinary amount of authority on all occasions, which at times became uncontrollable. Without further ado, let’s get started on today’s video, in which we’ll learn about Thane, Thanos’ incredibly strong son.
THE THANOS SEED: THANE ORIGINS
Thane’s origin is well explained by the Inhuman King Black Bolt in “New Avengers” comics volume 3 issue 10. The story which is also known as ‘The Thanos seed’ begins with Black Bolt gathering the Illuminati in a dimension called “The Sphere,” where he can speak without unleashing his power. The Illuminati consists of Iron Man, Black Panther, Doctor Strange, Mister Fantastic, Namor the Submariner, and Beast, and they are all ears when Black Bolt informs them that Thanos is in search of his secret child and wants to kill him. He then begins narrating the story of the Inhuman royal family ages ago.
There were disputes which led to the Inhumans splitting into tribes and scattering across the Earth and space. One such tribe encountered Thanos and his army at the edges of space. The tribe revolted against the Mad Titan’s wrath, and then one woman from the tribe returned home pregnant. The woman conceived the child of Thanos, who has since been living in secret on Earth. Black Bolt informs them about Thanos’ arrival on Earth.
While he chooses to fight Thanos, he asks the rest of the team to find the missing child. He hands over the Terrigen codex to Reed Richards, which has all the information about the Inhumans. But Black Bolt has secret plans of his own, and so the codex he hands to him is not the real one. The members of the Illuminati go on their search to find Thane.
Reed Richards in Taklimakan Desert, Iron Man to the Pamir mountains, Namor into the Atlantic forests, Black Panther to the Carlberg ridge, The Beast in The Pangnirtung Fjord, and Doctor Strange to The Eternal Chasm in Greenland. They all search for Thane, and Doctor Strange tracks him down to be living in a hidden Inhuman City called Orollan.
However, before he can pass on the information to his teammates Ebony Maw, one of the most trusted minions of Thanos and a member of the Black Order gets hold of him. He extracts all the information his master needs for his child and makes Doctor Strange forget about Thane’s location and even the incident. Doctor Strange gets distracted by the incursion that had just taken place and leaves.
THANE AS WICKED AS THANOS?
During the events of the storyline ‘The Thanos Seed’ post incursion, all the members of the Illuminati attended the incursion site while Thanos fought Black Bolt in Attilan. The Inhuman King detonated a Terrigen Bomb which had the power to expose any person with Inhuman gene to Terrigenesis, a process which activated their Inhuman genes and made them ascend as metahumans. Due to this, the Inhuman genes of Thane got activated which made Thane immensely powerful but without him having any control over it.
His powers went haywire, killing every inhabitant of his town before Ebony Maw arrived and handed him a suit to control his powers. Maw also confined Thane to a containment field and informed Thanos. Thanos soon arrived at Orollan and told Thane that he would soon be killed way before the Avengers arrive to confront Thanos. As the two sides battled, Ebony Maw released Thane to test him on his free will.
The boy who had been healing people hitherto did not escape but rather accepted himself as the child of Thanos and decided to fight him. With his right hand, Thane trapped Thanos and Proxima at midnight in an amber construct which left them in a state of living death. After defeating Thanos, Thane settled on a planet named Brennan-7 with numerous outcasts and protected them as his flock.
In the course of events, he was manipulated by J’son, after which he acquired and accepted the power of the Black Vortex to fight the X-men and The Guardians of the Galaxy. He was once killed by Nebula while trying to acquire the Phoenix force, but that did not help either as the Phoenix force made him its host and brought him back to life. He even accepted Mistress Death’s offer to kill Thanos but was finally defeated by his father who condemned him to a hellish life trapped inside the God Quarry.
HOW POWERFUL IS THANE?
Unfolding the storylines of Thane, one could easily accept that he was ultra-powerful. Being an Inhuman, he inherited Inhuman genes from his mother, which made him immortal in the sense he would not get affected by any disease or sickness. He used these powers to help people heal. However, post Terrigenesis, things were different as Thane could then change the very economics of existence with his left hand. His right hand could create amber constructs which could trap everyone within a certain radius and leave them in a state of living death.
All this, with the power of the Black Vortex, unleashed Thane’s true potential, improving all his skills and adding new ones. When Thane became the host for the Phoenix force, he acquired capabilities such as Interstellar Travel, Cosmic Pyrokinesis, Resurrection, Immortality, Telepathy, and Telekinesis. However, even with all that power, two significant weaknesses always remained a part of him: one being his inability to control his powers and the second being his gullibility. He was easily goaded, first by Ebony Maw and then by J’son, which showed a deep contrast to his father.
Conclusion
With all that said, we can conclude that Thane was an extremely powerful entity who had contrasting characteristics compared to his father. Thanos was crazy. He had started wiping out inhabitants of planets who were within the age range of 16 to 25 as he had calculated that to be his son’s approximate age range.
He and his minions went from planet to planet killing young lads or entirely destroying the worlds just to put an end to the life of his secret son. Thane on the other hand was always compassionate and good to everyone. The Terrigeneis transformed him into an ultra-powerful entity incapable of controlling his own powers. Thane was easily molded and used by other wicked entities to serve their cause. If things had gone otherwise Thane could have been a powerful superhero but that did not happen all thanks to the Mad Titan.