'Avengers: Infinity War': The Evolution of Thanos' Look

Thanos initially made his live-action debut, unexpectedly, during the mid-credits coda for Marvel's The Avengers.

Throughout the film, the exact identity of the being with whom Loki was in league had been kept secret, although it was clear that he was a cosmic being with immense power, which narrowed it down significantly. At the film's end, Thanos revealed himself to the camera with a smile, and fans were apoplectic.

Told by one of his minions that to attempt to rule humanity is to "court death," Thanos turned and smiled.

Little of the mad titan was visible in The Avengers. The pointed, golden armor of his shoulder was visible at least briefly, as were his armored wrists and exposed hands -- which, in the film's lighting, did not match the color eventually revealed for his face at all.

The face was a dark, deep purple, with glowing blue eyes, and Thanos' chin looked essentially like it does in the comics.

Even the "courting death" line was a nod to the comics, in which Thanos does what he does in part because he is in love with the literal personification of death in the form of a curvy, skull-faced, female grim reaper.

In Guardians of the Galaxy, Thanos made his second Marvel Cinematic Universe appearance, floating in his throne for much of the film and wryly mocking his second minion, Ronan the Accuser.

Ronan spent the film trying to kill Xandarians, and the Guardians when they got in his way, all while seeking an Infinity Stone to do it.

His elaborate, plated armor in this movie echoed his comics costume closely, with a narrow "T" shape in gold on his chest that fed into his shoulder pads and looked more like a glorified seam than a super villain's sigil.

His headpiece, while more segmented and elaborate than the comics (again, like his top), featured a central design similar to Thanos's "crown" from the comics.

Even by this point, his eyes were still supernaturally vibrant but did not have the same madly glowing affect they had in his first appearance. That they had significantly lightened the purple color of his skin was the big thing that stuck out at most fans, though, along with their first full look at his costume.

Appearing again in a post-credits sequence for Avengers: Age of Ultron, Thanos pulls the Infinity Gauntlet (without any gems on it) out of a locker of some kind and mutters, "Fine. I'll do it myself."

This was an interesting thing for fans to see, since as far as we knew, the Infinity Gauntlet was housed in Asgard's vaults. Rather than re-establish Thanos' relationship with Loki, though, and simply say that Loki handed it over to his former master, instead it was offered in Age of Ultron without any real explanation, and then explained away when Hela derided Odin's Gauntlet as "fake!" in Thor: Ragnarok.

In that Thanos appearance, he looked largely similar to the version seen in Guardians of the Galaxy, except perhaps with eyes that were a bit less on the vibrant side, though that is debatable since we did not see much of them and the lighting was much different here than it was in Guardians.

The next time fans saw Thanos was in the first teaser trailer for Avengers: Infinity War. The upcoming film's story will center on Thanos, in an apparent semi-adaptation of the Jim Starlin/Ron Lim comics event The Infinity Gauntlet.

At the end of The Infinity Gauntlet, Thanos was defeated, but rather than being killed he was stripped of his powers and station and ended up on a remote planet in the middle of nowhere, farming.

It is the "Farmer Thanos" look that was invoked, both seriously and in jest, after the first glimpses at a Thanos who does not wear a crown or most of his decorative armor in at least a portion of the movie.

It is not a 1:1 transfer from the page, though: rather than a full-on farmer, Thanos here appears more or less as a casual Friday version of the Thanos we had already seen in the movies, right down to his short-sleeved tunic being decorated with gold in all the places his armor would ordinarily have been.

This latest version of Thanos, too, features much more "human" eyes. It is difficult to say whether this is something that will play into the story or whether it is just part of the journey, recently detailed by Josh Brolin, to make the character somewhat more relatable.

The last look for Thanos (at least so far) is that of a warrior.

Unveiled in today's trailer, his newly revealed armor is more protective and menacing than his previous version, which appeared regal and largely ceremonial.

Of course, so far the fighting we have seen him doing with The Avengers is in the more casual "Farmer Thanos" look, for whatever reason. It seems from context that the heavily armored Thanos is actually from a flashback, detailing Gamora's early life as the favored daughter of a homicidal maniac.

Gamora and Nebula, the warring sisters of the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise, grew up with Thanos, who raised them as his own and pitted them against one another. As a result, they hate both each other and him, which is the major driving force for Nebula in the films.

While ostensibly here to protect Earth from Thanos, in fact the Guardians have their own agenda: several of the team's members want to see Thanos dead altogether. Nebula, who served at Thanos' side in the comics version of The Infinity Gauntlet, was ultimately the one responsible for bringing him down in that story.

Black Panther is now in theaters. It will be followed by Avengers: Infinity War on April 27th, Ant-Man and the Wasp on July 6th, Captain Marvel on March 8, 2019, the fourth Avengers movie on May 3, 2019, the sequel to Spider-Man: Homecoming on July 5, 2019, and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 in 2020.

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