‘Avengers: Infinity War’ Fan Edit Turns Thanos Into Darkseid

Last week brought a substantial moment of “DC vs Marvel” Movie reflection, as the Avengers: Infinity War trailer conquered the Internet, while Justice League faded further away from the pop-culture limelight, while continuing its slow-burn crawl through theaters.

Today fans of either or both camps can hopefully breathe a little easier and have some fun with both comic book industry leaders, as one fan has gone back through the Infinity War trailer to add a little DC Comics flare!

As you an see below, this new Avengers/Justice League meme (via Reddit) takes the grand entrance of Marvel Cinematic Universe villain Thanos, and gives him a makeover into DC Comics’ cosmic overlord, Darkseid. There’s a running gag here, in that Marvel’s Thanos (created in 1973) has long be accused of being a knock-off of DC’s Darkseid (created in 1971). Hence the sheer amount of memes that are focused on swapping both villains out for one another.

Thanos creator Jim Starlin has admitted in the past that he first thought up Thanos while working at Marvel because he wanted The Avengers to be able to fight a Darkseid-esque character. At the same time, Starlin has made it clear that Thanos quickly took on a life of his own, and the similarities to Darkseid disappeared. Ironically enough, when Starlin went to work for DC Comics in the 1980s, he had the opposing impulse, wanting to create a Thanos-like character for Superman and the Justice League to battle: hence the creation of DC Comics’ villain, Mongul.

While Thanos is finally making his Marvel Cinematic Universe debut in Avengers: Infinity War, when we’ll see Darkseid onscreen is a much bigger question. Justice League hasn’t performed like Warner Bros. hoped, and the film does a lot of work setting the stage for a Darkseid debut in the sequel that may never happen now (at least not as planned).

Avengers: Infinity War opens in theaters on May 4, 2018. Thor: Ragnarok is now playing in theaters. Other upcoming Marvel Cinematic Universe movies include; Black Panther on February 16, 2018, Ant-Man and the Wasp on July 6, 2018, 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.

Justice League is now in theaters; Aquaman arrives on December 21, 2018; Shazam on April 5, 2019; Wonder Woman 2 on November 1st, 2019; Cyborg on April 3, 2020; and Green Lantern Corps on July 24, 2020.