Thanos (POP! Marvel)

Thanos

Series: POP! Marvel 

Company: Funko

Year: 2015

“The Universe will now be set right. Made over to fit my unique view of what should be. Let Nihilism reign supreme!”

Thanos, Infinity Gauntlet

One of the coolest cameos in 2014’s Guardians of the Galaxy was Josh Brolin as Thanos. Though the film didn’t really touch on his backstory in any great detail, Thanos is one of THE big bads in the Marvel (comics) universe and his appearance bodes big things for the future of the Cinematic Universe.  

My experience of Thanos is primarily through the Infinity Gauntlet miniseries, from back in the early 1990s. George Perez and Ron Lim did a fantastic job on the artwork, and though the story shows its age in a few ways these days, it’s still a fun read. There’s a lot going on, but basically Thanos gets hold of a glove which gives him god-like power and then uses it to wipe out half the life in the universe, solely to impress his paramour – who is the female personification of Death. Naturally this doesn’t go over very well with the remaining heroes and they team up to stop Thanos from causing any more mayhem. In between there’s a good deal of pontificating on the nature of power, nihilism and love, all while floating in space. It’s pretty pretentious, but when comics go this route it can turn out really well; Alan Moore’s run on Swamp Thing is still right up there for me. 

This figure is based on his appearance in Guardians of the Galaxy, rather than his classic comic outfit, but they both share considerable similarity. The most obvious differences are the darker blue on the costume and the lack of gold codpiece – both of which are fine in my book. He’s been sculpted with his disturbing smile, which in the movie lent a sense of unnerving reality to the CG creation. Uncanny valley successfully crossed! It’s not as unnerving here, but it’s still creepy. Thanos is frequently a bad, bad guy and if he’s plotting something it can’t be good for mankind – or the rest of the universe.   

If I had one complaint it’s that he’s probably a bit too big. He’s been rendered as a 6” POP, which makes him a cool display piece but is probably a bit out of scale. It was difficult to tell how tall he was in the movie, what with being seated the whole time, but I don’t think he was double the size of everyone else. A better option for me personally would have been similar to Cthulhu – sold as a 3.75” one, but notably bigger out of the box.  

Paint-wise he's pretty solid. There's a few fuzzy lines around the place, but no major dramas. The only one that bugs me is on his mouth, where the white has spilled over a little. I'd suggest you check in person, but I only had one to pick from.  

It’s kind of a shame that he doesn’t have an Infinity Gaunlet, so that he could be fudged as a comic-based Thanos too – but I strongly suspect that we’ll see this figure retooled with it in future, perhaps when Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 is released in 2017.

In the meantime, there are two versions available – the one pictured here, and the glow-in-the-dark variant which comes out in a couple of months. I was originally planning to wait for the GitD one, but I had some trade-in credit at EB Games, they had him in-store and I just went for it. I don’t think I’ll double up like I did with Cthulhu, but who knows?   

Marvel has been doing a fantastic job with its movies and it looks likely to continue forward in the future. I’m really looking forward to seeing more of Thanos in the future – though I doubt the battle for the Infinity Gauntlet will take place on the same scale as in the comics, it should still be quite epic.   

"I guess I'm pretty evil. I live under the sea and sometimes I give people bad dreams,"
"Oh, that's cute. I once wiped out half the life in the universe."