Avengers 4 Theory: How Tony Stark And Thanos Are Mirror Images
A surprising kinship...
When Avengers: Infinity War was heading towards cinemas, it always looked like the ending was going to see Captain America making a heroic last stand against Thanos, just as he did in the comics and sacrificing himself symbolically as the antithesis of everything the Mad Titan stood for. Surely that would have been the perfect end to his arc?
Strangely, the film chose a different track - a far less conventionally predictable track - of drawing Tony Stark and Thanos together more overtly. If you look close enough, the two are remarkably similar thanks to their shared convictions and what they're willing to do to make sure they're on the winning side.
Both are exceptional beings, both call on the powers of technology to unlock powerful elements (because that's what the Infinity Gauntlet is at the end of the day) and both were borne out of trauma, with difficult personal relationships. But it's something more interesting that links the pair closer together than anything else...
4. The Burden Of Knowledge
When Thanos comes face to face with Iron Man on Titan, the villain addresses him by name and surprised, Stark asks if he knows him. Thanos' response unlocks exactly what brings the pair together: he says he too is cursed with knowledge.
Fundamentally, thanks to traumatic experiences, both Thanos and Stark are haunted by visions of the end of the galaxy. Both are - in their own ways - suffering from PTSD: Thanos from the destruction of his homeworld despite his best efforts and Tony from witnessing the fragility of Earth, almost being killed in the Battle Of New York and Scarlet Witch's implanted vision in Age Of Ultron.
Both know that without something dramatic happening, the universe will come to a disastrous end, one way or another. But then, it isn't enough to merely know what is going to happen, both characters are driven enough to actually do something about it. To do whatever it takes about it, in fact...