What If...? - 25 Biggest WTF Moments

Before What If…?, Thanos was easily the greatest threat the MCU had ever seen. He defeated the Avengers, and wasn’t defeated himself until half the universe had been dead for five years, Earth’s Mightiest Heroes literally invented time travel, and Tony Stark and Natasha Romanoff sacrificed themselves.

Since then however, a lot has changed. Thanos has become a Ravager in one universe, was turned into a zombie in another, and was overtaken as the greatest villainous power in the MCU by Ultron, and it’s not even close.

When Thanos came to Earth looking for the Mind Stone in episode eight, he was met by Ultron in his shiny new vibranium body on the planet he had just conquered. Without so much as a second thought, the Mad Titan was dead a second later, sliced completely in half. What If…? may have shed a completely different light on Thanos, but it has also shown how restrained he actually was.

Once he assembled the Infinity Stones he could have become a god, just like Ultron did, and explored and conquered the multiverse. However, he simply did what had to be done for the universe to survive, and nothing more. In some ways, this improves Thanos’ character, as in his own mind he was the hero, instead of simply taking over the universe because he could.