In the world of comics, DC’s Darkseid and Marvel’s Thanos are two of the most powerful beings in their respective universes, and in an old issue of Superman Confidential, a version of The Mad Titan serves in The Dark God’s army! Well, as close a version of Thanos as DC is legally allowed, but the art is pretty spot-on for a villain who would never be caught dead as an underling of a DC bad guy.
Seen halfway through Superman Confidential #8, by Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning, and Chris Batista, Superman is contending with his usual daily bad guy round-up when he’s met by a band of young people dubbing themselves the Forever People. Hailing from the New Genesis side of the war between the New Gods and Apokolips, Superman is told by the team that they're on Earth looking for a friend of theirs that Darkseid has recently captured.
Confused as to what’s exactly going on, Superman decides to tag along with his new friends to help them get to the bottom of a dark scheme by the Dark God. Arriving at a secret underground bunker location, Superman and the Forever People are immediately set upon by Darkseid’s forces, with one set of his warriors, in particular, acting like Thanos in all but name.
Crashing into an army also consisting of Darkseid’s usual Parademon fleet along with a few other evil henchmen, Superman is grabbed by a handful of goons that have clearly been modeled after The Mad Titan himself. Decked out in a gold helmet, gold costume accents, purple skin, and that weird lined chin that Thanos always has going for him, Chris Batista’s art gives DC fans the closest thing to an in-continuity Superman vs Thanos fight, with the script even having Supes exclaim, “Great Scott…such power…!” in regards to these legally distinct doppelgängers’ display of strength.
Widely known to the comic community as the ruthless villain he is, seeing multiple aliens based on Thanos’ character design only for Superman to immediately put them in their place is a wild instance of fan service that’s been tweaked just enough to have some plausible deniability on DC’s end. And although these Thanos lookalikes are only seen on a few panels of this issue, having The Mad Titan stop by for a quick brawl is well worth the effort put into penciling him on the page — even if he doesn’t get to spout any of his now-famous one-liners.
So while Superman and his new pals are able to beat these bargain bin Thanos copies down, getting an unexpected Marvel Easter egg in the pages of a Superman book is a fun little detail for fans to see. Superman might never truly fight Thanos in comics (unless that sweet Amalgam Universe makes a comeback), so he’ll have to settle for punching Darkseid instead.