Few MCU villains got the kind of build-up Thanos received as filmmakers prepared audiences for the Mad Titan’s big appearance in Avengers: Infinity War. Although Thanos appeared at the very end of the first Avengers movie, he appeared only sporadically from that point on — and rarely even got off of his majestic throne when he did make an appearance.
In Avengers: Infinity War, Thanos makes mention of his throne, indicating that he always hoped his adoptive daughter Gamora would one day sit on it. In the comics, however, the throne is much more than an elaborate chair — it’s an insanely powerful weapon that once allowed Thanos to nearly eradicate an entire species from his throne!
Thanos Was Inspired by the New God Metron
According to creator Jim Starlin, Thanos was inspired by Jack Kirby’s New Gods comics for DC Comics. Although many have commented on Thanos’ physical similarities to Kirby’s creation Darkseid, Starlin’s initial sketches for Thanos bore more resemblance to Kirby’s other character Metron. A New God, Metron is usually depicted sitting in his Mobius Chair, a technological marvel that enables him to travel through time, interstellar space, and other dimensions. It can also create impenetrable energy walls and possess tractor beams strong enough to tow entire planets.
Starlin gave his early versions of Thanos a throne-like the Mobius Chair but was asked to make the character look brawnier like Darkseid. The revised version of Thanos kept his chair, however, which proved to have some incredible powers of its own. Like the Mobius Chair, Thanos’ throne is a transportation chair capable of space flight, force field projection, time travel, dimensional travel, and long-range teleportation. In many ways, the chair granted Thanos several of the powers he enjoyed from the Infinity Gauntlet (albeit to a lesser extent).
Thanos created and re-created several versions of his throne, some with mystic abilities. He used his chair during his search for the Infinity Stones (aka the Soul Gems), as he needed to travel through space and even breach other dimensions to retrieve them. Significantly, Thanos possesses a mental link with his chair, making his connection to his throne similar to the bond shared by the Silver Surfer with his surfboard.
Thanos Used His Chair to Commit Genocide
At one point in Silver Surfer #35, Thanos showed just how powerful a weapon his chair could be when he used it to manipulate the Silver Surfer into helping him kill half of an alien species. Appearing to the Surfer as a professorial being, Thanos lectured the cosmic being on the great imbalance in the universe, stating that overpopulation would soon cause the deaths of many worlds.
To illustrate his point, he used his chair to teleport the Silver Surfer to many locations, including Tokyo, Japan at rush hour, polluting smokestacks, and a massive landfill just to reveal how a large population could potentially suffocate itself. Thanos teleported the Surfer so quickly that the Silver Surfer was unable to establish his mental link with his surfboard, forcing him to travel with Thanos.
In one particularly eerie scene, Thanos took the Silver Surfer to a dark and desolate place that appeared to be the aftermath of a devastating human nuclear war and claimed that this was Earth’s inevitable future. As his chair was capable of time travel, it’s possible that Thanos really did take the Surfer into the future (or one possible alternate timeline). It’s even possible that Thanos’ chair could warp reality or cast very convincing illusions, indicating it possessed abilities similar to the Reality Stone he would eventually wear on his Infinity Gauntlet.
Thanos next teleported the Silver Surfer to another alien planet, Salaria, where he claimed that the primitive lifeforms were multiplying uncontrollable thanks to a lack of predators and an overly hospitable climate. Although this resulted in a type of paradise, according to Thanos, in just twenty years the Salarians’ own overpopulation would cause them to descend into cannibalism and warfare. Teleporting the Surfer to yet another planet, Thanos disclosed his plan to euthanize half the population of the universe to spare multiple worlds from such a fate.
Angered by this extreme plan, the Surfer promised Thanos he would stand against the Mad Titan. However, Thanos simply told the Silver Surfer that the cosmic being had already aided him in his mission. Thanks to the teleportational powers of his chair, Thanos was able to have the Surfer unknowingly pick up common bacteria from Earth — harmless to humans, but deadly to Salarians. While the bacteria would have normally died on the trip to Salaria, by teleporting there directly, Thanos had ensured the Surfer would infect the gentle population with a deadly plague.
Thanos went on to add that his chair could manipulate their position in the time stream, enabling him to ensure enough time had passed on Salaria to wipe out half of the planet’s population. Horrified, the Silver Surfer summoned his board and flew to Salaria. Thanks to his Power Cosmic, he was able to synthesize a quick-spreading cure that the Salarians could spread through touch, enabling them to quickly end the plague, although the damage Thanos had done through the Surfer remained, forcing the Salarians to deal with the grisly task of disposing of their dead brothers and sisters.
Given how disturbingly easy it was for the comic book version of Thanos to destroy half of a population in seconds with only the teleportational powers of his chair, it’s easy to see why his throne doesn’t have these same capabilities in the MCU films. The movies make a big show of Thanos commanding his armies to slaughter half the population of a planet — but if he had his comic book counterpart’s throne, he could accomplish the same task through germ warfare alone. Granted this would lead to less spectacle — but it just goes to show the frightening levels of power Thanos’ original comic book version has, and his willingness to use it.