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- "Tony, you fought him."
"Who told you that? I didn't fight him. No, he wiped my face with a planet while the Bleecker Street magician gave away the store." - ―Steve Rogers and Tony Stark[src]
The Battle of Titan was a conflict on the Titans' homeworld that pitted Thanos against Iron Man, Spider-Man, the Guardians of the Galaxy, and Doctor Strange.
Tony Stark, keen on defeating Thanos, guided the Q-Ship to Titan, along with Strange and Spider-Man, where the trio encountered Star-Lord, Mantis, Drax the Destroyer and Nebula. Joining forces, the team nearly managed to subdue Thanos and remove his Infinity Gauntlet, until Star-Lord, upon learning of Gamora's murder, woke Thanos from his trance. In order to spare the life of Stark, who was destined to sacrifice himself in the only timeline where the Mad Titan was ultimately defeated, Strange relinquished the Time Stone to Thanos.
Background[]
Having recently obtained the Power Stone from Xandar, Thanos attacked the Statesman, murdering half of the Asgardians and Sakaaran Rebellion aboard, and obtaining the Space Stone from Loki. Intending to personally retrieve the Reality Stone from the Collector, Thanos tasked the Black Order with obtaining the Mind and Time Stones on Earth, before bringing them to him on his homeworld, Titan. The Black Order split up to complete this task; Ebony Maw and Cull Obsidian head straight for the Sanctum Sanctorum in New York City to retrieve the Time Stone from Doctor Strange, while Proxima Midnight and Corvus Glaive chose to hunt for the Mind Stone possessed by Vision.
During the attack on the Sanctum, Maw managed to immobilize and capture Strange and the Time Stone, which was protected by a magical seal conjured by Strange. Taking them back to his Q-Ship to bring to Thanos, Maw set the Ship on an automated course for Titan. However, the Ship was unknowingly boarded by Iron Man, Spider-Man, and the Cloak of Levitation, who, in a brief conflict, rescued Strange, killed Maw and commandeered the Ship. However, in lieu of returning the Ship to Earth, Iron Man decided to continue on their course to Titan in a gambit to ambush Thanos directly in his own territory, where he would not be expecting an attack, and to protect Earth from further collateral damage.
Elsewhere, the Guardians of the Galaxy were on a separate quest to stop Thanos. Splitting up, Star-Lord, Mantis, Drax the Destroyer, and Gamora attempted to ambush Thanos on Knowhere to prevent him from taking the Reality Stone. However, the Guardians were themselves outwitted, resulting in the capture of Gamora, who held crucial information that Thanos required; the location of the Soul Stone. To prevent Thanos from torturing her captive sister Nebula, Gamora revealed the location of the Soul Stone to be on Vormir. However, to fulfill the price required to obtain the Stone, Thanos reluctantly sacrificed Gamora to the Stone.
Unaware of Gamora's death, the remaining Guardians, acting on a tip from the escaped Nebula, landed on Titan with the aim of ambushing Thanos there. Shortly after, the Q-Ship carrying Iron Man, Strange and Spider-Man crash-landed on the barren planet. The Guardians raided the Ship and attacked the Avengers, each believing the other to be working for Thanos. However, after a tense standoff, both parties realized they shared the same goal, before deciding to work together to ambush Thanos, who they expected to be arriving soon.
The Avengers and the Guardians of the Galaxy
Awaiting Thanos' arrival, Iron Man, Spider-Man, and the Guardians attempted to formulate a plan of attack, while Strange activated the Time Stone to view all possible outcomes and futures of the coming battle. Having seen exactly 14,000,605 possible timelines, Strange gravely informed the others that only one timeline ended in Thanos' defeat.[1]
Battle[]
Striding through a portal conjured by the Space Stone, Thanos finally arrived on Titan, only to find the wreckage of Ebony Maw's Q-Ship. The Power, Space, Reality and Soul Stone's gleaming on his Infinity Gauntlet, Thanos was instead greeted by Doctor Strange, carrying the Eye of Agamotto. Deducing that Maw had been killed, Thanos resignedly lamented the heavy losses he suffered, saying that his quest extracted a heavy toll, but did note that his son had still accomplished his mission of bringing the Time Stone to him. Strange countered, warning Thanos that he may regret that Maw had, in the process, also brought him face-to-face with a Master of the Mystic Arts.
Thanos shows Titan's past to Doctor Strange
Choosing to remain civil with the Sorcerer Supreme, the Titan ignored the threat, simply asking Strange where he believed Maw had brought him. As Thanos slowly approached, Strange calmly guessed that Titan was his former home. Nodding wistfully in affirmation to Strange, Thanos stopped and began to reminisce. Using the Reality Stone to craft an illusion of Titan's former beauty to Strange, Thanos explained Titan's fall from grace: Once a beautiful paradise, over time overpopulation threatened to consume the planet's finite resources and weaken its entire civilization. Realizing that his people were faced with extinction, Thanos proposed a random, fair genocidal action to lower the population to safe levels, in order to save those that lived. However, the immorality of his "solution" caused his own people to cast him out, branding him a madman. Nonetheless, Thanos' predictions came to pass, and Titan became the dead, inhospitable graveyard it was now.
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Thanos informs Doctor Strange of his motives
Sarcastically, Strange hailed Thanos as a prophet, but Thanos retorted, claiming himself instead to be a lone survivor. Strange remained skeptical, continuing to condemn the Titan's motivations as merely mass murder of trillions. Thanos, resolute in his beliefs, assured Strange that his plan was necessary, asserting that with all six Infinity Stones, a single finger snap would only cause a painless and merciful cessation of existence for half of all life in the Universe.
Doctor Strange challenges Thanos
Scoffing, Strange stood and questioned the Titan as to his intentions after completing his goal. Thanos smiled mournfully and voiced his desire to simply retire in peace while watching the sunrise on a grateful universe. With resignation, the Titan noted that the "hardest choices required the strongest wills." Strange countered, entering a combat stance, warning Thanos that their wills would be equal to his. At this moment, Thanos realized too late that Strange wasn't alone, and had, in fact, lured the Titan into an ambush. Before he could react, he was immediately crushed underneath a massive piece of a spaceship hull, dropped on him by Iron Man.
With a few seconds of respite, the Avengers and the Guardians of the Galaxy began to emerge from hiding and move into their pre-planned positions, with Star-Lord warning that Thanos would only be infuriated by the initial attack. Using the Power and Reality Stones, the Titan freed himself by violently detonating the debris, before instantly transforming the rubble into an enormous swarm of bats with the Reality Stone. The swarm quickly set upon Iron Man, forcing him to retreat.
Thanos and Doctor Strange battle each other
However, Thanos' fury was short-lived, and he quickly found himself under a coordinated assault from every direction. Swinging out of reach, Spider-Man fired webbing into Thanos' eyes, blinding him. Simultaneously, Drax the Destroyer emerged from behind, slashing Thanos' legs with his knives while Strange closed in. Conjuring a sword from Magic, the good doctor engaged the half-blinded Thanos in brief close combat alongside Drax, buying time for Star-Lord to fly into position. However, Thanos swiftly gained the upper hand, downing Drax with a single punch and disarming Strange, while removing the webbing covering his eye.
Undeterred, Star-Lord quickly took position behind Thanos and began to close in, shooting him with his Quad Blasters to gain his attention. Running on energy platforms conjured by Strange to dodge blasts from the Power Stone, Star-Lord managed to discreetly plant an explosive on Thanos' back. He then leaped back into a Inter-Dimensional Portal conjured by Strange, using the opportunity to flip the Titan his middle finger before detonating the explosive and briefly stunning Thanos.
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Spider-Man is attacked by Thanos
The distraction allowed Strange a chance to send the Cloak of Levitation into the melee, telling it to prevent Thanos from closing his fist, an action the Gauntlet required to operate. The Cloak quickly wrapped itself around the Infinity Gauntlet, preventing Thanos from activating it. Using his Sling Ring, Strange summoned Spider-Man to attack Thanos, leaping through conjured portals to repeatedly attack him from all sides and preventing him from removing the Cloak. Thanos attempted to bat the webslinger aside, and though he failed multiple times initially, the assault was short-lived. The angry Titan grabbed and furiously pinned Spider-Man to the ground, before hurling him at Strange, knocking them both to the ground.
Spider-Man attempts to web up Thanos' hand
As Thanos forcefully ripped the Cloak from the Gauntlet unimpeded, he was bombarded by a renewed assault from Iron Man, who rained missiles down on the Titan. Unfazed, and with the Gauntlet freed, Thanos activated the Power and Space Stones together. In a second, the explosive energy of Stark's missiles was absorbed by the Gauntlet and redirected at Tony Stark in a concentrated beam of flame, blasting the Avenger far away into a spaceship husk. Recovering, Spider-Man swung in, attempting to pull the Gauntlet away from Thanos using a web, only to be pulled in and struck once again.
Before Thanos could make his next move, he was rammed from behind by a Necrocraft, piloted by Nebula, who had escaped her captivity. Unfazed, Thanos coldly greeted Nebula, who angrily reproached him for not killing her. As Thanos coldly dismissed such an act as a "waste of parts", Nebula furiously attacked Thanos with her electric baton. Demanding he reveal Gamora's whereabouts, Nebula managed to briefly hold her ground against Thanos in close combat, but was quickly beaten down. However, Nebula's arrival proved to be a major turning point, buying time for the group to reassemble and mobilize.
Star-Lord fires a Gravity Mine at Thanos
Taking advantage of the opening Nebula created, Doctor Strange quickly cast a binding spell on Thanos, restraining the Gauntlet with crimson bands of energy. Drax ran in, tackling and pinning Thanos' legs, forcing the Titan to his knees. Flying back into the field, Star-Lord launched a Gravity Mine at Thanos using his Blasters, ensnaring his right arm. As Spider-Man anchored Thanos' shoulders back using both his webbing and his armor's spider-like limbs, a recovered Iron Man swooped in, taking Strange's place to hold the Gauntlet. With his hands freed and Thanos momentarily immobilized, Strange used his Sling Ring to open a portal and drop the waiting Mantis on Thanos' head, before restraining his right arm again. Using her empathic powers, Mantis briefly struggled with Thanos, before managing with great difficulty to force the Titan into a subdued, trance-like state.
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With Thanos barely restrained, the group began to execute the final step of their plan. As Mantis beckoned the others to hurry before Thanos could break her hold, Iron Man and Spider-Man began to forcefully pull the Gauntlet from the Titan's hand. Flying in, Star-Lord approached and taunted the half-conscious Thanos, before demanding the whereabouts of Gamora. At this remark, Thanos began to react in anguish, with Mantis sensing that he was mourning. Nebula began to realize in horror and sadness that he was in fact, mourning Gamora, having sacrificed her for the Soul Stone.
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In denial, Star-Lord angrily asked Thanos to tell him that Gamora was alive, only for Thanos to lament that he had no choice but to kill her, confirming Nebula's suspicions. Enraged, and despite Iron Man's attempts to persuade him to put a hold on his anger, Star-Lord began to ruthlessly beat Thanos impulsively with one of his blasters, inadvertently breaking Mantis' control over the Titan. Freed from his trance and now fully enraged, Thanos quickly escaped his restraints, seizing the Gauntlet, throwing Mantis and Strange away, and brutally overpowering the group.
Spider-Man saves the Guardians of the Galaxy
Spider-Man moved to rescue Mantis, while Thanos instantly knocked out Star-Lord, Drax, and Nebula with a single wild shockwave from the Power Stone. Rebuffing a desperate assault from Iron Man, Thanos then turned to Titan's nearby moon. Using the Power and Space Stones together, Thanos immediately pulverized the moon's surface, before furiously hurling its fragments down on his opponents as a hail of meteors. Spider-Man successfully saved the unconscious Guardians from the falling fragments, but Iron Man was crushed under an oncoming meteor, briefly incapacitating him.
Doctor Strange dueling Thanos
Thanos soon confronted a recovered Strange, who had managed to dodge the debris with the Cloak of Levitation. The two began a ferocious duel, with Strange launching the first strike, casting the Bolts of Balthakk at Thanos. Leaping into the air to avoid them, Thanos retaliated with a blast of energy from the Power Stone. Strange countered, opening a gateway to the Mirror Dimension to absorb the beam, before pushing the gateway at Thanos in a bid to trap him. Thanos responded by destroying the gateway with the Power Stone, before throwing the remnants back at Strange in the form of a destructive black hole with the Space Stone. Thinking quickly, Strange cast a spell to transmute the singularity into a swarm of blue butterflies, briefly confusing Thanos.
Thanos restrained by Doctor Strange
Taking advantage of the opening, Strange used his magic to split into an army of magical doppelgängers of himself to restrain Thanos with hundreds of Eldritch Whips. However, Thanos immediately regained the upper hand, activating the Soul and Power Stones to instantly destroy the decoy images and briefly sunder Strange's Astral Form from his body. With his opponent staggered, Thanos activated the Space and Reality Stones, pulling Strange to his hand before he could react, winning the duel. Admitting that while he was impressed by Strange's mastery over Magic, Thanos deduced that, as the sorcerer had never once attempted to use the Time Stone to his advantage, Strange had hidden the Stone, using a replica Eye as a decoy. Confirming his suspicions, Thanos seized and crushed the fake Eye of Agamotto, revealing it to be empty, before tossing Strange aside.
However, before Thanos could finish Strange and look for the Time Stone, Iron Man restrained the Gauntlet using a nanotech clamp, before confronting Thanos. To his surprise, Thanos recognized and called him by his name. Understanding that he was analogous to Stark in that they were both futurists, Thanos implied an existential connection between them by noting that they were both "cursed with knowledge";[1] with Stark's knowledge of Thanos' oncoming threat early on, and Thanos' knowledge of the catastrophe of overpopulation.[4] Unfazed, Iron Man blamed Thanos himself as his curse, and attacked him first, blasting him with missiles. With Thanos distracted, Iron Man began attacking him relentlessly with his nanotech armor, kicking Thanos with his enhanced boosters before he could recover.
Anchoring his feet to the ground, Iron Man immediately struck Thanos again with repulsor-powered battering rams, beating him back into a wall. Recovering quickly, Thanos tore off Iron Man's helmet with his bare hand and punched him to the ground. Stark reformed his helmet just in time. With Iron Man dazed, Thanos quickly ripped the clamp from the Gauntlet, and immediately blasted the downed Avenger with a concentrated beam from the Power Stone. Barely recovering, Iron Man managed to block and sidestep the blast by forming a shield.
Boosting in a renewed assault, Iron Man swiftly pinned the Gauntlet to the ground using a foot clamp before twisting around and pummeling the Titan's face with a repulsor-boosted hammer, with enough force to make him bleed. Unfazed, Thanos simply taunted him for giving so much labor and struggle only to shed a single drop of blood. He then effortlessly ripped the Gauntlet free from Iron Man's hold, flipping Iron Man onto his back. Thanos began to brutally beat the downed Avenger with his fists, breaking off more and more of his armor with each strike. With Iron Man helpless to resist, Thanos followed with a point-blank blast with the Power Stone to his abdomen, sending him flying and heavily damaging his armor.
Thanos stabs Tony Stark in the abdomen
Desperate and missing much of the upper half of his armor, Iron Man attempted to hold off the advancing Thanos with his repulsors, relocating the nanites in his leg armor to form new arm repulsors, to no avail. Closing in, Thanos began beating Iron Man, once again, destroying his helmet. Stark attempted to defend himself with his bare hands, only for Thanos to grab and trap his left hand. In a last-ditch attempt to fight back, Stark immediately shifted the nanites from his left arm to his right arm to form a sword, and wildly stabbed at Thanos. However, Thanos simply tore the sword from Stark's hand and ruthlessly stabbed him in the abdomen with it, decisively ending the fight.
Thanos is given the Time Stone
Cradling the injured Stark's head in his hand, Thanos revealed his respect for the Avenger, genuinely impressed by his fearlessness and determination. Nevertheless, he prepared to kill him, only for Strange to intervene, offering the Time Stone in exchange for Stark's life, much to Stark's surprise. Though initially skeptical, Thanos agreed after warning Strange not to double-cross him. Despite Stark's pleas to not give in, Strange revealed the Time Stone, having disguised it as a star in Titan's sky, and surrendered it to Thanos.
Taking the Stone, Thanos inserted it into the thumb slot of the Gauntlet, leaving him with only one more to collect: the Mind Stone. Suddenly, his respite was interrupted by an awakened and enraged Star-Lord, who began to wildly fire at him, but Thanos remained unfazed and activated the Space Stone and vanished through a portal. A horrified Star-Lord, realizing the gravity of the situation, asked if they had just lost the battle, while a resigned Stark, healing his wound using the last of his nanites, asked Strange why he would give up the Time Stone to Thanos. As they awaited the inevitable, Strange could only inform Stark that they were now in the endgame.[1]
Aftermath[]
Snap[]
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Spider-Man, Iron Man and the Guardians of the Galaxy recover from the battle
- "Did we just lose?"
"Why would you do that?"
"We're in the endgame now." - ―Star-Lord, Iron Man and Doctor Strange[src]
Peter Quill helped Mantis stand up, while Peter Parker provided support for Tony Stark. They all gathered around, until Mantis told them something was happening and then disintegrated into dust. Shortly after, Drax the Destroyer disintegrated, and Quill followed suit. Doctor Strange, resigned to his fate, told Stark that this outcome was the only way, before disappearing as well.
Tony Stark mourns in the aftermath of the Snap
Parker, using his Spider-Sense, tearfully pleaded with Stark that he didn't want to go, only to disintegrate in Stark's hands. Eventually, only Stark and Nebula were left, defeated and stranded on Titan. Nebula could only solemnly state that Thanos had finally succeeded in his goal, as Stark silently sat down knowing the battle was lost.[1]
Stranded in Space[]
- "Some fuel cells were cracked during battle, but we figured out a way to reverse the ion charge to buy ourselves about forty-eight hours of time. But it's now dead in the water."
- ―Tony Stark[src]
Tony Stark and Nebula left Titan in the Benatar but eventually found out that the fuel cells had been cracked due to the battle. This ultimately led them to be stranded in space, until they were both rescued by Carol Danvers.[5]
Behind the Scenes[]
- Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely originally wrote a flashback sequence featuring a younger Thanos trying to appeal his discovery on Titan's senate before the Battle of Titan. but they dropped it as it was a piece of backstory which could be heavily implied.[6]
- In an early draft of Avengers: Infinity War, the Living Tribunal was meant to appear during the Battle of Titan.[7]
- The part of the battle in which Thanos drops a moon on Iron Man was pitched and designed by Anthony Francisco, who cited it as being among his favorite keyframes he has designed. Francisco also designed the fight between Thanos and Doctor Strange, having been given the instruction to make "an epic battle between Doctor Strange and Thanos that you've never seen before." He was initially going to have Strange and Thanos punching each other, but made the concept bigger continuously until it developed into the moon being dropped down. Another idea was for Thanos to pull a sun from a black hole to attack Strange.[8]
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 Avengers: Infinity War
- ↑ "4/30/2018" on Scott's laptop in Ant-Man and the Wasp
- ↑ Marvel Studios' The Marvel Cinematic Universe: An Official Timeline
- ↑ Infinity War: Why Thanos Knew About Tony Stark
- ↑ Avengers: Endgame
- ↑ Avengers: Infinity War Writers Detail Scrapped Thanos Origin Story
- ↑ ‘Avengers: Endgame’: The Screenwriters Answer Every Question You Might Have
- ↑ Interviewing Anthony Francisco: Former Marvel Studios Senior Visual Development Artist
