Death

Death
Gender	Female
Date of Birth	Dawn of time
Affiliation	Cosmic Entities
Status	Unknown
Appearances
Movie	The Avengers (mentioned) Guardians of the Galaxy (pictured)
Comic	The Avengers Adaptation (mentioned)

"Humans. They are not the cowering wretches we were promised! They stand. They are unruly and therefore cannot be ruled. To challenge them is to court...Death."

―The Other to Thanos^[src]

Death is one of the Cosmic Entities in the universe.

Biography

The walls of the Temple Vault on Morag displayed the four entities that created the Infinity Stones: Entropy, Infinity, Death, and Eternity.

In 2012, after Loki's defeat in the Chitauri Invasion, The Other told Thanos that humanity was not as weak as they had predicted and battling them is "to court Death", to which Thanos smiled probably remembering her, with whom he shared an emotional bond.

Trivia

• In the comics, Death is the nearly omnipotent personification of death created by God, who has the power to release or bring back souls from their bodies yet she can't control those souls contracted by Mephisto. She most notably resurrected Thanos during The Infinity Gauntlet storyline to kill fifty percent of the universe and create a balance on the souls, with Thanos planning to rule the universe with Death by his side despite Death's disinterest in him.

Behind the Scenes

• As detailed in The Art of Guardians of the Galaxy: "Death embodies decay and can possess the soul of a living being. Often taking the form of a woman, Death can manipulate reality, time, and space, and came into existence at the same time as Entropy, Eternity, and Infinity. Immortals are immune to Death's ability. Thanos wanted to rule the universe with Death. In an attempt to impress her, he killed half of the life in the universe with the snap of his fingers."
• In an interview, Josh Brolin expanded on Thanos' relationship with Death, and confirmed that Death will be portrayed as a woman in the Marvel Cinematic Universe: "His relationship with Death, who is actually the woman, I love that. You can take Sin City (in which Brolin plays a man obsessed with a dark-hearted woman) and pump it full of steroids, and then you have Thanos. I like that he’s motivated by that — not just motivated by destruction or death or this or that. He’s motivated by a very identifiable, human trait."
  • However, Death ended up being left out of Avengers: Infinity War, with Joe Russo explaining that they felt the time they would be introducing the character would be better spent focusing on just Thanos and the film's already large cast, stating "It’s our responsibility to carry forward the story as it’s been set out. You’re spending two-and-a-half hours with this many characters, so then adding in some character that the audience has no relationship to, having to explain the backstory of that character, making you care about that character, making Thanos care about that character, making that character interesting to the other characters."
  • Neverthless, despite that Avengers: Infinity War ultimately diverted from Thanos' set-up in The Avengers, Joss Whedon has stated that when he featured Thanos, he didn't know what to do with him and "kind of hung [Thanos] out to dry," adding that "I [Whedon] love Thanos. I love his apocalyptic vision, his love affair with death. I love his power. But, I don’t really understand it," confirming that his tease was ambiguous when it was made and that the Death storyline was "not a concept that will necessarily translate". Indeed, Whedon enjoyed the approach the filmmakers took as they gave Thanos "an actual perspective and [making] him feel righteous to himself".
• Hive, a powerful Inhuman who HYDRA reveres, was referred to as "Death" due to its fearsome nature and reputation.

External Links

• Death on Marvel Database
• Death on Wikipedia