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.

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, although 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."
• Death was initially meant to feature as Thanos' motivation for the Snap in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. In addition to being mentioned in The Avengers, Josh Brolin revealed following the release of Guardians of the Galaxy that Thanos' relationship with Death would be explored and that she would be portrayed as a woman in the MCU. In the interview, Bron stated "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 removed by Joe and Anthony Russo, directors 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."
  • Joss Whedon has stated that when he featured Thanos at the end of The Avengers, he didn't know what to do with him and "kind of hung [Thanos] out to dry," adding that "I 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". Despite Avengers: Infinity War ultimately diverting from Thanos' set-up in The Avengers, Whedon enjoyed the new approach the Russo Brothers took as they gave Thanos "an actual perspective and [making] him feel righteous to himself".
• Hive, a powerful Inhuman whom HYDRA revered, was referred to as "Death" due to its fearsome nature and reputation.

External Links

• Death on Marvel Database
• Death on Wikipedia