5 Strangest Facts About Thanos

When that purple man smiled in the after-credits of Marvel's The Avengers movie, everybody knew they were in for a treat. Thanos is coming! Consort of Death herself! Master of the Infinity Gauntlet! The Mad Titan!

And I'm sure a lot of folks have scoured the 'Net for his info and history, and they probably found what they were looking for. But are you sure you know everything about Thanos?

To help you with that, I've compiled five of the strangest facts about Thanos, from the strange to the creepy to the downright hilarious. Are you ready to learn a little bit more about our big purple dude? Then read on!

Thanos is NOT a Skrull!

It's one of the popular misconceptions about Thanos. Skrulls have wrinkly chins. Thanos has a wrinkly chin. Therefore, Thanos is a Skrull! All those Logic classes in college weren't for naught!

While I do agree that the resemblance is uncanny, it's strange to know that he isn't actually a Skrull! The misconception probably stemmed when Alex Ross proposed the theory in his Earth X miniseries, where his mother Sui-San was secretly a Skrull all along (instead of an Eternal Titan). But in actuality, Thanos was merely born with an ugly Deviant gene, which is the reason why he's got that face only a mother could love.

Thanos owned a helicopter!

While other evil conquerors cruise around in battleships and planet-sized fortresses, Thanos in his early years chose to keep it simple. In Spidey Super-Stories #39, when Thanos fought Spider-Man and Patsy Walker/Hellcat over possession of the Cosmic Cube, the Mad Titan pestered the heroes while in a helicopter with his name emblazoned on the tail.

And this is why I love comics.

Thanos seduced Galactus!

If there's one thing Thanos loves other than genocide, it's power. And in Thanos #3, the titular villain decided to get it from one who has it in spades: Galactus, Devourer of Worlds. It started out simply enough...Thanos setting the mood, lulling Galactus into a false sense of security, and then BAM! Thanos got a little too hands-on for comfort. And Galactus' next few words will stay with me to the end of my days:

Talk about a date gone bad.

Thanos was once a Galactus!

Continuing his weird relationship with Galactus...did you know that during 2002's Infinity Abyss mini-series, Thanos once created a clone of himself using his own DNA and patterned after a certain Devourer of Worlds?

The clone was called Omega, and he was one of the Thanosi, powerful doppelgangers created by Thanos for use as allies/bodyguards in his everyday conquering. Omega here was obviously patterned after Galactus, with all the power that entails. Unfortunately, like all the other Thanosi, Omega was bred to think like Thanos (i.e., loving nothing else but the end of all life in the universe). Couple that with near-limitless power and you've got a recipe for a cosmic-level disaster so horrible, Thanos himself thought it was the worst idea ever.

Thanos was defeated by...Squirrel Girl?!

Not exactly Thanos' greatest moment. In 2005's GLX-Mas Special #1, Thanos went toe-to-toe with the cutesy, squirrel-empowered Squirrel Girl while empowered by the life-force of the entire planet...

...and Thanos lost.

Crazy, isn't it? To add salt to this festering wound of indignities, Uatu the Watcher came and straight-up confirmed that it was indeed Thanos ("...and not a robot, clone or simulacrum!"), in case anyone had any doubt that a D-lister got a clean win against the being who once killed half the population of the universe.

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There you have it! Five off-the-wall facts about the next big Avengers villain in Marvel's The Avengers sequel! I hope you learned a lot about our Mad Titan, I know I did! And I'm still trying to scrub it from my brain! Thanks for reading!