Joss Whedon Remarks on Mid-credit Villain, “Grand Daddy of Bad-a$$es”

Be warned: this article contains rather large spoilers for the mid-credits scene (no, not the one with the shawarma) of The Avengers. Stop now if you’ve committed geek treason and haven’t seen it yet. Joss Whedon and now-famous Marvel exec Kevin Feige have been talking to Film about the inclusion of comic-book supervillain-type Thanos, and they’ve said this about Thanos:

“All of our tags are sort of like that. If you don’t know who Nick Fury is, that’s just Sam Jackson in an eye mask at the end and somebody is going to tell you who it is. That really spread. So I think Thanos will be the same way. During the premiere last night there were two guys behind me, I don’t know who they were, when Thanos turned around they went “Oh my God, it’s that… What’s his name? I can’t remember his name, but he’s that… Oh my God.” So you know clearly in the way it’s presented, it’s somebody important, so “ask somebody.” But don’t spoil that” About non-fans not recognizing Thanos.

“He for me is the most powerful and fascinating Marvel villain. He’s the great grand daddy of the badasses and he’s in love with death and I just think that’s so cute. For me, the greatest Avengers was THE AVENGERS annual that Jim Starlin did followed by THE THING 2 in 1 that contained the death of Adam Warlock. Those were some of the most important texts and I think underrated milestones in Marvel history and Thanos is all over that, so somebody had to be in control and had to be behind Loki’s work and I was like “It’s got to be Thanos.” And they said “Okay” and I’m like “Oh my God!””

The interview also hinted that we might see Thanos in the upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy movie (most of us at the UTF offices reckon that GotG will come out in 2014).

Marvel’s The Avengers is in cinemas now everywhere. (Typing that feels awesome).