We've been hearing a lot about Avengers: Infinity War lately and now writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely have finally weighed in on the highly anticipated Marvel Studios movie. Asked during an on-set interview about how the threequel is going to delve into Thanos' origin story, McFeely explained how it delves into his motivations and fleshes him out in a way previous releases haven't.
"One of the big challenges is how to make sure he’s not just a relentless machine collecting stones like he’s going shopping," the writer explained. "So we want to give him a full weighted emotional story. You can kind of say this is Thanos’ origin story, so that he will get the weight of any of the previous heroes in terms of the decisions he has to make in order to get what he wants."
That makes perfect sense and is much-needed after what were essentially blink and you'll miss them appearances in the likes of The Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy. As for how Avengers: Infinity War is going to take inspiration from Jim Starlin's comic book work, Markus had this to say:
"Part of it is motivation, where if you have a villain who just wants to kill somebody or just wants to take over the world because it seems like a fun thing to do, or has been paid by the Russians to take over the world…run for President to take over the world … That guy isn’t very interesting. He’s pathetic but, we take this from [Jim] Starlin. Thanos is an amoral philosopher. He’s not the Devil – although he does sometimes have the Devil standing next to him. We wanted that all the way through. To have a villain with understandable motivations and emotions. Thanos has family. Thanos has two daughters that we know of. Thanos has eight million backstories in the comics but they’re all kind of sad."
Whoa, wait a second? The devil?! Could it be that the writer is referring to Mephisto, a character who played a key role in the Infinity Gauntlet comic book? Asked to elaborate on the remarks above, Markus said: "Oh, Mephisto in the comics. I can neither confirm nor deny the existence of Mephisto. He’s often seen in hell, but he’s not the evil. He’s something more elemental, more primal."
The fact that Markus wouldn't flat out deny the presence of Mephisto in the movie is definitely interesting and we've been hearing for a while now that Avengers: Infinity War is going to feature some surprise characters. We'll just have to wait and see for now but let us know your thoughts below.