Building a Supervillain: Thanos vs. Darkseid

*Contains spoilers for Zack Snyder's Justice League

With the release of Zack Snyder’s Justice League (which in my opinion is the definitive version), we’ve had the chance to see Darkseid, DC’s counterpart to the popular Marvel villain Thanos. Both these characters represent their respective universe’s ultimate villain. As such, these types of villains can’t be introduced out of the blue, they must be built up slowly, not just to build anticipation for the fans, but to establish their reputation as an existential threat to our heroes. I’m going to talking about which villain was built up as a more intimidating foe.

Thanos

Thanos is the Marvel’s universe’s resident megalomaniac titan. His quest is to bring balance to the universe my eliminating half of its population through the use of the infinity stones. However, he spends an incredible amount of time using proxies to collect the stones and is consequently behind the scenes of many Marvel movies, like the invasion of Earth in The Avengers. Thanos has various cameos throughout the group MCU movies as well. He’s featured for a few moments in Avengers and has a longer role in the Guardians of the Galaxy movie where he promises the movie's antagonist Ronan an army in exchange for an infinity stone, but he quickly shuffled out of the movie as Ronan becomes disobedient. The quantity of these scenes rather than the quality helps build anticipation for an inevitable Thanos movie. His presence throughout these movies is subtle, the most impactful scene being when Thanos threatens an impassioned Ronan with a bloodbath, which sends enough of a message of power. And although Thanos is never seen in action, his frequent presences serves as constant teaser for his strength.

By the time Infinity War rolls around, the anticipation of Thanos’ power is overwhelming. His first battle versus the Hulk (which the first time we see him move more than the muscles on his face) serves as the conclusion to his buildup. For context, we’ve so far seen the Hulk destroy armies, gargantuan space monsters and generally cement himself as an unstoppable being of destruction. Thanos disposes of him like the Hulk was an amateur, quickly delivering a series of devastating blows before tossing him aside with the rest of the rubble. It’s a terrifying first impression and reminds the audience that Thanos is more powerful than anything we’ve ever seen. His first battle is a satisfying ending to a long buildup.

Darkseid

Darkseid is a god of the DC universe and the overlord of the hellscape planet of Apokolips. His goal is to rule all by conquering the universe and obtaining the anti-life equation, which just happens to be located on earth (what a coincidence!). Unfortunately, the buildup of Darkseid’s power is limited to only a few scenes because DC has fewer movies than Marvel. My favorite one of these scenes is Wonder Woman exploring the Temple of the Amazons. Inside, she finds cave painting depicting the battle between Earth’s forces and the forces of Apokolips. As she reads through the story, the camera slowly pans over to a portrait of Darkseid himself hovering over the anti-life equation, the rising ominous music showing him to be an ancient evil, a primordial myth that was to be feared by all. Furthermore, the power of Darkseid stems from the idea that he’s not just an exceptionally strong being, but a god. His minions are frequently shown kneeling and bowing in his presence, sometimes even whispering religious-like prayers. Even Steppenwolf, who was a formidable foe to DC’s heroes in Justice League, is reduced to his knees like a repentant sinner.

The biggest problem I had with Darkseid’s buildup was his first battle during his invasion of earth. The planet’s heroes band together and defeat him in a brutal fashion. The primary issue here is that it was not that difficult to defeat Darkseid. This is because among Earth’s forces was a group of Greek gods living on Earth who’s combined power was enough to quickly overwhelm him. In my opinion, this hugely decreases Darkseid’s authenticity as a threat. First, it should not just take a couple of hits to defeat him because he’s one of the most powerful beings in the universe. Other DC media like animated shows show Darkseid’s real power. No one except Superman (who is essentially almost infinite in his strength) stands a chance against him, and even Superman is handily defeated a large portion of the time. If this random group of characters is able to easily take him down, why do our heroes- who are well-established in their power - have anything to fear? Second, Darkseid is not only beaten, but he’s badly wounded and falls unconscious as well. It is one thing to show a god defeated, but to show him bleeding out like a commoner is criminal. As a forgotten Marvel villain once put it, "If you could make God bleed, people would cease to believe in Him”. Darkseid being bloodily overpowered in this scene makes him look weak. In contrast, during Infinity War, the Avengers’ ambush of Thanos only manages to let out a single drop of blood. Thanos’ scene succeeded while this scene failed because the single drop of blood reveals his weakness, while preserving his image as a terrifying opponent.

So which villain had the better buildup? While Darkseid’s cameo scenes certainly succeeded in portraying an intimidating villain of ancient origin, some of it felt squandered by his first battle in which he was easily defeated. Thanos’ cameos are adequate in the development of his reputation and the quantity of them are enough the make up for any lack of hype. The choice part of his buildup was his stunning first battle, which sent a powerful message and was the deciding factor in why his build-up was superior to Darkseid’s