Warning: SPOILERS for Justice League Odyssey #19
The Justice League have finally explained why Thanos was inevitably going to be defeated. The great villain of Marvel’s Infinity Saga, the MCU’s Thanos believed he was a hero. His insane goal was to rebalance the universe by erasing half of all life, believing he was serving the cause of life, averting a universal extinction event. But even DC’s villains know Thanos’ methodology left a lot to be desired.
Of course, superhero comics are full of villains with grand schemes, and many of them would consider themselves heroes. Right now, Dan Abnett’s excellent Justice League Odyssey has seen a group of Justice League members caught up between two rival cosmic forces. They’re battling against a restored Darkseid, and they’ve found themselves drawn into an uneasy alliance with a temporal manipulator named Epoch.
Justice League Odyssey #19 finally reveals the scale of Epoch’s ambitions. He believes he’s on the side of the angels, and is attempting to rewrite history in order to remove cosmic threats like Darkseid. “This is not some crude masterstroke, Justice League,” Epoch explains, unwittingly prompting comparisons with classic villains - including Marvel’s Thanos. “Not some cosmic despot resetting reality with a twitch of his nose. That always ends badly, for it displays merely great power without the merit of great finesse.”
Oddly enough, Epoch’s argument is an inversion of the one propounded by Vision in Captain America: Civil War. “Our very strength invites challenge,” he observed, explaining why the very existence of the Avengers would inevitably lead to their being opposed by an ever-increasing number of opponents. In exactly the same way, tyrannic madmen like Thanos and Darkseid demonstrate their power on a cosmic scale, but they lack finesse, and as a result they are ultimately defeated. Learning from their examples, Epoch intends to adjust history in such a way that he is never challenged.
It’s true Epoch refers to people who adjust reality “with a twich of [their] nose,” but he might as well make the comparison explicit by referring to a snap of the fingers. Ironically, in Avengers: Endgame Thanos himself came to believe the same; he intended to change reality and create a universe where the survivors of his judgment were unable to remember the terrible price they had paid to secure their safety. This would have demonstrated finesse as great as his power, because Thanos’ act would have been forgotten, and nobody would ever have attempted to put matters right.
Justice League Odyssey #19 is on sale now from DC Comics.
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