I know the popular theory on how Thanos knew Tony’s name is ~the soul stone~
… but I love the idea that Tony has been inside Thanos’s head for six years just like Thanos has been inside Tony’s head for six years. Given how much they’ve been pushing parallels, it honestly wouldn’t surprise me.
Imagine Thanos waking up from a nightmare. He’s covered in a cold sweat, pulling the bed sheets tight around his shoulders. He starts rocking back and forth–
“Stark is out there…” he whispers under his breath. His purple ass is shook. ‘Cause he knows there’s this guy out there who is gonna fuck his shit up one day.
Like the idea of this big, bad Titan fretting over this goober:
Saaaaame! I really don’t think it’s all the Soul Stone – he was warned about humans not being as weak as they presumed after the Battle of New York. I’m pretty sure he’d wanna know more about the guy that took down his army.
I wanna know if Thanos sent some scouts to get some information about the meddling fucker who blew up his Chitauri warship.
What if Thanos’s scout pulled up videos of Tony from the Internet? The ones where Tony doesn’t have his clothes on?
Thanos sits there, pouring over Tony’s sex tapes and other drunken exploits, and he’s like, “………….. this is it? this is the guy??”
What if like Tony also, he doesn’t know of his name? Only remembering this silhouette of gleaming gold and red armor that delivered tremendous destruction to his army. Much like Tony who was traumatized by space after that, Thanos is shook at the sight of full bodied armors like Tony’s. His fear build up, constructing this image of a fearsome opponent that await him on some supposedly backwater planet.
He knew of Tony’s presence but not his name. He knew somewhere on Earth, there would be this person who would be powerful enough to destroy his armada again but he can’t chicken out now.
While I like the concept of Thanos sending the scout and finding those hilarious tapes, I want to build up the parallel of him and Tony who are aware of each other’s presence but not their name until the very battle itself.
Thanos only know of Tony’s name using the Soul stone. They each finally know the name to put on the fear that had been gripping them for the past six years.
Yes exactly. I wonder if Thanos had these haunting images, maybe even nightmares, of this armored angel from Earth who ripped his entire fleet to shreds.
If Thanos worried that, one day, the red and gold man would come to stand in his way again.
Maybe that’s why Thanos reassured Tony with the line “When I’m done, half of humanity will still be alive.” Thanos knew Tony was Earth’s Best Defender. That Tony was protecting Earth to the best of his ability. And Thanos gave Tony that reassurance as a gift because Tony – this human, this small, little mortal – rattled him. Even drew blood from his near indestructible hide.
That’s why Thanos was going to use all four stones. To 100% make sure the threat Tony posed was gone for good. Heck, Thanos even seemed to hesitate sparing Tony’s life for the Time Stone. Maybe because it was hard to let the possibility stand this red and gold armored angel would come back with avengence.
… and letting Tony live is gonna bite Thanos in the ass.
You know what? Between The Avengers and Avengers: Infinity War, I’d love it if Thanos actually sent an Outrider to Earth to find out all it could about the man who had sent the missile that destroyed the Chitauri mothership.
In the Infinity comic event, Thanos had done something similar. He sent an Outrider to invade Black Bolt’s mind to find out where the Illuminati were hiding the infinity gems.
It’d make sense if Tony was having his mind repeatedly violated by an invisible, sentient creature every night: that could explain why the nightmares in Iron Man 3 were so vivid, so realistic, to the point Tony said he couldn’t sleep. It’d also feed into the idea above that Tony was inside Thanos’ head just as much as the other way round.
Thanos is an intergalactic despot. His army had razed worlds far more advanced than Earth. At the beginning of the Avengers, the Other says:
The Tesseract has awakened. It is on a little world, a human world. They would wield its power, but our ally knows its workings as they never will. He is ready to lead, and our force, our Chitauri, will follow. A world will be his. The universe, yours. And the humans, what can they do but burn?
From the outset, Thanos and Co assumed the fight would be over in a snap (excuse the pun). Then, the next time we see the Other, who was Thanos’ de facto mouthpiece in that film, he says this:
Other: The Chitauri grow restless.
Loki: Let them gird themselves. I will lead them in the glorious battle.
Other: Battle? Against the meagre might of Earth?
Even at this point, Thanos is confident that Earth will fall with little resistance and the Space stone would be his.
Finally, after the Chitauri are defeated, the Other says:
Humans. They are not the cowering wretches we were promised. They stand. They are unruly, and therefore cannot be ruled. To challenge them is to court death.
And we know Thanos leers at the camera in the end shot. But the Avengers film ended in a massive blow to Thanos because it took out his entire army. The same army that destroyed Gamora’s planet with little to no resistance. Since the Chitauri all died Phantom Menace style, I’d think they have a central hive mind, which was on the ship that the nuke destroyed.
Which is why we don’t hear from Thanos for six years. If he had a backup army, wouldn’t they have found a way to Earth before Infinity War? That makes me think Thanos and the Black Order had to regroup and rebuild the army – this time with the Outriders. They don’t have a hive mind and they’re created explicitly for one purpose alone – destruction. Proxima even says in Wakanda that they have blood to spare.
It’s also interesting to me that Thanos saves Earth for last in his gems quest. He goes to Xandar, which you’d think would be technologically more advanced, to retrieve the power stone, then tracks the Asgardians for the space stone, then he heads to Knowhere for the reality stone and Vormir for the soul stone. It just so happens that when he arrives on Titan, he finds the time stone waiting for him. At any point after acquiring the power and space stone, Thanos could’ve gone to Earth. But he didn’t. He sent the Black Order instead – even though he calls them his children, Thanos only ever cares for Gamora. So the Black Order is actually dispensible to him, hence are sent to retrieve the time and mind stone.
Thanos leaves Earth last because he knows (“cursed with knowledge”) that the planet is a formidable adversary, that there’s a man out there named Stark who single-handedly destroyed his entire army. (Because Thanos obviously wouldn’t know that Tony flew the nuke through the portal to first save Manhattan. The destruction of the Chitauri was an added bonus. He’d think it was Stark’s idea to come through the portal and take out the Chitauri.)
Thanos is a strategist. Thor even alludes to this in AoU when he says someone is playing an intricate game. So I’d assume he’d respect another good, albeit accidental, strategist and that’s why he says he respects Tony. Because in his eyes, Tony didn’t hesitate to indiscrimately kill the Chitauri to save his home. He spilled blood to save Earth, something Thanos couldn’t do for Titan.
I absolutely love the idea of Tony being Thanos’ boogeyman just like Thanos had been Tony’s.
Edit: As @starkravinghazelnuts pointed out, the Other tells Thanos at the end of Avengers that to challenge the humans is to court death. And what’s one of Tony’s nickname again? Yep, the Merchant of Death. Ajsksllsdkkdnsas.
clintbbarton 