Avengers: Endgame almost featured Thanos with a battle axe instead of his double-sided sword. The Mad Titan was the ultimate villain for Earth’s Mightiest Heroes and he went through some different looks throughout the years. When crafting Endgame and Infinity War, Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely had a lot of story that they wanted to cram into the movies, with much of it having to do with Thanos’ origin story. In the end, the Russo Brothers decided that there just wasn’t enough time to explore the villain.
With that being said, Thanos was very much the focal point of Infinity War, while he took the backseat in Avengers: Endgame. The very beginning of the movie sees Thor finally go for the head as he kills the current version of the Mad Titan. But, through the use of time travel, our heroes go back and face off against the past Thanos, who is more than ready to take them all on. However, he almost didn’t use the double-sided sword, as evidenced in some newly released concept art.
Marvel Studios artist Ian Joyner revealed a new image of Thanos in full battle armor while wielding a battle axe. It’s a striking look and would have been just as good on the big screen as the double-sided blade. However, it was more than likely taken out due to Thor’s Stormbreaker axe since it looks pretty similar. In the end, Thanos was able to nearly take down The God of Thunder and treat Captain America’s shield like it was a cheese wheel as he slowly took chunks out of it.
One of the best things about Avengers: Endgame has been the concept art and the original ideas that Marvel Studios had. Most of the Marvel Cinematic Universe projects all have pretty awesome concept art, thanks to an army of excellent artists that the studio has on hand. The studio has no problem sharing the art and for some projects, like Captain Marvel, it was the first official look at the movie. Seeing Carol Danvers take down some Skrulls while Nick Fury looks younger and has two eyes was all introduced through concept art at San Diego Comic-Con well before production started.
Avengers: Endgame and Spider-Man: Far From Home bring the Infinity Saga to a close. The MCU is getting ready to kick of Marvel Phase 4 and fans are going to have a lot of stuff to look forward to, including the Black Widow standalone movie and the Eternals, both of which hit theaters this year. While Thanos is dead, there is a chance we could see a younger version of the character in the Eternals movie at some point. That has not been confirmed and is only speculation at this point. While we wait to see if Thanos will show up again in the MCU, you can check out his battle axe below, thanks to Ian Joyner’s Twitter account.
More warrior #Thanos options for #avengersendgame A dream project for sure! @jsmarantz did his final awesome armor design and @ryan_meinerding_art designed his overall amazing look for #infinitywar . #mcu#marvelstudios#conceptart#comicbookmoviespic.twitter.com/H7t5RMRZdx
— Ian Joyner (@IanJoynerArt) January 9, 2020
