Why Thanos Took So Long To Attack

If you have not seen Infinity War then first, how have you not seen it? Are you a caveman? It is now also available to buy on DVD so there really is no excuse. I pre-ordered it and it arrived yesterday (the 3rd) and I've seen it twice already. This blog is an elaboration and extension of an article I read which theorises why Thanos waited the length of 18 films to attack (see article here). Here's where I'd normally do a spoiler warning for the following content but seriously if you haven't seen the film you need to sort out your priorities .....

The article basically said that the main threats to Thanos are Odin, Ego the Living Planet and The Ancient One and that Thanos had to wait until all three were no longer in the way. 

His first real threat to retrieving the Time Stone was The Ancient One. She died in Dr Strange. Her age was not revealed but we can only assume, as is the case for Odin and Ego the, that she was alive long before Thanos was born. This means that Thanos had the chance to know his enemies his whole life, hence knowing how hard they would be to defeat. The Ancient One drew power from the dark dimension. Although Thanos probably couldn't have been able to observe a different dimension like I believe Thanos does with Earth (which will be explained throughout this blog), his hatred toward The Ancient One may not have only been because she had the Time Stone (The Eye of Agamotto) but because he somehow knew she was using the dark dimension. Thanos could have considered this a huge threat if used against him. By not trying to retrieve the Time stone from her, Kaecilius killed her leaving the Time Stone more vulnerable in the hands of Dr Strange.

The second threat was Ego the Living Planet. He died in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.2. Ego was not an allie of  Thanos. As we are informed in Guardians 2, Ego was a celestial who was in the universe before it was possible to remember. Ego searched for the perfect mate to have a celestial child with so together they could take over the universe. Peter Quill, child of Meredith Quill and leader of the Guardians happened to be that baby. Ego searched the universe for Peter and mysteriously found him escaping from the Sovereign fleet. Was that luck, or a little interference from Thanos to set up the meeting? Now you may be thinking, if Thanos talked  to Ego he might as well've tried to kill him. First he would've taken that risk, if him interfering is true than he would've done it in a non face to face way, maybe he used the Black Order to do his bidding. But why would he want Ego to find the Guardians? There are two explanations to that. One is that he foresaw that Quill, with him being a half celestial, would see what evil thing Ego was planning to do and he would face him and defeat him, but the reason I believe was so that the Guardians would be led to the other side of the galaxy leaving Xandar and the Power Stone unguarded. Arranging their meeting was still a risky strategy as if Ego's plan had worked it would have stopped Thanos in his tracks. Maybe it was just luck for Thanos that Ego was defeated  but either way it meant one more threat was out of the way making his barbaric attack on the universe more likely but there was still one big threat that stood in his way.... Odin.




Odin died in Thor Ragnarok. In the run-up to his death he was under Loki's spell and Loki had previously worked with Thanos. In Avengers he sent Loki to invade New York with the Chitauri. He was only mentioned in this film. The Avengers didn't get to see him face-to-face. Loki failed, but after that Thanos could've easily killed him or invaded NY himself. I believe the reason he didn't kill him was because he noticed his mischievous manor and most of all, his connection and ability to get close to Odin. I believe he predicted that Loki would do something barbaric for the throne that would cost Odin his life.  With Thanos keeping Loki alive he was able to take Odin off his kill list which left the Space Stone (tesseract) easier to steal.

This still doesn't completely answer why he waited so long. Other than waiting for his biggest  enemies to be eliminated another factor was the element of surprise. I briefly mentioned this earlier, but all the stones get put into a more vulnerable state due to other villains during the 10 years of the MCU.  As mentioned already the Space Stone was no longer guarded by Odin, similarly the Time Stone by the Ancient One, the Power Stone was no longer guarded by the Guardians but also the Reality Stone went from the Aether to the untrustable collector in the Dark World. The Mind Stone arguably became less vulnerable because it went from the to being embedded in Vision's head. With the five of the Time Stones within reach all Thanos needed was the location of the last one - The Soul Stone. Once Thanos discovered that Gamora knew where it was, Thanos was in the perfect position to try to execute his attack. He knew Gamora better than anyone and if anyone was going to get the location from her it was going to be him. He had his window of opportunity and he had to take it. The Avengers were always going to be a threat but not interfering with them previously and not really making his presence known to them until Infinity War meant Thanos's entrance was unexpected, leaving the Avengers completely unprepared.

Thank you for reading my blog. It is not an original idea of mine but has been added onto by me. Hope you enjoyed it and was interested by it. If you have any comments then please leave them below. I hope to write more blogs on Infinity War now I have it on DVD. Anyway thanks again for reading and enjoy Marvel whilst it lasts!

Also why is there still not a Captain Marvel trailer????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!