Marvel vs DC · Cosmic
Darkseid vs Thanos
The most famous question in comics: the god of Apokolips against the Mad Titan with the Infinity Gauntlet.
Tale of the tape
| DC | Universe | Marvel |
|---|---|---|
| Cosmic | Tier | Cosmic |
| The Omega Effect: beams that track and erase | Strength | The Infinity Gauntlet and a strategist’s patience |
| Rarely fights himself | Weakness | Overconfidence once he holds absolute power |
| 4–4 | Record on Versus | 2–2 |
The Arena
For years, readers had argued about it in comic shops, online forums and playgrounds. Thanos was said to have been inspired by Darkseid; Darkseid was the older, colder, more patient god. On a dead moon between two multiverses, the argument was finally settled. Thanos arrived first, the Infinity Gauntlet glowing on his left hand.
Darkseid stepped out of a Boom Tube and looked at the Titan with contempt. “So you are the one they say resembles me.” Thanos smiled. “I have heard it said the other way around.” Darkseid’s eyes glowed red. “I seek the Anti-Life Equation, to rule all minds. You seek to impress Death.” Thanos’s smile faded. “You know nothing of what I seek.”
The six stones flared. The Omega Beams fired. The dead moon cracked in half.
Round One
The Omega Beams curved toward Thanos, and he used the Space Stone to step aside. They curved after him. He used the Time Stone to slow them, then the Power Stone to blast them apart. Darkseid fired again, a dozen beams at once, and Thanos was forced to defend, again and again, his stones flaring.
Then Thanos struck back. The Power Stone hit Darkseid with a blast that shattered half the moon, and Darkseid took it, staggered, and stood. His stony body was cracked, but he was still standing. Thanos frowned. Few beings in his universe could take that.
Darkseid wiped black blood from his mouth. “You rely on stones,” he said. “I rely on myself.”
The Turn
Darkseid spoke the Anti-Life Equation, the formula that breaks all will, and Thanos felt it reach into his mind: there is no hope, there is no point, kneel. For a moment, the Titan’s hand trembled. His shoulders sagged. Darkseid stepped forward, certain of victory.
Then the Mind Stone flared yellow on the gauntlet, and Thanos’s eyes cleared. The stone shielded his mind completely, and the Anti-Life Equation slid off it like rain off glass. “You seek control over all minds,” Thanos said, rising. “I hold the stone that rules them.”
He closed his hand around the Soul Stone and looked into Darkseid’s soul. He saw only darkness, and beneath it, a god who had never loved anything.
The Finish
Thanos used the Reality Stone, and the dead moon became a cage around Darkseid, every rock and grain of dust rewritten into unbreakable crystal. Darkseid fired the Omega Beams, and they erased the crystal, and more crystal grew in its place, faster than he could erase it. The Reality Stone rewrites. The Omega Effect erases. The gauntlet had five other stones behind it.
At last Darkseid stood encased up to the shoulders, the Omega Beams burning out against the endless crystal. Thanos floated before him. “You are a god,” Thanos said. “I respect that. But I hold the universe in my hand.”
He did not snap his fingers. He did not need to prove it. He sent Darkseid back through a Boom Tube to Apokolips and kept the moon as a monument. In comic shops across two multiverses, the argument continued anyway. Some questions, it turns out, are more fun when they are never truly settled.
The verdict
Thanos wins
Darkseid is the more powerful being on his own, but Thanos holds the Infinity Gauntlet: the Mind Stone blocks the Anti-Life Equation and the Reality Stone rebuilds faster than the Omega Effect can erase.
- Mind StoneIt shields Thanos from the Anti-Life Equation.
- Reality StoneIt rewrites faster than the Omega Effect erases.
- Six stonesThanos always has another answer.
How the rematch could go differently: Without the Infinity Gauntlet, Darkseid would very likely defeat Thanos.
Who do you think wins?
Who would win in a fight between Darkseid and Thanos?
Thanos wins. Darkseid is the more powerful being on his own, but Thanos holds the Infinity Gauntlet: the Mind Stone blocks the Anti-Life Equation and the Reality Stone rebuilds faster than the Omega Effect can erase.