THANOS….The most powerful villain in the Marvel Universe who snapped and wiped half of the planet (including some superheroes) was once defeated mercilessly and in a very embarrassing way. A version of Thanos was almost killed by a jungle hero Ka-Zar who knocked him into a volcano and defeated him (brutally). Thanos was in no way as strong as Ka-Zar who’s a powerless superhero in the Marvel Universe.
The Background Story
In Ka-Zar, Thanos goes off to fight the protector of the savage land, where the 2 of them bickered over bubbling volcanos. The Mad Titan, ‘Thanos’ was very certain that he’s going to win the battle, but towards the end, he was kicked into the volcano and ends up losing the battle and even getting killed. Ka–Zar might not be a very common name for people from the “non-comic” books background, but he has been a constant name in Marvel Comics for over 50 years now.
Invented by ‘Stan Lee’ and ‘Jack Kirby’, he was 1st seen in “X – Men” (basically being the ‘Tarzan’ of the Marvel Universe). He lives in ‘Savage Land’, a part of Antarctica where even dinosaurs still exist. He boogied the X – Men in the earliest of adventures, but still makes cameos in the Marvel Comics.
How It Happened
In Ka – Zar, his brother Parnival ganged up with Thanos to use the ‘alien terraformer’, turning the Savage Land into a prehistoric land on New York. The plan worked and it converted into a beautiful jungle (literally). But Thanos being greedy doesn’t stop there; he also uses the same thing on Kree, Inhuman and Shi’ar planets and turns them into jungles. Ka – Zar and Thanos fought the inter planet battle across the entire universe, jumping from one planet to another and finally ending on Savage Land.
Thanos is all over Ka-Zar and looks like he’ll win, but just then Ka-Zar frees himself and ends up kicking Thanos in a volcano. However, this also doesn’t kill Thanos but he comes up naked from the lava. He’s furious and sets Savage Land on fire, which also enables ‘SHIELDS’ agents to detonate a bomb there. The blast returns everything to normal while Thanos is teleported away.
The story was later reckoned so that the version of Thanos which was defeated by Ka-Zar was portrayed as a clone of Thanos and not the originals version. ‘Jim Starlin’ made the changes so that Thanos looks unrivaled in the battle, therefore stories worth 5 years were changed. All this might have made it look like it was not the actual Thanos that was defeated by the defeat was very embarrassing.
A hero with “No Superhuman Abilities” defeated Thanos and saved the universe for good. Ka – Zar is probably the oddest choice for a battle with Thanos and who actually wins it. Therefore to save Thanos from the embarrassment and make him look undefeatable, the story was molded a little.
