Marvel Officially Confirms Thanos' Design For The Avengers' New Appearance

3 weeks ago 17

Published Feb 16, 2026, 12:45 PM EST

Felipe Rangel is a Superheroes Lead Writer and Reviewer at ScreenRant. He has been writing about movies and TV since 2021, with a focus on superhero projects. Felipe joined ScreenRant in 2022, working across different teams, covering everything from breaking news to features to reviews and more. Since the launch of the Superheroes vertical in 2023, he has focused his efforts on coming up with insightful analyses of Marvel and DC's projects.

Felipe is a writer who is an avid film and TV fan, with superhero movies and series being his biggest passion. He graduated from college in 2019, having studied Journalism. Before college, he spent a month studying at the Oxford English Centre. His superhero knowledge expands to the comics, with his undergraduate thesis being "Politics Reflected In American Comics."

Thanos appears in the Avengers' latest project, and the Mad Titan's design is not only perfect for the villain, but the fight he gets into is unique in Marvel adaptations. To this day, Josh Brolin's Thanos stands as the biggest villain in the Marvel Studios franchise. He was the main threat of two of the MCU's best movies, Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame.

After Thanos' death, the character has appeared multiple times in animation. Thanos' MCU TV show appearances and the fact that Brolin has teased the character's return keep the door open for him to appear in one of the MCU's upcoming Avengers movies. While that remains to be seen, a different version of Thanos is in Marvel's latest Avengers project outside the MCU, and it is exciting.

Marvel Has Revealed What New Avengers Special's Thanos Looks Like

Thanos appears in the underrated LEGO Marvel Avengers: Strange Tails. The animated 2-part Avengers special was released on Disney+ on November 14, 2025. It has emerged as a hidden gem on the streaming service, with many of Marvel's most beloved heroes, such as Captain America, Iron Man, the Hulk, Wolverine, Thor, and many more, showing up for an action-packed and hilarious adventure.

Thanos is not the main villain of LEGO Marvel Avengers: Strange Tails, a role that is reserved for Alia Shawkat's Meryet Karim, who uses a powerful artifact to brainwash the Avengers and fight Hawkeye and his new superhero team. That said, Thanos appears in a cameo role, voiced by James C. Mathis, who also plays a bigger part in the special as Black Panther.

Thanos' LEGO Marvel Avengers: Strange Tails design consists of his usual purple skin with gold, sleeveless armor, and the Infinity Gauntlet. However, the latter ends up with pieces of coal instead of the Infinity Stones in it, as none other than Santa Claus, who is a mutant in Marvel Comics, shows up at the lair where many Marvel villains are, takes them out, and fights Thanos.

How The New Avengers Special's Thanos Compares To Other Versions Of The Marvel Villain?

Given the popularity of Josh Brolin's live-action depiction of Thanos, that is the best version of the Marvel villain to compare to the Mad Titan's design in LEGO Marvel Avengers: Strange Tails. The closest version of Thanos in the MCU to that of the animated Avengers 2-part special is the one from Avengers: Endgame. Both characters mostly look the same.

The main difference rests in the lack of a helmet in the animated series and more black in the legs. Thanos' arms are more armored in Avengers: Endgame than in Infinity War, where the character was sleeveless. As such, the animated Avengers project's Thanos design ends up combining elements of the villain's two biggest live-action appearances thus far.