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Remember that big purple-skinned guy that you saw at the end of Marvel's The Avengers movie? That was Thanos, one of the heavyweight bad guys in the Marvel Comics universe. He's Clubber Lang to Rocky Balboa for the Avengers, a despotic alien who hails from the Saturian moon Titan. In addition to wanting to subjugate the Earth, Thanos is also in love with the physical embodiment of Death.

Yeah, Thanos has got issues.

Now that Joss Whedon is confirmed to write and direct Avengers 2, and we've got James Gunn rewriting and directing the Guardians of the Galaxy movie, we might have more ammunition to support the theory that Thanos will play a much larger role in Marvel's Phase 2 movies.

Comic Book News is stating confidently that the creator of Thanos has confirmed that the big purple bad guy will be appearing in both The Avengers 2 and Guardians of the Galaxy. This word of mouth came from a CBN regular who heard it from the lips of Jim Starlin, the creator of the Thanos character. Starlin was attending the Montreal Comic-Con.

That's not all that the website has to support their exclusive. A couple of weeks ago the same site ran a different story which featured quotes from Starlin that Marvel's business affairs department was in some sort of secretive talks with him, and that required Starlin to remain tight-lipped about anything to do with Thanos.

There had been a new Thanos comic book mini-series scheduled to come out from Marvel in October, back when there had been some bad blood between Starlin and the publisher. Then suddenly this summer, the solicitations for the Thanos comic book were cancelled, no explanation given.

Another piece of circumstantial evidence was an enigmatic Facebook post that Jim Starlin made in early September after he revealed that Marvel and his side were talking positively about reaching a deal with Thanos: "Today was a very good day and that's all I can say."

If Marvel's lawyers (and by their ownership, Disney's) have been reaching out to Starlin to broker a deal that would satisfy the creator's grievance over the true ownership of the Thanos character, this would be a sign that creators of comic book heroes and villains are being given more credit for their creations. Several other creators of both Marvel and DC Comics characters have started lawsuits against the publishers. In many of these cases, the creators are demanding a share of the growing revenue that their characters have made for the companies. In Starlin's case there is evidence that he created Thanos outside of Marvel Comics first. That may give his case for ownership more legal ground to stand on than a work-for-hire contract most creators have signed.

Officially, neither Marvel nor anyone working on The Avengers 2 or Guardians of the Galaxy movies have mentioned who the villains will be.