The Source of Thanos’ Power: Marvel’s ‘God Quarry’ Explained

While Thanos‘ is already an imposing physical threats, one of his greatest strength is his unrelenting will to capture and harness the universe’s artifacts and places of power – making him one of the most powerful beings in Marvel Comics and one of the most unpredictable. And one of the Marvel Universe’s greatest sources of power is the Quarry of Creation, better known as the God Quarry.

Throughout Marvel Comics, the Mad Titan Thanos has come across a plethora of power sources, which he uses in an effort to eradicate life in general and to be deemed godly. One of the most well known sources of power that Thanos wields are the Infinity Stones – which he originally used to wipe out half of all life in the universe. But when the universe was in need of saving because his son Thane was seeking his father’s title as the most powerful being in the universe, Thanos sought another source of power known as the God Quarry to regain his former strength and end his son’s reign once and for all.

In Jeff Lemire, German Peralta, and Mike Deodato Jr.’s Thanos, “The God Quarry,” the Mad Titan joins forces with his brother Eros, daughter Nebula, and Tryco Slatterus (who is one of the Elders of the Universe) to stop Thane, the errant son of Thanos, and a being who is currently wielding the Phoenix Force, one of Marvel’s chief destructive powers. But the only way Thanos is going to be strong enough to defeat Thane is to obtain the hidden power inside of the God Quarry – a pit where all gods go when their time has come to die, and which is guarded by three witches known as the Coven. The reason the Coven guard the God Quarry is because they nourish themselves by devouring the dead gods’ souls. Understandably, they’re not eager to let anyone else draw from that power.

The Coven subject Thanos to a trial by illusion, in which he’s a member of the Avengers. After realizing the Coven are making him experience a life incompatible with his true goals, he murders the false Captain America, breaks free from his bonds within the God Quarry, and crawls out with the help of his brother Eros. But because Thanos and his brother have a history of hating one another, he uses his newly obtained power to shock Eros. As Eros begs for his life, Thanos tells him, “You are nothing to me,” and finishes him off by vaporizing him. After he kills his brother, the Coven ask him what he’s going to do with the power of the God Quarry, and his answer gets straight to the point. “I am going to whup that insolent pup.”

Thanos‘ response confirms the absolute power of the God Quarry – a power source derived from the lingering power of a million deities which only those with an iron will are fit to lead. When Thane later attempts to use the God Quarry to defeat his father, he quickly fails the test that his father passed with ease, and it’s then that readers realize the startling truth – the God Quarry doesn’t just derive its power from dead Gods, but from the thousands and thousands of super-powered tyrants who have tried to seize its power and been engulfed into it instead.

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