I’ve written in the past that Marvel has a villain problem. While there have been exceptions—namely Loki and Zemo—most Marvel villains are painfully underdeveloped and uninteresting, which leads to diminished stakes in the overall conflict.

That problem could reach its zenith with Thanos, a character who has been teased since the end credits of The Avengers but who has yet to leave an impression. He unintentionally came off as a buffoon in Guardians of the Galaxy and his minor post-credits appearance in Avengers: Age of Ultron left a lot to be desired. With only three films left before Avengers: Infinity War, we’re left to wonder how exactly Marvel plans to make Thanos a villain worthy of the biggest crossover in the MCU to date.

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Image via Marvel Studios

On the set of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige said that the big bad of the MCU will finally get his due in Infinity War:

Thanos in Infinity War is – in a movie that has a lot of characters, you could almost go so far as to say he is the main character, and that’s a bit of a departure from what we’ve done before, but that was appropriate for a movie called Infinity War.

That’s a tall order when you consider that Infinity War is going to have a massive cast, and that they’re going to rest it on a character who, at least until this point, has been largely uninteresting and ineffective. On the one hand, it could be interesting to see an MCU story from the villain’s point of view. Presumably, Thanos has zero Infinity Stones (we’ve outlined where they currently are, and the only one unaccounted for is the Soul Stone), so perhaps the arc of the movie is Thanos obtaining each stone and running into various superheroes along the way.

What’s most important is that they develop Thanos into an interesting, compelling villain. They’ve got a great actor (Josh Brolin) in the role, so it’s up to the screenwriters to craft a villain worthy of this incredible buildup.

Filming on Avengers: Infinity War is underway in Atlanta. The film is set for release on May 4, 2018.

For more on Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2, peruse all of our set visit coverage in the links below. The film opens in theaters on May 5th.

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Image via Marvel
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Image via Marvel
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Image via Marvel
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Image via Marvel Studios