Trump campaign video with Thanos shocks artist who created villain: 'How sick is that?'
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
You are now subscribed
Your newsletter sign-up was successful
Members of President Trump's re-election campaign either never saw Avengers: Endgame — or they did, and could only see similarities between Trump and Thanos, the genocidal villain who wanted to wipe out half of the universe's population.
On Tuesday, not long after House Democrats introduced two articles of impeachment against Trump, his campaign tweeted a video showing Trump's face superimposed over Thanos. "House Democrats can push their sham impeachment all they want," the caption reads. "President Trump's re-election is inevitable." This is a riff on Thanos' famous line from the movie, which he says right before he thinks he's about to kill a bunch of people with a snap of his finger.
In the Trump campaign's clip, after the snap several Democrats, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), disintegrate. In the actual movie, however — spoiler alert! — Iron Man was able to defeat Thanos by taking back the Infinity Stones he needed to go through with his plan. Thanos then turned to dust.
Article continues belowThe Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Comic book writer and artist Jim Starlin, who created Thanos in 1973, told The Hollywood Reporter that the tweet irked him. "After my initial feeling of being violated, seeing that pompous fool using my creation to stroke his infantile ego, it finally struck me that the leader of my country and the free world actually enjoys comparing himself to a mass murderer," he said. "How sick is that? These are sad and strange times we are going through. Fortunately, all things, even national nightmares, eventually come to an end."
Avengers: Endgame is the highest-grossing film of all time, and for the few who still haven't seen it — astronauts just back from the International Space Station, people who recently escaped doomsday cults, Trump campaign officials — it is now streaming on Disney+.
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
