In the upcoming AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR, Thanos is more than your regular villain and is virtually the main character in a movie featuring dozens of heroes. The Mad Titan’s background in the comics is interesting, and the Russo brothers revealed in a recent interview how that history translates to the movie. In a nutshell, he’s big, mean and wants to wipe out virtually all life in the universe.

The duo was talking with Telegraph India when they were asked to talk a bit about Thanos (Josh Brolin) and his motivations and goals, other than unleashing alien hordes on the earth. Anthony Russo went on to talk about the villain’s jaded past and desire to rid the universe of half its living occupants. Does that include puppies?

Thanos is this virtually indestructible character who’s stronger than the Hulk, and has invincible skin. He’s from a planet called Titan. Many years prior to the film his planet was experiencing a cataclysmic shift. They were running out of resources, and they were overpopulated. Thanos made a recommendation that they exterminate half the population randomly in order to save the rest of the ­population. Of course, the Titans rejected his notion, branded him a mad man, exiled him, and the planet ended up dying. So he has taken it upon himself to go planet-by-planet throughout the universe and wipe out half of the population of each planet as a way to correct the planet and bring it back into balance. Once he hears about the stones, he realizes that if he can get hold of all of the Infinity Stones he can control the entire universe. With the snap of his fingers, he could correct the universe permanently by removing 50 percent of life from it. So, these are incredible stakes for our characters. If the Avengers were built for anything, it’s for stopping Thanos from completing his goal.

In the comics, Thanos’ prime motivation for gathering the Infinity Gems was to please the actual physical embodiment of death, Mistress Death. He does this by acquiring the gems and eliminating half of all life in the universe with a snap of his fingers (a tease of this happens in the footage above). This love of death angle doesn’t seem to be where the movie is being taken in favor of a more grounded, almost political approach.

Though the angle may seem a bit conventional for a superhero movie, what with the big bad wanting to kill everyone as his main motivation, Joe Russo said INFINITY WAR is “without question” Thanos’ movie, and that the movie will have some topical themes. The result will, hopefully, be a more complex villain who also happens to be super strong and can crush Cap’s skull.

AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR arrives April 27.