Here’s How Thanos Made Hulk His Pet

Thanos is by far the most iconic Marvel villain, and over the long years of the character’s existence, many stories have been written about his exploits and conquests. One of the most interesting is the 2018 ‘Thanos Wins’ storyline that covers what happened in reality, where Thanos managed to collect all Infinity Stones and practically smother all existence to please Death. In this shocking story, Thanos dealt with the Avengers in quite cruel but inventive ways, and Hulk, despite being extremely powerful, failed to escape the Mad Titans’ grasp. Let’s see how Thanos managed to turn Hulk into his pet.

Thanos turned Hulk into his pet during the ‘Thanos Wins’ storyline. Following the battle against the Avengers, all of Hulk’s former teammates were either dead or captured. Hulk was met with the same fate as Thanos captured him beneath his own palace, turned him into a servant, and referred to him as a dog. At one point, Thanos fed Captain America to Hulk. When the Fallen One attacked Thanos’ palace with his Annihilation Wave, Hulk seemingly returned to his human form before he was stabbed by Thanos in the back and ultimately killed. 

Now that we’ve covered how Hulk became Thanos’ pet, it’s time to explore it in more detail. If you’re interested in more, stay with us and keep reading!

In ‘Thanos Wins’ Thanos dealt killed all Avengers

We’re all familiar with the concept of ‘What If…?’ storylines that show us alternate timelines of certain events. One such storyline was ‘Thanos Wins’ created by Donny Cates, Geoff Shaw, Antonio Fabela, and Clayton Cowles. To give you a bit of a background, during ‘Thanos Wins,’ Thanos managed to get his hands on all Infinity Stones to annihilate all life in the Universe and please Death. 

This led to a bloody battle on Earth that resulted in the demise of most Avengers. The battle was described from the perspective of Frank Castle, who will be transformed into a Ghost Rider, and the Herald of Galactus in the turn of events.

Castle describes that the battle was bloody, as Thanos went as far as to rip Iron Man in half. Thanos can also be seen killing Spider-Man and Dr. Strange, and inevitably the rest of the Avengers. But what happened to Hulk? Well, as it turns out, Hulk was kept alive either because Thanos had difficulty killing him or the fact that one of the most powerful superheroes was now his “pet” amused him to no end. 

Hulk was kept in Thanos’ palace made out of Celestial bones

Now, Cosmic Ghost Rider (Frank Castle) plays a huge part in this story, and before we explain how exactly “Pet Hulk” was discovered, we need to explain the backstory a little bit. We’re now talking about an alternative version of Thanos, Old King Thanos from Earth-TRN666. 

Old King Thanos gave a fragment of the Time Stone to Cosmic Ghost Rider to bring the younger version of Thanos to this timeline. Despite killing virtually everything in his path, Death still refused to be with Thanos, and there’s a simple explanation for why.

Old King Thanos was still alive, and he realized that the only person worthy of killing him was himself, aka the younger version of Thanos. 

Cosmic Ghost Rider traveled back in the past to retrieve the younger version of Thanos and bring him to Old King Thanos, that is, to his palace. 

At first, Old King Thanos tells younger Thanos that he needs his help defeating the Annihilation Wave, the last remnant of the opposition to Thanos’ rule led by the Fallen One, a Mjolnir-worthy version of Ghost Rider. 

Giving him the tour of the palace, Cosmic Ghost Rider asks younger Thanos whether he wants to “feed the dog” with him and leads him to a pit where Hulk is kept as a pet and servant of Thanos. 

Hulk has gone insane by the billions of years of torture and isolation. He can be seen sporting a grey beard and looks like a much, much older version of the Hulk.

Even though Hulk appears as a mindless beast, his condition worsened by Thanos’ captivity, he still recognizes the meaning behind the word “kill” and seems to remember the moment Steve Rogers, aka Captain America, was fed to him. 

Hulk was eventually killed by Thanos 

Hulk was enslaved for billions of years, waiting for either Universe to end or Thanos to kill him, and the former arrived first. When the Annihilation Wave hit Thanos’ palace, Thanos ordered Hulk to attack and kill everyone on sight.

The Fallen One was ready to battle the beast until he recognized his old friend. The Fallen One commanded the Hulk to remember and to revert to his old form, to transform into Bruce Banner, and he did. 

The Hulk remembered and became aware of everything that took place. He asked the Fallen One, his old friend, to kill him as the burden of the knowledge was too great, and nothing could erase the memories of Thanos’ cruel treatment and what he was forced to do. 

The Fallen One embraced Bruce Banner, who was now back in his human form, and promised to take care of Thanos quickly, however at that moment, both of them and pierced in the back by Old King Thanos, and the combined forces of Thanos and Cosmic Ghost Rider destroyed the Annihilation Wave. 

Hulk and the Fallen One were gone, but Old King Thanos was destroyed as well

After the confrontation with The Fallen One, Death appears. Thanos seems frustrated because it seems that Death requires one more thing. His own life. This is where Thanos figured out why his older version summoned him to the future. He summoned his younger self to kill him because no one was allowed to kill Thanos but Thanos.

The confrontation is quick, and Thanos easily overpowers his older self. In one crucial moment, however, Older Thanos begs younger Thanos to kill him. Thanos is seemingly disgusted. Kings don’t beg. Thanos doesn’t beg!

The display of weakness revolts younger Thanos, and he decides to punish the older version of himself by keeping him alive. He takes the Time Stone and returns to the past, where he decides that the future in which he is weak and begs for Death is too pathetic and can’t come to pass.

The current timeline, the current version of events, starts to fade around Old King Thanos and Death. The two stand in Thanos’ palace, aware that the future in which they are joined will never come to pass. Old Thanos realizes that younger Thanos has erased him from existence, and he asks Death one final answer to his question.

What did Thanos do to get rid of him? The Death answers, “He won”

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