So this is why Thanos wants to vaporize half the universe in Avengers: Infinity War

There’s a reason Thanos is also known as the Mad Titan. That he will wipe out entire populations of planets in Avengers: Infinity War is inevitable, but there was only a vague idea of his motives floating around in some alien galaxy until now.

Warning: You are now entering spoiler territory.

You already know that purple face is synonymous with carnage in the comics. Thanos will gladly obliterate all traces of life in the known universe to impress the human embodiment of Death, who is basically a skeleton dressed up in human skin and sometimes an extravagant green dress. Love can be almost impossible to explain sometimes.

The hulking purple murder machine will be more — can you say ethical? — onscreen, at least according to Kevin Feige in a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly.

“He’s from a planet called Titan that’s no longer inhabited because of things that he thought he could help prevent, and he was not allowed to do that,” Feige revealed to EW. “What he feared most happened, and the planet and everybody on it basically went extinct. He vowed not to let that happen again. He thinks he sees the universe going down the tubes. He thinks he sees life expanding outward unchecked. That will bring ruin, he believes, to the universe and to that life.”

Thanos is not one to exercise any restraint whatsoever when it comes to vaporizing entire civilizations, so giving him something of a conscience in Infinity War is a step up from all those vacant planets the comic version of him leaves in his wake. At least in this case, he and his horde of genetically engineered Outriders are trying to get their claws on all the Infinity Stones to make the Infinity Gauntlet, which can bend time and space and twist the laws of physics in ways even Stephen Hawking couldn’t imagine. And, uh, save half the universe.

Not that you can easily overlook the bodies he leaves behind in the process. Which superheroes survive could depend on which half he spares, and Thanos can be impulsive.

“That’s either genius or horrific, depending on your point of view," Feige said, "and most of our point of views say it’s pretty horrific.”