US President Donald Trump’s hardy campaign team have released a video portraying him as Thanos – the genocidal supervillain from the Marvel movies.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Infinity Saga was built around Thanos, the purple titan hellbent on halving all life across the universe, with his reign finally coming to an end in Avengers: Endgame.
So why on Earth would Trump’s PR people look to him for inspiration? Whether it’s an attempt at stirring up controversy for attention or simply trying to stay ‘hip’, it’s horrendous.
Check out the video below (warning: cringe-worthy content):
The clip shows Trump’s face superimposed onto the iconic villain, as he utters the now-iconic line: ‘I am… inevitable’, before snapping his fingers.
As he snaps, the video cuts to footage of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff and other Democrats who disintegrate into dust and fly away in the wind.
Tweeted by Trump War Room, the video was accompanied with the caption: ‘House Democrats can push their sham impeachment all they want. President Trump’s re-election is inevitable.’
This comes after the Democratic-controlled US House Judiciary Committee unveiled formal charges against Trump as part of impeachment proceedings, accusing him of abusing power and obstructing Congress.
There’s all sorts of things wrong with comparing the US President to a genocidal maniac, but let’s start with the villain’s creator, Jim Starlin – he’s not happy.
He told The Hollywood Reporter:
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.
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.
Obviously, people have flocked to call out the moronic PR stunt. One user wrote: ‘You’ve made Trump a supervillain and depicted him in the scene where his plan to kill everyone in the universe falls apart due to his arrogance and incompetence.’
I’ll just quickly run you through why the video is so stupid: firstly, Thanos is up there with the biggest, nastiest supervillains in all of cinema, therefore he’s not a sensible representation for Trump’s resistance to impeachment.
Secondly, he loses. The Avengers, after a stunning initial defeat, rise up and conquer his galaxy-altering cynicism. Will this be a theme for the next election?
Thirdly, in that very clip, the campaign team have used the moment Thanos tries to snap his fingers but can’t, due to Tony Stark taking the Infinity Stones to save the world (you can even hear the dull clink of the metal gauntlet).
For reference, here’s the real clip from Avengers: Endgame:
The irony is potent.
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After graduating from Glasgow Caledonian University with an NCTJ and BCTJ-accredited Multimedia Journalism degree, Cameron ventured into the world of print journalism at The National, while also working as a freelance film journalist on the side, becoming an accredited Rotten Tomatoes critic in the process. He’s now left his Scottish homelands and took up residence at UNILAD as a journalist.