8 years later, Marvel fans are once again arguing about how Thanos knew Tony Stark's name
A short exchange on Titan from Avengers: Infinity War keeps popping up in discussions eight years after the movie premiered.
As you probably remember, Thanos addresses the hero by his last name, Stark asks in surprise if his opponent actually knows him, and gets a cryptic reply that the curse of knowledge doesn't fall on just one man. The line is vague enough that every new generation of viewers ends up circling back to it.
An official answer has existed since 2018, though, and it turns out to be far simpler than any fan theory. In a commentary track for the film digital release, director Joe Russo explained that Thanos knows Stark from the Battle of New York as the man who wrecked his plan. That refers to the ending of the first Avengers movie, where Tony flew a nuke through a portal and destroyed the Chitauri mothership.
The chain of information can be traced through the films themselves without any guesswork. Loki worked for Thanos and got the scepter with the Mind Stone straight from his circle, regularly reporting back to a go-between known as the Other. A second source shows up in the same movie, when Hawkeye, under the scepter mind control, hands over intel on the team.
An alternative explanation points to the Soul Stone, which Thanos picked up shortly before the Titan scene. In the comics, that stone can read a person true nature, and in the film itself, Red Skull greets visitors on Vormir by naming their parents. There is also an alternate take of the scene where, instead of the line about the curse, Thanos says he knows the soul of the person he's talking to.
Simple observation works against that theory, though. After getting the Soul Stone, Thanos never calls anyone by name again, and the stone doesn't light up when he addresses Stark, even though the film clearly shows that effect when he searches for the real Strange among the duplicates.
The real point of the curse line has nothing to do with where Thanos got his information anyway. Both characters foresaw a disaster nobody around them believed in, and both made moral compromises trying to stop it.
Tony, after his vision in Avengers: Age of Ultron, built an AI that nearly wiped out the planet, while Thanos, after losing Titan, set out to cut the universe population in half.
Robert Downey Jr. returns to the franchise in a different role, playing Victor von Doom in Avengers: Doomsday, set to premiere on December 18, 2026.
