Lady Death: why does Marvel's Death prefer Deadpool to Thanos?

Lady Death, sometimes called simply Death, is one of the most powerful beings in Marvel history. When Aubrey Plaza brought her to life in Agatha All Along (2024), starring Kathryn Hahn, she looked set to become a major player in the MCU. In Marvel Comics she's a very big deal, so at the time I thought Marvel Studios probably had big plans for her. This is what you need to know about her.

She had never appeared in the MCU before, but she has been part of the Marvel Universe for decades and plays major roles in the comics. If Marvel Studios took influence from those stories, I felt we were in for a wild ride with her, especially with Aubrey Plaza in the role.

Lady Death's origin: a cosmic entity created by Jack Kirby and Joe Simon in 1940

Lady Death was created by Jack Kirby and Joe Simon. She first appeared all the way back in June of 1940, in issue 10 of Marvel Mystery Comics.

Within the comics, Death is a cosmic entity who was created with the Big Bang that began the seventh Cosmos timeline. She's often referred to as Eternity's twin, even though the two have several other siblings. It's also said that God, who made Earth-616, only created Death because it was a necessity for his world to be accepted following its creation.

The Realm of Death and the Infinity Well

For the most part, Death stayed in the Realm of Death. That realm is home to the Infinity Well, which gives her access to what amounts to infinite wisdom. Through it, Death can have any question answered by consulting the combined wisdom of all the world's deceased.

Despite being a cosmic entity who predates almost every character in the Marvel Universe, she's best known to most readers for two relationships: her arc with Thanos and her romance with Deadpool.

How Lady Death shaped Thanos from his school days on Titan

Death first appeared to Thanos as a young girl attending his school on Titan. She was fascinated by the young Thanos, and after a personal tragedy she saw her opportunity to influence his life. Thanos lost a friend, who was killed by a group of wild animals that lived underground. Afterward, Death led Thanos to the animals' nest and convinced him to slaughter them all.

From then on, Death and Thanos became very close. Thanos fell for her romantically, but she had no interest in reciprocating. As he grew older, his violent way of coping with his emotions became more and more vicious. It spread from wild animals to fellow Titanians, until he admitted to Death that he enjoyed killing and couldn't bring himself to stop.

Thanos tried several times to win her over, and she refused him again and again. Eventually he killed his own mother in an attempt to quench his thirst for murder completely. It didn't work, so he banished himself, hoping isolation would stop him from remaining a serial killer.

That abstinence didn't last long. After he murdered a pirate captain while defending himself, Thanos decided to embrace his love of killing. That eventually led Death to accept his advances and become his partner, but only on the condition that he proved he belonged to her. He did it by traveling from planet to planet and slaughtering thousands of innocents in a hopeless effort to impress her.

Why Death prefers Deadpool, and why Thanos cursed him with immortality

Thanos isn't the only character with a romantic interest in Death. Deadpool has had his own romantic run-ins with her, and Thanos got so angry about it that he cursed Deadpool with immortality so the two could never be together. The reason for that jealousy is that Death prefers Deadpool.

As Deadpool would say, Death, the personification of death and the Grim Reaper, is in love with him because she can't have his soul, since he isn't able to die. He loves her in return and tries to find ways to lose his healing ability so he can die and be with her, while Thanos, understanding that Death preferred Deadpool, cursed him so they couldn't be together.

The curse doesn't necessarily stop them from being together, though. Deadpool sees Death for what she is, the way she sees herself. He has been tortured over and over, has gone through so much pain, and has wanted more than anything to die and for it all to be over, but he can't. That's why he has always loved Death for what she is: "a really sweet release from pain and injury and sickness." He wants what she has, and not just to impress her. He loves her for what she is.

The two endings to Deadpool and Death's romance in the comics

Because of Thanos's curse, the only times Death and Deadpool can see each other are when Deadpool comes close to dying, and of course he always survives. In the comics, the story eventually comes to an end, and readers are given two endings to follow.

In one, Deadpool finally does die and becomes the king of Hell, at last able to be with Death. In the alternate ending, he's with Death but gains a lot of weight, and one day she leaves, saying she's going to have lunch with Thanos but that there's nothing to worry about. The rest is left to the imagination. Since the MCU was in its Multiverse Saga at the time, I would love to see Death, Deadpool and possibly Thanos interact with each other on screen.

Death's aliases, including Marlo Chandler, and the killers she has influenced

Thanos and Deadpool are the only living beings Death has ever revealed herself to, with one other exception: the god of a distant galaxy, who tried to impress her by wiping out all life in his entire galaxy.

Throughout the Marvel Universe, Death has influenced many characters to kill, usually while hiding her true identity under an alias, a common one being Marlo Chandler. Sometimes she has a cosmic reason for provoking murder, but she often does it out of boredom or curiosity. Even so, she's a necessity of the universe, because every universe that has life also needs death.

How powerful is Lady Death in Marvel Comics?

Death is one of the most ridiculously powerful beings in the entire Marvel Universe, which isn't surprising given that she's the personification of death itself. The Nova Corps have even declared her a universal and multiversal threat. That doesn't mean she's actively a threat to any universe. She exists only to carry out the functions her universe demands, which doesn't necessarily make her malicious or evil.

She has pushed the universe in certain directions before, the most obvious example being her relationship with Thanos and all the death that came from it. But Death herself has no intention of using her power to achieve any specific goals. Because she isn't alive, she also can't die. She's immortal, and if she were to die, the cosmic rules of the universe would have to change fundamentally, since the universe can't exist without death.

As the arbiter of death, Lady Death can also reverse earthly death and bring beings back to life. She rarely does this, because she doesn't care much about life as a concept. She technically has the power to manipulate time and space too, but rarely uses it, because it could upset the balance of the universe. Since she's an essential part of that universe, doing so could end up endangering her own existence.

The Sorcerer Supreme and the beings who have challenged Death

One interesting aspect of Death's powers that may end up playing a part in the MCU's version is that certain beings have been able to challenge her, most notably the Sorcerer Supreme. If someone is able to best Death, they can become immune to true death. That could be where the MCU was heading if it intended to keep Death around as a mainstay character.

Marvel has also left it intentionally vague whether the Death of Earth-616 is the same Death found in other universes. She can manifest herself in any form she pleases, so it's hard to determine whether her different visual representations are actually different beings.

What Agatha All Along suggested for Lady Death in the MCU

Lady Death is a fascinating character because on one hand she's one of the most powerful beings in Marvel's history, and on the other she's incredibly disconnected from the inner workings of the story. She has very little interest in getting involved in the lives of living creatures, and despite her incredible power, she's often dissuaded from using it because her actions could have unintended effects on the balance of the universe.

She obviously can't have her comics arc with Thanos in the MCU at this point. But based on how she was portrayed in Agatha All Along, it seemed she might take a more active role in the Multiverse Saga than she usually does in her comic stories. Death is one of the most powerful beings in Marvel history and a crucial part of the Marvel universe as a whole, and with such a rich history to draw on, I couldn't wait to see what Marvel Studios was cooking up.