‘Avengers: Endgame’: Why Wasn’t Drax’s Backstory a Bigger Plot Point?
In the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Drax (played by Dave Bautista) is a powerful character who is frankly kind of adorable. But his backstory is much darker than you’d expect. Yet even the part of his story that has been mentioned in the movies has been disregarded as his storyline progressed. Just how grim is Drax the Destroyer’s history, and why was it downplayed in Avengers: Endgame?
The sad story of Drax the Destroyer
In the MCU, Drax is loyal, strong, and not very bright. He brings a welcome note of comic relief at times, with his very literal understanding of what people say.
But according to Looper, Drax actually has a very dark story. In the Marvel comics, he was once an ordinary human. Then one day, Thanos came to earth and murdered him, his wife, and their daughter, simply because he thought they saw him.
That sounds like an end to a story, not a beginning, but Thanos’ father, Mentos, and Kronos worked together to bring him back from the dead. They gave him a new, super-strong body and turned him into a relentless murderer to hunt down Thanos and kill him. And then his life only got darker from there.
At first, Drax’s memories were wiped by Mentos, but later Thanos restored them. Remembering what he’d lost made his bloodlust personal, and he became obsessed with killing Thanos. No matter who stood in his way, Drax the Destroyer remained fixated on killing his prey.
What happened to his backstory?
None of this grim history sounds like it belongs to the strangely charming MCU character. Bautista doesn’t think Drax’s past should be disregarded, and he recently tweeted, “That whole Drax, Thanos history seemed to get swept under the rug. Always wondered why but every reason I could come up with makes me shake my fucking head.”
MCU fans took to Reddit to discuss Bautista’s tweet. And many felt like there was a solid explanation for why it was handled the way it was.
“There’s a reason why it was ‘swept to the side,’ one person pointed out. “It’s because by Endgame, there were trillions of people in the universe that now had the sane hatred as Drax did.”
“There were a lot of people with personal vendettas against Thanos,” another agreed. “There would be no time to explore them all.”
‘Avengers: Endgame’: How Dave Bautista feels about Drax
Bautista has made it clear that he believes that Drax’s backstory should have been explored more. He’s disappointed that Drax didn’t get to kill Thanos, and he believes that a better understanding of his motives would have shown that he deserved to do it.
According to ScreenRant, it was explained in Guardians of the Galaxy that Drax was seeking revenge after Thanos killed his family. But after that, the subject was basically ignored.
Despite the fact that Bautista is disappointed that Drax never got his revenge, he seems to understand that he was facing a lot of competition for the job.
“Of course Drax wanted to kill Thanos. Everybody wanted to kill Thanos,” he explained. “So yeah, a little disappointed, cause I kinda take that whole storyline very personal. But, I think every character wanted to get their hands on Thanos.”
It seems that even though the MCU version of Drax isn’t as relentless as the Marvel Comics version, Bautista has held onto just a little of that determination. He understands that Drax is just one of many characters who wanted to see Thanos dead, but he can’t completely let go of his wish that he could have been the one to do it.
