From /Film.com “I wanted to get cosmic and did with ‘Thor’ and told him that we wanted it to be aliens, that a portal opens in New York and aliens poor out, because the cosmic cube opened a portal,” Feige told /Film. “Who they were, what they were, and how they interacted was all Joss and Joss is a huge fan of Thanos.” “He for me is the most powerful and fascinating Marvel villain,” Whedon told /Film. “He’s the great grand daddy of the badasses and he’s in love with death and I just think that’s so cute. For me, the greatest Avengers was ‘The Avengers’ annual that Jim Starlin did followed by ‘The Thing 2 in 1’ that contained the death of Adam Warlock. Those were some of the most important texts and I think underrated milestones in Marvel history and Thanos is all over that, so somebody had to be in control and had to be behind Loki’s work and I was like ‘It’s got to be Thanos.’ And they said ‘Okay’ and I’m like ‘Oh my God!’” So that is Thanos and not Kang the Conqueror, his hand is just bare because he doesn’t have the gauntlet on. There’s a reason for that: you can see the Infinity Gauntlet in the background in Thor.