Infinity War Ignored The Best Way To Redeem Drax’s Lost Arc
Drax's original motivations have been pushed aside after his introduction in Guardians of the Galaxy, and while Avengers: Infinity War came close to fulfilling them, the opportunity was ultimately lost. Like the rest of the Guardians of the Galaxy, Drax the Destroyer is both a lethal warrior and a charming sweetheart. With only a pair of daggers and his sheer physical strength, Drax has played a key role in the defeat of villains like Ronan and Ego. However, he has yet to use his might to avenge his family.
The rage that drives Drax to fight comes from his quest for revenge. In fact, the crime that landed him a sentence and led him to meet the other Guardians was his vicious rampage after Ronan the Accuser killed his wife and daughter. Unfortunately, the Guardians' team effort to defeat Ronan meant that Drax couldn't exact revenge firsthand, and his limited role in the events of Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame meant that he couldn't get even with Thanos for ordering the attack on his people.
Drax could have gotten a taste of his desired revenge at one point in Avengers: Infinity War. More specifically, he could have killed Thanos (momentarily) during the scene where the Guardians of the Galaxy ambush Thanos on Knowhere. In the movie, Thanos uses the Reality Stone to trick Gamora into believing that she fatally stabbed him with the switchblade he gifted her when she was a child. By replacing Gamora with Drax, Drax could have received a fleeting yet satisfying payoff to his main motivation, which would double as a tragic reminder that killing Thanos with his own hands would have never changed the past. Additionally, this change would have honored the comic book storyline Annihilation, where Drax rips Thanos' heart out with his bare hands in a climactic act of revenge.
In the grand scheme of things, Iron Man was always the ideal person to kill Thanos in the MCU. The Mad Titan's illusion at Knowhere also epitomizes Thanos' manipulative relationship with Gamora, and it foreshadows her eventual death at her father's hands not long after. Still, Drax's thirst for revenge is a character trait that remains up in the air after the Infinity Saga concluded. If Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is truly the end of Drax's journey, it must make an effort to give him a very satisfactory conclusion. One surprise that could give Drax's character arc a twist is the return of his daughter Moondragon, who's revealed to have survived Thanos' attack in the comics.
Dave Bautista's performance as Drax is nothing short of great. But while Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn clearly understood how to put Bautista's skills to good use to make Drax a compelling character, the MCU as a whole has failed to bring the hero to his full potential. A small change in Avengers: Infinity War could have taken a step in the right direction to fix this. Now, it's up to Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 to give Drax the Destroyer some proper character development.